Valerie Strauss posted an article about the lobbying activities of the giant testing corporations. They spend many millions of dollars to ensure that Congress and the states understand the importance of buying their services. It would be awful for them if any state decided to let teachers write their own tests and test what they taught.
The four corporations that dominate the U.S. standardized testing market spend millions of dollars lobbying state and federal officials — as well as sometimes hiring them — to persuade them to favor policies that include mandated student assessments, helping to fuel a nearly $2 billion annual testing business, a new analysis shows.
The analysis, done by the Center for Media and Democracy, a nonprofit liberal watchdog and advocacy agency based in Wisconsin that tracks corporate influence on public policy, says that four companies — Pearson Education, ETS (Educational Testing Service), Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and McGraw-Hill— collectively spent more than $20 million lobbying in states and on Capitol Hill from 2009 to 2014.
When I visited Texas a few years ago, I wondered why Texas paid nearly $500 million to Pearson for five years of testing, but New York paid only $32 million to Pearson for the same five years. I assumed it must be a testament to the high quality lobbyists that Pearson hired in Texas, starting with Sandy Kress, who was one of the architects of No Child Left Behind and very well connected to the state’s power structure.
I’ve been aware of this for years. My daughter worked for one of the mentioned corporations.
Reblogged this on stopcommoncorenys.
“You get what they pay to make you pay for.”
They consider that money an investment – an investment to make money, money, not children nor society, the bottom line. What folly.
That explains the ad nauseum testing; it is a gold mine for corporations. This link explains the Kress-Bush NCLB connection. http://www.projectcensored.org/12-bush-profiteers-collect-billions-from-no-child-left-behind/
There are many other ways to look at the problem posed in this article.
Public schools spend $2 Billion per year on buying standardized tests from testing corporations. There are about 49 million students in K-12 public schools. Test spending averages out to be about $40.00 per student per year. Average spending per student is about $12,000 per year as of 2012.
Another way of looking at it. We spend $594 Billion on public education (2012 numbers). $2 Billion for testing is about 0.34% of the total public spending on a per year basis.
Finally, if we do not spend it on buying tests and instead gave it to the teachers, how much more will they make? Assuming that half the cost of education is teacher salaries, they may make about 1% more per year. If this is done I have no idea of how many jobs will be lost in the so called “standardized testing industry”.
Finally, testing industry lobbies politicians. Teachers unions do the same. What is the break down? My question is “does that even the market place?”
The most interesting part of your argument is.
“Finally, if we do not spend it on buying tests and instead gave it to the teachers, how much more will they make? . . . If this is done I have no idea of how many jobs will be lost in the so called “standardized testing industry”.
Is your support, for the proliferation of charter schools and the continued use of a system of yearly standardized testing, in part, due to the fact that the new industries that have sprung up employ lots of people who will perhaps loose jobs if the testing were to stop?
I’m hearing it takes about 6 days to give the tests, so that’s 4%. The actual cost of the test seems almost inconsequential, given the cost in time to give it. If it was a 90 minute ELA test one day, and a 90 minute math test on another, that might be more financially reasonable. In the context of, Obama, Murray, and Alexander say that grade 3-8 testing is non-negotiable.
The time is MUCH longer where I am. It takes three weeks to get everyone through the testing in February and six weeks in April-May. We started last week and will finish the make-up testing June 1 (we get out of school on June 4). Each student takes at least 18 hours of state-required standardized testing per year, beginning in Third Grade, and that doesn’t count the extra time given to ELLs and special education, or the additional testing that ELLs also have to take. The writing test is open-ended on time, and it takes some of the kids seven hours JUST to finish the essay testing.
“Test spending averages out to be about $40.00 per student per year. Average spending per student is about $12,000 per year as of 2012.”
I see this argument again and again and no one measures costs like this.
The “cost” of testing is far, far higher than the sticker price on the booklet.
If I put my whole staff to a task for two weeks a year, I factor in the cost of that, because they are NOT doing something else.
What is the thinking? Because the staff and students were there anyway their time is “free”? No it’s not. No business in the world would measure costs like this, yet testing proponents do it constantly.
Measure the real cost and then tell us the benefits. It can be done. It’s done all the time outside of education.
