New standardized tests feature plugs for commercial products

[Tony_FLADEM]

Talk about corporate-based school reform. New high-stakes standardized tests aligned with the Common Core State Standards are featuring plugs for commercial products. And the companies didn’t have to pay a penny.

Yes, New York state students who this past week took Pearson-designed exams were just treated to plugs for LEGO, Mug Root Beer and more products from at least half a dozen companies, according to the New York Post.

One teacher who administered the test was quoted as saying:

I’ve been giving this test for eight years and have never seen the test drop trademarked names in passages — let alone note the trademark at the bottom of the page.

Students said the product plugs sometimes had nothing to do with the question, the Post said. Marco Salas, an eighth-grader at the Forest Hills middle school, was quoted as saying:

For the root beer, they show you a waitress cleaning a table and the root beer fell on the floor and she forgets to clean it up. Underneath, they gave you the definition that it is a soda and then the trademark.

The new Common Core-aligned tests were originally trumpeted as a major improvement over earlier exams in their ability to assess student learning, but they haven’t been the “game-changer” Education Secretary Arne Duncan had promised. Here’s why.

Pearson, the company that designs the tests for the New York State Education Department, says that the brand names in the tests they designed are “part of previously published passages due to choices made by authors.” Here the company’s statement about it:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/04/20/new-standardized-tests-feature-plugs-for-commercial-products/

[elleng]

1. Naturally.

[Smarmie Doofus]

2. Speaking of game-changing.....

... isn't it time for Sec. Duncan to go to work for Pearson or Gates or Murdoch or Walton?

I mean .... not that he HASN'T been working for them up 'til now.

[KT2000]

3. it's like a rock sinking in the ocean

we just keep sinking

[mrdmk]

4. Everyone needs to read the company's statement!

Here is why:

The answer is a classic circular response, another words, they have no answer.

Here is the expected outcome, young people will not develop critical thinking skills when class time is spent learning how to answer questions on a test. Period!

The truth is, what passes as an education department is not about education at all, but conditioning for group think. These people must think the general public are idiots, maybe useful idiots at best. We need leaders in an education department that are about learning and developing young minds. These people who want bragging rights relating to high test scores at the next international conference can take a long walk on a short ruler.

The state of New York and everyone else in this country needs to wake up...

[sulphurdunn]

5. Even worse,

every thing that comes from Pearson and its political mouthpieces is written or spoken in Double Speak, which is scary enough, but it's also incomprehensible to anyone who believes that language should convey meaning. The most revealing phrase corpobots throw around is "critical thinking." They never, ever use the phrase "creative thinking." The difference is profound. Critical thinkers solve encountered problems (a very useful skill) such as those that can be designed for standardized test. Creative thinkers ask questions that create new problems that cannot be reduced to questions on a standardized test, and that is a huge difference. It is the difference between the advance and the decline of a civilization.