Pearson holds a five-year, $468 million contract through 2015 to provide the state assessments that students begin taking in third grade. While policies that led to the contract won unanimous approval four years ago, lawmakers looking to understand what brought the state to this point have settled on what they view as the excessive influence of the testing lobby in the policymaking process.
“Testing companies are in the business of making a profit, but let’s not confuse their mission — their mission is to create as many tests as they can and then grade them at as little cost as possible,” Senate Education Chairman Dan Patrick, R-Houston, said Tuesday at a hearing on a comprehensive education bill that would reduce the number of high-stakes tests students must take to graduate.
An ex-legislator points out the Pearson is only doing what previous legislatures allowed them to do:
If lawmakers are looking for answers, said former Rep. Scott Hochberg, a Houston Democrat who retired after the 2011 session, said that they should first look at themselves.
“As far as I know, Pearson doesn’t vote in the Legislature,” he said. “Pearson didn’t decide how many tests there would be. They didn’t decide how many tests had to be passed.”
Hochberg said the company was “a convenient target," but not an accurate one. “If they have too much power, it’s because they’ve been given that power,” he said.
Some attention is being paid to the influence opf at least one well connected lobbyist:
Asked about the backlash Pearson faced in the Legislature, Susan Aspey, vice president of media relations for Pearson, said in a statement that the company’s goal was “fair and accurate assessments that help educators and parents know that all children are learning.”.
Ratcliffe said she did not understand the complaint that the company had driven policymaking in the state. When the state develops a new assessment program, she said, the testing company provides technical consultants, but the education agency also accepts input from committees of teachers and policy experts from around the country.
Nonetheless, the ethics amendments in the House were aimed specifically at the activities of one Pearson lobbyist on those committees, Sandy Kress, a former adviser to President George W. Bush and Dallas Independent School District board member. Kress, who declined to comment for this article, was an architect of the federal No Child Left Behind law, which mandated standardized testing as a way to hold states accountable for students’ achievement.
He first served on an agency committee in 1996, Ratcliffe said, before his association with Pearson began. She said he had continued to because he brought the perspective of the business community, and experience in federal policy and as a former school board member