Chiara.. I would venture to guess that it is a lot more than forty dollars per student to administer these tests! There is the testing coordinator position which is equivalent to a salaried teacher, there is the IT costs to acquire more computers and service the computers for the on line testing that most regions follow, there are the subs to cover for classroom teachers in non testing grades who are forced to proctor the tests, there is the incredible amounts of lost learning time and all the extra hours teachers put in just to get students caught up (after school, before school… there are just SO MANY COSTS linked to these useless and highly abusive tests (to both students who must take them and teachers who must administer them). Teachers forced to administer these tests should take their role as “mandated reporters” to Child Protective Services very seriously and report, report, report… If the purpose of these tests is to EVALUATE TEACHERS then students should be paid for their “employment”… oh wait… forgot there are child labor laws!! Clearly these tests are not for students. If they were for students the teachers would be able to see the questions and how each student answered the questions so as to be able to help them. What a national disgrace that this should continue. How many planes have to “land on the White House” lawn proclaiming the urgency of “campaign finance reform” before democracy is restored to our nation? One a day in order to force the press to keep this all important concept before the public??? Surely the newspapers are not representing the people when reporting. Until campaign finance reform is a front and center issue addressed as a wrecker of Democracy and reformed, our nation’s children will be subjected to the profitable whims of a very increasingly uber wealthy business class that buys our government.
Doing a napkin calculation,
$22 billion teacher time proctoring, training, administering tests
$22 billion school and classroom prep time
$3 billion administrator time towards testing
$1 billion PARCC test costs
$1 billion outlays for computers, data lines, infrastructure
——
$49 billion cost of annual testing
Note all but the last item are expenses affected by test frequency.
Assumptions:
$600 billion annual education spending
4 weeks teacher/administrator time required towards test delivery
4 weeks classroom time for test prep
36 week school year
5% of total education spending towards principles, assistants.
$24 price per student for tests
49 million students
1/3 total education spending towards teachers
If you think I am making this up, our school had most teachers administering 4-6 weeks of tests between the new state requirements, old state requirements, reading guarantee, non-PARCC tests, college prep tests. And 4 weeks of classroom time devoted to the test prep is likely conservative. Plus remember, these are “testing systems” suggesting an increase in test time in schools, translating to even higher costs.
As far as your other points, teachers unions and professional organizations lobby on educational issues. Yes, teacher pay is important if you don’t want to try to run a school system on volunteers. Test companies lobby to protect revenue and profit. Big difference.
Spend money on classrooms, not boardrooms.
Oh, and if there are 3.7 million teachers, that above testing cost works out to about $13,000 per teacher. Send me my check, anytime. I’ve got copies to make and supplies to buy for next year.
*principals
Goodness. I need about $10,000 worth of guided reading books in a leveled library. Can I have some of that money please?
My simple minded analysis assumed that we no longer buy any testing materials from these corporations and save $2 Billion a year. The teachers will still teach and will still be paid, but they will not administer the purchased tests thus leaving the districts $2 billion extra money to spend. The test prep time saved can then be used to teach.
If then they distributed $2 billion saved to the teachers, each will then get a ~1% raise. $2 billion saved distributed evenly to 3.7 million teachers comes out to be $541 per teacher. This is rather a simple minded analysis.
Do you agree?
For me, Raj, I do not need or want a raise. I need BOOKS! That’s all I want, and I have the titles already picked out.
I suppose other teachers have varied needs. Those were mine.
If that extra $500 something could go back into the classroom as per pupil standing directly spent on teaching the student and the student’s learning, then your simple minded analysis is sensible, it would seem.
In some cases, Raj, teacher raises are well deserved and long overdue. However, getting us out from under the testing juggernaut does not just free money up for teacher compensation. How about some infrastructure improvements? How about libraries and librarians, art and music? Field trips? After school programs? School nurses? Social workers and counselors? How about textbooks? Supplies? I am sure others could add more suggestions. I hate to say it, but I stopped expecting to be respected as a professional long ago. It would not matter how many degrees I collected or how skilled I showed myself to be in the classroom. I had it easy. Short days. Generous vacation time. Nice benefits. Let’s face it, people, teaching is a cushy job. (Snark alert.) Heck, I’m a taxpayer, too. Cut the testing and give me back my money! Public education costs too much anyway (and mine already got theirs).
$2 billion is far too low a figure. My quick calc shows that the hidden costs of testing are enormous. I did not even wade into the weeds with opportunity costs. The test materials or subscriptions will be annual costs. The test companies will want a steady revenue stream. If you are talking about non-teachers administering tests, that is more cost, as districts now want teachers performing double duty. I pulled the $1 billion tech costs out of my mathematical latus rectum and it could go higher. That is a difficult figure as IT people are still scrambling to figure out how to support a new testing infrastructure long term. Many schools are using pencil and paper.
