PREFACE
Add conflict of interest to the plethora of questionable aspects of “standardized” testing. The clear conflict is based on the select few publishers’ control of both the textbooks and the tests. This power leads ultimately to yet one more (financial) injustice for poor school districts. Great, great work by Meredith Broussard in The Atlantic !
The recent article by Meredith Broussard in The Atlantic is clear and powerful on the concept of publishers of standardized tests being the very same developers and publishers of textbooks of “common core material”. Those “common core” texts are nearly required to do well on that same publisher’s standardized test. Sometimes the only correct answers are even written in that publisher’s very own words.
A separate (also clear) discussion of the related requirements to inventory/distribute/communicate about materials in large financially-starved urban districts is also quite enlightening. Enlightening and frustrating.
An unjust conflict of interest, nationally. Exemplified by Broussard for Philadelphia.
Broussard’s closing advice:
” Stop giving standardized tests that are inextricably tied to specific sets of books. At the very least, stop using test scores to evaluate teacher performance without providing the items each teacher needs to do his or her job. Most of all, avoid basing an entire education system on materials so costly that big urban districts can’t afford to buy them.”
LucidWitness.com 
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