This confirms what Todd Farley wrote in his book about the testing industry, “Making the Grades,” and what Dan DiMaggio wrote in “The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Test Scorer”:
A reader in Austin sent this ad on Craig’s List:
Posted: 25 days ago
Seeking Talented And Qualified Individuals To Score Essays! (Austin, Texas)
compensation: $12.00
Use Your Degree To Make A Difference!
Pearson Wants You!
Pearson is the most comprehensive provider of educational assessment products, services, and solutions. We are looking for qualified college graduates to read and score student essays on a temporary basis at our Austin Scoring Center. Paid training will begin on April 7 for this 6 week scoring session. Successful employees may be asked to work additional projects.
Use your qualified college degree to make a difference! Day shift is 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., M-F. Evening Shift is 5:30 p.m to 10:00 p.m
Compensation may vary based on the project:
Hourly: $12.00/hour. Employees compensated a flat hourly rate for time worked on this project.
Requirements:
Bachelor degree required
Proof of degree and eligibility to work in the U.S. required (documentation required for an I-9)
Please apply at our website:
https://sites.google.com/a/pearson.com/regional-scoring/home
and click on APPLY HERE
Complete the short survey.
New Location:
3800 Quick Hill Road
Bldg 3 Suite 100
Austin, TX 78728
*Located in the La Frontera area (Round Rock, TX)
https://sites.google.com/a/pearson.com/regional-scoring/home
Pearson Educational Measurement is committed to hiring a diverse workforce. We are an Equal Opportunity Employer EOE/M/F/V/D and a member of eVerify.
Principals only. Recruiters, please don’t contact this job poster.
do NOT contact us with unsolicited services or offers
OK to highlight this job opening for persons with disabilities
post id: 4368426307 posted: 25 days ago updated: 25 days ago email to friend ♥ best of [?]
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Reblogged this on Transparent Christina.
I’m guessing these $12.00/hour college graduates will be given a simple rubric which has very little to do with creative , original writing. Does the student use transitions? That’s a 4. Does the student use synonyms? Another 4. Truly the only people that should be grading student writing samples are those with at least a teaching degree but optimally those with an English degree but getting professionals to take on the mind numbing task of reading paper after paper in an assembly line manner is unlikely.
Once they get the machine to do it they won’t have to pay that huge $12 an hour!
$12/hour? Seriously? For a college degree?
That’s what they want educators reduced to. How can they get rich if they pay people a living wage. It’s only teaching children. It’s not like business, that would be important.
So wait. A 22-year-old college grad with no childhood teaching experience could be the determining factor in whether a child gets into a gifted program or passes to the next grade level?
As well as determining if a teacher is effective and/or a school should be closed due to “failure.” Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain… What a joke.
“If I had to take any standardized test today that was important to my future and would be assessed by the scoring processes I have long been part of, I promise you I would protest; I would fight; I would sue; I would go on a hunger strike or march on Washington. I might even punch somone in the nose, but I would never allow that massive and ridiculous business to have any say in my future without battling it to the bitter, bitter end.”
Todd Farley, Making the Grades: My Misadventures in the Standardized Testing Industry, pg. 242
This is crazy way of giving a fair deal to any student. How can this happen? Everyone needs to understand how this is done.
The only thing that determines whether a student is promoted to the next grade, a teacher keeps or loses their job, whether a school stays open or closed, or whether an entire school district is deemed a success or failure is a horde of $12.00/hour part time employees????????????
Stand for persons, not Pearson.
Opt out of the abusive, invalid tests.
now thet i have finished a degee in chickin excrement management they will pay me 12 hour to grade essays thet poor little school kids write for four hours all the time crying and dropping tears on tha paper and smearing all tha bubbly little marks all ove the page making it specially hard to see and i have a vision problum thet sometimes gives me trouble when i read too much without having time to rest my eyes and have a snack.
I wonder what the perks are wit this job. Does they give me smoke breaks.
I gunna ply tumorrow.
ROFLMAO!
Sad because so true.
CEMA* requests that you please refrain from denigrating one of our most important industries by tying it to Pearson and standardized test grading. If you do not cease and desist we will have to cease and desist you (and the method is not pretty-think of what we deal with), Brownie!
*CEMA: Chicken Excrement Managers Association
Wow. $12/hour for highly qualified workers!
Sick.
They’ve been posting this same ad for a number of years (in newspapers–here, in Chicago, in the 2 dailies & then in all the suburban,affiliated papers), only for the past 2 it’s been in color! (So they’re spending REALLY big $$$$ on advertising!)
Guys, this has been going on for YEARS–before 2009–read Todd’s book (published in 2009). The advertisements state that those who do night shifts will make more $$.