Raj, I don’t want the money for my salary or benefits; I want the money to buy critically needed leveled libraries so that my children can read a new book per day. Rigby is an EXCELLENT publisher that has such resources, but they cost between $36 and $42 per set of 6 books. They are reusable for the next 15 years. I need about 50 different titles between levels 3 and 12.
Can you help me?
Please advise in all of your infinite wisdom and awareness.
Robert… This is all well and understood. But there are regions in the country where the teacher pay HAS BEEN TRULY and ABYSMALLY SO STAGNANT to the extent that factoring in cost of living… these teachers living in these areas desperately need a proper raise (and a pension fund that is stable). This is not being selfish. You cannot focus your attention on teaching if you have to rush off after school to waitress or drive a bus in order to pay bills while the school superintendent is surrounded by a rather bloated 6 figure staff that make arbitrary rulings and while much money is spent on useless tests. Students deserve a teacher who has had a good night’s sleep and has had proper planning time.
Art, you’re right in all respects.
Statistically, those low tax states that have demonized unionization and are right to work typically have this arrangement for their public school teachers. Just look at Florida. We need a resurgence and renaissance of unions in education and most other professions.
Those bluer states with education unions tend to show greater academic achievement than those without. I live in a high tax state. I’m not saying money grows on trees or that tax watchdogs should not be vigilante, but we get what we pay for. My governor is trying hard to turn New York into Mississippi.
No thanks . . .
Of course, far more funding should come from our federal tax dollars than from home owner taxes. We pay almost as much (combined all taxes) that Sweden does (we are about 9% less), but we get far less services, infrastructure, and social contract for our tax dollars compared to countries like Canada, France, and Finland, and THAT is disgraceful.
Teachers and everyone else deserve a piece of the pie, which is getting more and more reserved for the overclass. 90% of all newly created wealth goes to the top 1% of the country.
I want my guided reading books. Two years ago, I spent close to $3,000 of my own money (my wife nearly killed me) to buy critical instructional supplies for my teaching space.
I never said that the needs stated in your position are selfish; in fact, those needs are perfectly legitimate and I support them 150% . . . .
Wealth needs to be redistributed in the United States. It will not solve all problems, but it will solve many critical ones . . . .
I do understand always having to control the urge to want to buy more and more for the classroom. And clearly your comment is taken from a teacher with heart! When you need something, know you are not going to be given “that something” by the school and it will help your students… you want to get it! Spending 3k though is heroic! I know most teachers (myself included) spend well more than the minuscule 250 dollar deduction allowed at tax time!
I do feel that collectively teachers should not downplay the significance of a teachers’ right to earn a living comparable to the investment put into becoming a teacher. And given that teachers have always earned lower salaries despite the enormous investment in education… we have done so out of love for the profession and the knowledge that we would at least get a pension at the end of a long rewarding road! When the powers that be are so accustomed to teachers buying things for the class and using incredible amounts of personal time to get things done that they take this for granted (in fact organizing budgets based on this faulty expectation), this is most assuredly wrong. And if it enables more testing nonsense… its downright reprehensible!!!
I agree, Art.
I am not interested in giving the money to teachers, Raj. I would be more interested in updating technology, adding to the ever-increasing costs of special education spending, or helping to defray the costs of field trips.
I also find it interesting that you only included 2012 costs. CCSS and the tests that followed increased test spending by 50% to 100% per student.
You’re seriously comparing unions (which represent millions of people) to testing companies (which represent only their own interests)? Of course, your concern for the testing industry is touching. Not to mention telling.
Anyway, I don’t think I saw you at the NPE conference this weekend, Raj. Pity. You could have made a lot of friends.
Dang! I would have liked to meet you.
Would have liked to meet you too – I looked for you but couldn’t find anyone with a nametag that said “2old2teach”. 😉
I didn’t even have a name tag until the second day when they took someone else’s who had not come and wrote my name on the back. I will admit I am paranoid, but I have been too easy to squash in the past, and now it could hurt others. It would have been nice to have a place to sign in, so long time posters could find each other. That’s a thought for those who can make the next conference.
And I (whose name tag had my name) wish I had met both of you!
How interesting you single out teachers and “how much more will they make?” if monies are not spent buying tests. First, you fail to realize there are library purchases that have suffered, text book purchases that have suffered, librarians, counselors, truant staff, nurses, supplies, lunch staff, experts who offer special services, etc. I probably have not even scratched the surface.
Secondly, the fact that monies are diverted to testing companies with a mind to fire teachers, bust unions, open charters….is missing in your comment is mind blowing. Keep mixing and dispensing the kool aid.
