And look at the history of high-stakes testing and standardized testing in general. Whether the Stanford-Binet, the SAT, the early standardized high school tests, or the calls for increased rigor and application of public school tests.
If the race advocates and social equality advocates weren't in at the ground floor, they caught up by the second floor. Consistently.
The SAT wasn't there to expose racial bias. It wasn't there as a gateway to colleges that only the rich had an easy time with. The SAT was devised to identify poorer students who were college-ready and allow colleges a broader base of applicants.
Soon unequal schools became an issue? Testing would exposed and identify the inequality so it could be remediated. Then use tests to show when equality's been achieved. It would also show inadequate schools--most of which were assumed to be serving poor communities or minority communities. This was in the '70s. Long before the testing binge started. I took some of the first ones given in MD.
The downside was that once the tests were being used to push equality between students of different skin hues, they were pushed to expose inequality between students of different ability or achievement levels. And to show that the achievement level of a student cohort wasn't in accordance with where they were supposed to be, expected to be, or desired to be. They spread. This was in the '80s.
More and more rigor was introduced as "where the students were supposed to be" had to be raised. Instead of minimum skill sets, these became "desired skill sets". That was in the '90s.
And along the way it became not only profitable for a few wonkish companies, but for all kinds of ed-based companies to get into the game. Money flowed in that direction, and piranha's gathered for the feast. This was by the late '90s.
Then NCLB threw a lot of money in the water and the little toothy fishes went wild.
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