Imagine–someone working a full-time job all day, then coming in to score student essays from 6-10 PM, with a short break somewhere in there. Yawn! How alert do you think these people are, especially as compared to trained, educated, experienced, professional teachers who grade papers at night after teaching all day–BUT are professionals, and actually have the knowledge to do this?
Of course, another reason why ALL of this testing (& the scores) mean absolutely NOTHING–NOT “standardized”–tests themselves neither valid nor reliable & the same for the scoring–HIGHLY INVALID & MOST UNRELIABLE.
And, of course Megan, you are correct about the rubric. Everyone of you who hasn’t yet, you must read Todd Farley’s 2009 book, “Making the Grades: My Misadventures in the Standardized Testing Industry.” Also, read Diane’s Dec. 27, 2012 post “Interview with Todd Farley.”
I much appreciate this posting and commenters drawing attention to Todd Farley’s MAKING THE GRADES (2009) and the article by Dan DiMagigo.
Let me add something that will put this in historical perspective.
One of the most effective distractions that proponents of high-stakes standardized testing offer is that they’re still improving and perfecting these eduproducts, they just need a teensy weensy bit more time to get them just right…
The designers, producers and sellers of standardized tests have been at it for a long long time.
Let me quote from Banesh Hoffman’s THE TYRANNY OF TESTING (1964 edition of the 1962 original, based on writings from years before, last chapter entitled “Don’t Be Pro-test—Protest” and last two pages, 216-217):
[start quote]
All methods of evaluating people have their defects—and grave defects they are. But let us not therefore allow one particular method to play the usurper. Let us not seek to replace informed judgment, with all its frailty, by some inexpensive statistical substitute. Let us keep open many diverse and non-competing channels towards recognition. For high ability is where we find it. It is individual and must be recognized for what it is, not rejected out of hand simply because it does not happen to conform to criteria established by statistical technicians. In seeking high ability, let us shun overdependence on tests that are blind to dedication and creativity, and biased against depth and subtlety. For that way lies testolatry.
[end quote]
Cut them some slack because they just need a littler more time to fix and correct and tweak and improve? About 45 years—yes, you read that right, 45!—after the second edition of Banesh Hoffman’s book appeared, we had the spectacle of The Pineapple and The Hare.
Not familiar with this ludicrous example of how to “scientifically” measure, well, whatever standardized tests are supposed to numerically quantify?
Please click on the links below. *Google “pineapple, hare, Daniel Pinkwater” for other links.*
Link: http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2012/04/20/daniel-pinkwater-on-pineapple-exam-nonsense-on-top-of-nonsense/
Link: http://www.pinkwater.com/the-story-behind-the-pineapple-and-the-hare/
They long ago ran out of time to prove they can finally, at long last, ‘get it right.’
Never forget: those mandating the hazing rituals known as high-stakes standardized tests for OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN (at the expense of time, effort, money and most importantly, genuine lifelong learning and teaching) spare their own “most precious assets” [Michelle Rhee’s infelicitous phrase] aka THEIR OWN CHILDREN almost all of it so as not to sacrifice precious time, effort and money at the expense of genuine learning and teaching.
Then, as now, those pushing eduproducts in the mad dog pursuit of $tudent $ucce$$ adhere strictly to their Marxist playbook:
“The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”
And yes, the famous one: Groucho.
😎
Test scorers becomes a seasonal job like picking apples, inventory for dept stores, construction workers, etc. The least they could do is open it to teachers who know what they’re doing and need to adjust for cost of living wages. Better yet, why don’t they just hire people to administer the test and relieve us of their dirty work.
How can Pearson have a google site that looks like a google site and isn’t even mapped to a Pearson address?
Sadly this reminds me of the Twilight Zone episode “The Obsolete Man” with Burgess Meredith.
“His occupation as a librarian is a crime punishable by death, as the State has eliminated books and literature. He is prosecuted by the Chancellor (Fritz Weaver), who announces in front of the assembled court that Wordsworth, in not being an asset to the State, shall be liquidated. As he is about to be executed along with the Chancellor, the Chancellor pleads for his life using almost the same arguments that the librarian has used against the State. The Chancellor escapes but is later declared obsolete by the State. He was obsolete. But so is the State, the entity he worshiped. Any state, any entity, any ideology that fails to recognize the worth, the dignity, the rights of man, that state is obsolete” – This is taken directly from the summary of the episode from Wikipedia. I firmly believe that this is what Gates, King, et. al. are trying to do to education in this country. It is no longer about people. We are worshiping technolgy and constantly feeding greed.
Funny, I fell asleep trying to watch this on Netflix after a day of NYS testing this week.
Orphan Black is a much better show!
What is even sadder than this “professional scorer” reality is that they, like professionally trained teachers, will be obsolete in the near future. Thanks to “text-embedded evidence,” robo-grading will lower the bar in student writing, trick the public that our kids are being asked to perform more rigorous tasks, and put even more low-level jobs for college grads out to pasture.