Agreed.
Obviously whoever made that comment is not working in a public school or if they are, it is in a rich community where they have all that you mentioned in your post. Ours schools used to…
‘There are many other ways to look at the problem posed in this article.
We spend $594 Billion on public education (2012 numbers). $2 Billion for testing is about 0.34% of the total public spending on a per year basis.”
funny, I could have sworn the “problem posed by the article” was “lobbying by testing companies” (it’s even in the title, for goodness sakes)
Following quotes from “Report: Big education firms spend millions lobbying for pro-testing policies” (The Washington Post)
“The four corporations that dominate the U.S. standardized testing market spend millions of dollars lobbying state and federal officials — as well as sometimes hiring them — to persuade them to favor policies that include mandated student assessments, helping to fuel a nearly $2 billion annual testing business, a new analysis shows.”
…..
“Apart from $8 million spent lobbying from 2009 to 2014, Pearson also underwrote untold sums on luxury trips for school officials. A crackdown by the New York attorney general led to a $7.7 million settlement in 2013, and the shuttering of the “charitable” organization used for the scheme. The company is currently embroiled in a lawsuit in New Mexico for alleged bid rigging when landing an “unprecedented” $1 billion contract for K-12 testing with no other bidders, an allegation the company denied but which warrants greater scrutiny by policymakers.”
….
The new analysis also says that such lobbying has been lucrative for the companies, helping to fuel a testing industry that is worth nearly $2 billion a year.”
//end of quotes
I question the simple minded grade-school-division “analysis” that testing only amounts to 0.34% of total spending, but even if it did, that the spending on testing might only amount to a small fraction of the total public education spending certainly would not mean that one need not be concerned about the “value” one is getting for the testing dollars spent and about how the millions spent by testing companies on lobbying might be biasing the contract award process and thereby impacting that “value”
Each ‘line item” of education spending has to be considered on it’s own merits, not based on what fraction of the total it is. To believe otherwise is just silly. If one adopted the absurd “it’s only a small fraction of the total so doesn’t make much difference” attitude one would just end up throwing money down the drain — and all the different line items add up.
SomeDamPoet… you comment… “funny, I could have sworn the “problem posed by the article” was “lobbying by testing companies” (it’s even in the title, for goodness sakes)…”
it is all connected… think of it as eating food… is harvested, purchased, then nourishes the body with “remains” flushed down the bowl!
That lobby money translates into many a “shtty” thing deserving nothing less than being flushed down the bowl!
Artseagal
I completely agree that everything is connected, which is why focusing on the lobbying is so important. If schools buy junk because of Pearson’s wining and dining of school and /or government officials, then that money has been wasted — money that could have been put to better use, regardless of what fraction of the total that money happens to be.
Raj’s focus on “percent of the total” (with his ridiculously simplistic 2/594 division) is basic misdirection, as if to say that those who worry about spending on tests are making a “mountain” out of a molehill”.
Raj,
If the monolithic testing machine was beneficial to students, corporations wouldn’t need to pay millions for lobbyists.
Workers who belong to collectives, like unions, live and pay taxes in communities where their children are schooled. The word, disproportionate, describes the influence of CEO’s on communities in which they neither reside nor pay taxes.
You may choose to parse down to teacher pay but, the issue is the creation of a market for Microsoft/Pearson curriculum and destruction of a profession, which is rightfully valued in an advanced democratic society.
I like the way you laid out your response to Raj. Thank you.
Me 2.
I’m so tired of the canard that teachers unions lobby.
Yes, they do, but that money comes from hundreds of thousands of pockets across the entire nation, not from the bank accounts of a handful of billionaires.
Reblogged this on History Chick in AZ and commented:
Very concerning!
They must be out to lobby against the reauthuorization of ESEA because it significantly limits their bragging rights to sell their defective products?
Feed me Seymour. Self perpetuating monster.
The Care and Feeding of Terror-Reformers
“When I visited Texas a few years ago, I wondered why Texas paid nearly $500 million to Pearson for five years of testing, but New York paid only $32 million to Pearson for the same five years.”
I had an administrator tell me that NY bought the bottom end (least expensive) test development plan that Person offers. In retrospect, taking the cheap way out is proving very expensive. And given the CC standards and the bogus claims they came wrapped in, no sum of money could have produced a valid and reliable test that promised college and career readiness, state-of-the-art critical thinking skills, and paisley unicorns for every child in America.
If only they’d spend those millions on the schools directly.
Why should they. You are dead wrong, Sharon.
If they did that, they would end up educating children. And then what?
