Lest you forget, the College Board is a “nonprofit” that is very concerned about its revenues and market share. It’s in a tough competition with the ACT, which is gaining in popularity.
As Mercedes shows, by reviewing its tax filings, the College Board pays handsome salaries. Its last president was paid some $1.7 million. The new president, David Coleman, is pulling down over $709,000. Not bad for a desk job pin handsome quarters.
More troubling,however, are the payments to organizations connected to the development of Common Core. It looks suspiciously like back-scratching among buddies.
The New York Times reported recently that both the SAT and ACT are moving swiftly into the market for graduation exams, offering their tests to states as substitutes for the unpopular Common Core tests. This is absolutely unethical. It violates the first rule of assessment, which is that a test should be used only for the purpose for which it was designed. The SAT and ACT are college admissions tests, that are supposed to be used in conjunction with other erasures of student readiness and ability. They were not designed to measure high school graduation readiness. They are not aligned to the curriculum. They are not appropriate for students who are not college bound.
Years ago, the leaders of this organization would have warned against misusing their tests. Now they are competing for market share and ethics be damned.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
” It’s in a tough competition with the ACT, which is gaining in popularity.”
It’s a tough ACT to follow.
“A tough ACT to follow”
A tough ACT to follow
But Coleman can do it
He got us to swallow
His Common Core suet
David Coleman is the guy that designed the Common Core. Of course he now wants college tests to test on it. That way, it makes his creation (Common Core) credible. The whole thing is rotten to the core. David Coleman needs to get out of education.
Mark, maybe you should call it the “Coleman Core”
If he got out of education, what would he do?
Set up a Colemanade stand?
Not sure how profitable that would be, cuz there would undoubtedly be picketers with signs that said
“Don’t drink the Colemanade” (a term coined by Diane)
Stop! Don’t drink the Colemanade!
The Coleman Core that Coleman made
What Coleman aided has culminated
In public schools calumniated
Rhetorical question here: Why is not the federal government, or the IRS, or some faction of the law investigating every non-profit and delving into their finances? TFA has historically scored billions of dollars, pays its staffers (excluding its scabs) incredibly well, and indeed, is somehow profiting. Aren’t all these non-profits making profits? Time for the crackdown to start, but of course it won’t because the feds are in cahoots, especially with incentivizing all this nonsense.
Donna,
There is no making sense of IRS rules; ALEC, which drafts model legislation to wipe out the public sector, is considered a nonprofit with charitable status.
There are new measures in the works for high school readiness and treated as if predictors of success in completing high school and being ready for college.
These metrics will be used in ten CORE Districts in California who are participating in a belated accountability waiver from USDE by creating a “School Quality Improvement Index.” Scholars at the John W. Gardner Center have conjured this metric.
” The high school readiness indicator measures the percentage of eighth graders who meet a set of criteria that estimate their readiness for the rigors of high school. A draft set of criteria include:
The percentage of students who, at the end of 8th grade have a GPA of 2.5 or better, AND 96% school attendance or better, AND no “Ds” or “Fs” in their final course grades in 8th grade, AND who were not suspended in 8th grade. Students included in the calculation are those who were continuously enrolled at the school in question, during the year in question.
Source: https://s3.amazonaws.com/uploads.hipchat.com/392387/2399075/u76JxhZfK16RLpD/Academic-Domain-High-SChool-Readiness-Rate-of-8th-Graders-updated-10.9.15.pdf
Notice that this calculation is part of a “School Quality Improvement Index” but it also puts downward pressure on schools well before the 8th grade so everyone “shapes up” for the 8th grade no-nonsense metrics.
I think that this metric will produce some grade inflation. It is also intolerant of the prospect that some students may have chronic condidtions that interfere with 96% or better attendance.
It’s as if they want to keep students from earning a high school diploma.
Why are they so set on increasing the failure rate? What kind of future do they foresee for these young adults? Perhaps an alternative to college for all the drop outs – an expensive training program where they, too, can accumulate life time student loan payments.
And using these tests as a graduation pathway costs money. Where is FAPE!!
“. . . and ethics be damned.”
What are those?