I wrote a review of Farley’s book on my blog:
http://whatsthebigideaschwartzy.blogspot.com/2013/10/battle-standardized-tests-to-bitter-end.html
And he wrote me. I asked him if he would opt his kids out of the tests. In part he said,
“What, when I want to hear how my children are doing in school, I’m going to ask for the input of a bunch of multi-national, for-profit corporations in a completely unregulated industry that has a history of errors? Ridiculous idea. Opt out? I won’t be opting out if the standardized testing companies try to get involved in my sons’ educations–I’ll be storming their corporate offices with pitchfork in hand……”
Read more here: http://whatsthebigideaschwartzy.blogspot.com/2013/10/opting-out-or-storming-their-corporate.html
Is there anyone out there who can write a detailed expose on robo-grading? It is our children’s next obstacle.
Danielle:
How about these?
http://www.measurementinc.com/news/mis-automated-essay-scoring-system-takes-first-prize-national-competition
http://stateimpact.npr.org/florida/2014/03/25/why-computer-scored-essays-could-eliminate-the-need-for-writing-tests/
I suspected this, having read an article once by a college student who took a similar job and was shocked that he was considered qualified. However, actually seeing the ad makes my stomach turn. You get what you pay for.
There needs to be a rotating group of activists standing outside of Pearson’s temp worker agency doing informational picketing. I understand that the people going to work for Pearson need a job, but they need to know more about how they are earning their meager wage and who Pearson is.
The people who work for Pearson or McGrawHill need this job because they are fulfilling the great American dream. Some are retired and can’t live on their social security. Some are working two, maybe three jobs and have families that they see on the weekends. Maybe they are on permanent disability and can only get a job that doesn’t require movement other than keystrokes. Some are twenty-somethings who have no other job prospects and choose this position on a degredation scale, with its score somewhere above Mcdonalds.
They are basically farm workers working on farms that use legal pesticides, only they don’t work on a ‘per unit’ commission. Is removing the farm workers going to solve the ecological ramifications or the legality of the toxins, in the first place? Is picketing at the field the most effective location to make a statement about these *legal* practices?
They are in economic survival mode and the likeliness that they are going to educate themselves about Pearson’s wall-street connections is just as unlikely as they are going to spend their meager wage on less food at the market for their family because it is organic, gmo free, ect.
I don’t see that the drones are the weakest link in this behemoth machine that by guilt-tripping them, we can topple it.
Whether we like it or not, there are lots of unsavory jobs that fill up the gaps in American society. We have to change the big picture, not plug up the leaky dam with tissue paper.
When we’re pushing for a national minimum wage of at least $10.10 per hour, $12 an hour for a bachelor’s degree is degrading. It’s clear what they think of teachers. They want us to be big automatons so we can make little ones for the corporations. Where is George Orwell when we need him?
As careless and irresponsible Pearson has been with our children and teachers, it surprises me that they did not outsource this job to Pakistan, India or Vietnam. They could make a ‘killin’ and not pay such high wages in the US. Given that the scoring is a ‘roll of the dice’ at best, why such ‘high standards’ suddenly? #snarky!!
They have outsourced their typesetting to low-wage countries. They and all the other educational publishers.
They and the other big educational publishers.
In NYC, teachers get about $44 in per session pay per our contract. Many teachers will begin scoring the ELA exam at this rate. So, the grand design begins to emerge. Privatize and crush the unions; then pay the former unionized workforce $12 = MORE MONEY FOR THE 1%! The next time I hear a politician talk about income inequality I’m going to barf.
Folks, $12 is actually high for readers. Some testing companies pay even less.
My SIL, a graduate of an Ivy League U, was a senior editor at McGraw Hill. Over the last 30 years she has been fired three times in downsizing/merger moves and each time re-hired at beginner’s wages. She tells me they outsource much of the work of text book writing her her particular field to low-wage Filipino workers.
If they could use prison labor or slaves, they would. No disrespect for the diligent, hard-working citizens of the Philippine Islands, but this cutting of corners/ penny-pinching/ and general doing things on the cheap is what is wrong with our entire educational system. We are experiencing a power grab by multi-nationals with no loyalty to our country, no interest whatsoever in education or the welfare of the citizenry, and no higher or other ideals than the bottom line and the next quarterly report.
Yes. And for many decades, officials in state education departments worked diligently and, typically, unknowingly to create just such a situation.
A few decades ago, we had many, many educational publishing houses in this country. But the state departments created such labyrinthine and costly adoption requirements, often requiring long lists of freebie ancillary materials, that only a few very large, well-heeled publishers could meet those requirements.
The adoptions became so expensive to compete in that the small companies folded or sold out.