A nation full of intellects and critical thinkers? Not good for the ruling elite, save, perhaps, for their own offspring.
You’re right, of course, Robert. The oligarchy cannot and will not abide an educated populus.
“Rooting out Democracy”
Public education
Democracy in action
Demands eradication
By oligarchic faction
DIANE, PLEASE READ!
Please go to the Albany Times-Union at this site and check out Cuomo’s declaration that test scores are, in his words, “meaningless”:
http://blog.timesunion.com/capitol/archives/232746/cuomo-remember-teacher-evaluation-tests-dont-count-for-kids/
Thanks!
English Ed
What kind of legislation needs to been drawn up to provide checks and balances? The whole system has been corrupted. I hope the media sheds more light on this issue. It needs to be examined closely.
Here is a little humor on the topic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3jYNCuIc04
roxanne… hysterical video! Thanks for the share.
Particularly liked the 2nd multiple choice question.
Cross posted th original artilcle herehttp://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Report-Big-education-firm-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Corporations_Education-Costs_Influence_Media-150427-598.html#comment542888
and a link in my comment at the end, to what you said here.
It’s only fair to point out that the NEA, AFT and other teachers unions spend tens of millions (much more than the testing companies) lobbying Congress and state legislatures too. Feel free to object to the tests, but don’t act like lobbying is some indicator of malevolent intent. If it is, teachers unions must be very evil indeed.
Unions support teachers, who pay dues. No teachers, no education. Who is protected or supported by the lobbying of testing corporations?
“Pro Testo Representation”
The tests have no voice
They haven’t a friend
They haven’t a choice
Don’t mean to offend
The tests need protection
To shield them from harm
When parents protest them
And mean to disarm
I’m so tired of the canard (which has now appeared 2 times on this post) that teachers unions lobby.
Yes, they do, but that money comes from hundreds of thousands of pockets across the entire nation, not from the bank accounts of a handful of billionaires.
So, on your asaumtion, unions are evil if they are for teachers and public workers, but not evil if they are for corporations and banks throwing zillions of $$$ that do not go anywhere from executives’ pocket or politics? Typical hater logic.
For-profit testing corporations are to education what leaches are to a living animal.
wow, it’s no surprise that the four companies printing the tests are also the four biggest textbook publishing houses. they are inventing the benchmarks and providing the solutions, charging states billions on both sides with absolutely no feedback from teacher or students. the disparity in spending around lobbying is that Texas is the cornerstone in the market – whatever tests and textbook packages Texas chooses, other states follow suite.
“Burning the American Public”
They burn us on both ends
On textbooks and on tests
They coax official “friends”
To line their contract ne$t$
The real cost of these tests are the lost instructional time it takes to give them and the detrimental effects it is having on students’ school experience. Students have strongly negative feelings about school because the testing has sucked much of the fun and spontaneity of learning out of classes. I wonder how many people would quit their jobs if their employer required them to prove their worth on multiple choice tests as often as we require our students to take them. Standardized testing is the biggest scam ever leveled at public education. The tests prove nothing, are used inappropriately for things like teacher evaluations, they cost a fortune, and they make kids hate school. This is what politicians consider education “reform.”
So why not use RICO statutes on the testing industry? All the testing companies have conspired with one another and with law makers to push high stakes testing so they can profit. They have conspired with software makers and hardware makers to require that their tests be given on computers or other technology. These devices and software must be continually upgraded or updated, making this an on-going, rather than one time event.
Good enough for the Atlanta teachers, ¿qué no?
FLERP?
Christine…keep your fingers crossed. It just might happen in California since the former LAUSD Supt. is under investigation by both the FBI and the SEC for his purported finagling with Apple and Pearson. If they agree that he did participate in insider trading/bidding, it could well be judged as racketeering. Wonder if his overlord, Eli Broad, could even save him from the Feds?
I agree, Christine. ILL-Annoy signed a 4-year, $160 million NO BID (this seems to be very popular, here–look back at Diane’s post on the CPS/SUPES federal investigation)
contract with Pear$on. Also, our state superintendent was wined, dined & taken on trips. A former supt. wrote a letter to newspapers (not printed) & to the ILL-Annoy A.G. but, of course, nothing happened. I had heard this, too, had been the case w/Pear$on & the NYS supt., & the NY A.G. did look into it (but, apparently, nothing further was done).
I’m sorry–of course, in NYS, Pear$on paid $7.7 million, according to the Strauss article. Sorry for my error. (But nothing DID happen in ILL-Annoy…that figures…)
It’s late…have to go to bed!