A number of years ago, I did a literature program for one such small publisher. I meet with the language arts coordinators for all the counties in Florida. One said, in our open meeting, but _________ (one of the large publishers) is providing a free, full-time implementation specialist as part of the adoption. And other said, but __________ (another of the large publishers) is giving away a free basal grammar and composition book for every literature book that we purchase. I said to these people, “Keep doing that. Soon, there will be only two or three educational publishers left in this country. You will be able to choose between product A and product A prime. And those products will be pedestrian and indistinguishable.”
And so it goes. Education administrators at state and district levels go for the freebies and make insane demands that small publishers can’t meet.
And then they end up with three monopolist companies controlling the entire educational materials market and complain about the crap those companies produce.
And they don’t see that they helped to make that happen by not going with the little press, by not choosing quality over quantity, by not creating market conditions that encouraged competition from smaller competitors.
cx: I met
When a teacher evaluates a child’s work, it’s because the teacher understands the child and his or her progress from start point to completion. When a teacher evaluates a child’s work, the teacher understands whether or not the child has learned, grown, applied or moved into a new idea. What Pearson will never understand…this tentacled, multi-national beast….is that people who are not in the room can’t evaluate what real strides that child may have made.
A friend’s child began to write out his essay answer to a question on the SAT, and because the student questioned the PREMISE of the question, the student ran past time and didn’t complete the essay. And, because the Pearson evaluator didn’t know the child and couldn’t understand the brilliance of the thinking behind the response he did read, the student was graded down. Had the child’s teacher been the evaluator, a different grade would have been given because the teacher KNEW the student.
The tragedy of this $12 per hour offer is that our school systems are billed for these people and Pearson charges for everything it does. And, judging from what I’ve come to understand about their so-called business practices, need to be indicted for malfeasance rather than hiring college graduates at big box store salaries. Maybe they should include the name of the evaluator in the grade report, like many businesses include the inspector numbers on products.
Teachers should evaluate their own students because they’re trained to. They’re in the room, part of the learning process, concerned, connected and joyous of the effort the child made.
Diane, are these the people who are determining the high stakes decision of whether or not I get decertified or re-certified as they grade my ProTeach in Washington state, as required by OPSI?
I have been told my scorers have zero teaching experience, thus I am required to define every single academic language term within a limited number of character spaces.
Do $12 per hour non-professional teachers really get to determine the fate of my teaching career?
I had to pay ProTeach $495 to have my work scored. Who is making the profit? Not the scorer, clearly.
Susan DuFresne
Special Ed and Gen Ed Kindergarten Teacher
Co-Author, Teachers’ Letters to Bill Gates http://www.teachersletterstobillgates.com
This past week I got a letter from Pearson informing me that the MAT that I took three years ago to get into grad school had been scored incorrectly. They apologized, and lucky for me I had a higher score. But, what about the people who took the same test and were also scored lower and were not admitted into a program, or had to pay to take the test over again? Pearson’s tests and scores are riddled with errors that are having potentially life altering effects on more people than just our kids. They are a mega-monopoly that must be stopped from ruining people’s lives.
I noticed the application also mentioned scorers for NBCT’s. I certainly hope they are using teachers for that process considering the amount of work required of the candidate for National Board status.
$12.00 an hour…impossible!
If you think $12 an hour is impossible, how about $10.70 an hour?
http://wilmington.craigslist.org/edu/4371361178.html
Trying to supplement my income as a substitute teacher (looking for a permanent teaching job), I scored for Pearson a couple of years ago in Chicago. The most miserable six weeks of my life. For eight hours a day, we were housed in an old Hobby Lobby building, with asbestos hanging from the ceiling and broken floor tiles everywhere. Work equipment included folding banquet tables with laptops and task chairs without arms. No phones or personal items like purses anywhere near you; they had to be stored at a front table or left in the car. No phones or music players were allowed. No talking was allowed, either, unless by a supervisor. Essays were scored only according to the anchor paper examples, and those anchors usually changed daily. I would have gladly worked for the $12 flat rate per hour. We were given minimum wage and paid by the piece so that our “average” wage would never fall below $10 per hour. Told that income potential was “unlimited” at hiring, they then began throttling those who caught on quickly and were exceeding $10 per hour. You were allotted two warning for being too productive, then dismissed from the project. One certainly doesn’t need an education degree – or heck, a bachelors degree, for that matter – to do this type of work. If you can read the anchors and match up the student work to the anchor papers, you’re good to go. I try to forget about my time as a Pearson scorer, then I read articles like this one, and thank God I found permanent employment in the meantime.
Is the the same “money-making machine” company: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-singer/pearson-education-profits_b_2902642.html.
i agree whole heartedly with brownie and i’ve been a special education teacher for 29 years and I’ve never seen anything like this but then again I’ve always taught k-1 the 3rd grade test had 2 words in it that I didn’t even know that was in the first paragraph.