z42\doc\web\2000\06\illtest.txt May 20, 2000 Sorry I'm late on this one. 1. Chicago uses Riverside (Houghton Mifflin) for the Iowa Test of Basic Skills and TAP, which have been our Chicago high stakes tests since 1996. The contracts, which include scoring, now average around $2 million per year (since most of the testing work is done locally by teachers, guidance counselors, and central office people who gather the materials for scanning). 2. Chicago's CASE (Chicago Academic Standards Examinations) is home-grown, with a half million dollars or more of consulting fees going to UCLA's CRESST Center each year for some kind of work to compile the things. (Yes, friends. CRESST, whom many people here know and like...). The most recent CRESST contract was for around $600,000, and it's not the first. 3. The Illinois tests have been a mess for years, but it looks like the latest are being done by a small company in Urbana (not one of the Big Three or even a distant corporate cousin, from what I know). I haven't researched Illinois yet because the IGAP (Illinois Goals Assessment Program) collapsed in a cloud of cronyism and silliness; the ISAT (Illinois Standards Assessment Tests, current) still doesn't have high stakes attached; and the "Prairie State" (coming soon to a school near you, the all new improved!!!) is likely to totter, too, with any work. Chicago is in Illinois. Both Chicago and Illinois are uniquely qualified to serve as role models for the world on the real impetus behind state-controlled, expensive, high-stakes testing programs: political patronage. From the mopey teachers (who write "test items" for $3,000 instead of having to sweat their way through summer school in classrooms full of surly kids without air conditioning) through the testing companies and professorial consultants, everyone gets in on the deal (except, of course, the majority of taxpayers, the kids, and the majority of teachers and principals). Remember, the only governmental entity more corrupt than the City of Chicago (and the Chicago Board of Education) between the east and west coasts (New Orleans and Las Vegas may be kinda close, but I'll wait until the evidence is all in) is the State of Illinois. Illinois gave you (the rest of the NAFTA world) an Interstate Highway System filled with truck drivers who (a) passed the Illinois truckers' test, but (b) can't read too good and (c) can't drive too well. As the accidents involving them mount, the body count grows, from coast to coast. Several dozen people, here and in California, are dead because of our state truck driver testing program. But the guy who served as Secretary of State during all that is still our governor. How did you "pass" truck driver ed -- according to Illinois' high standards -- back when George Ryan was Secretary of State for Illinois? All you had to do was sign up at a the right (private) "driving school." The "school" then arranged for the envelope filled with the requisite amount of cash (no checks or money orders or fingerprints) to be given to the local testing station chief (or his designated subordinate). Later, you went through the line, had your picture taken, and got your shiny Illinois trucker license. The former Secretary of State to this day denies he knew anything about the whole operation. He recently hired a PR firm to sherpard him around the state spiffing up his image. Illinois and Chicago have a different kind of accountability in the real world from what we usually discuss here on ARN. In reference to #2 above, when we talk about the testing "monopolies" let's not leave out our professorial friends in the universities. They are doing well even without stock options in (recently declining shareholder value companies like) McGraw Hill, Harcourt or Houghton Mifflin. CRESST isn't the only one bellying up to the public trough for a piece of the Chicago action. Riverside would be nothing if the University of Iowa wasn't giving its annual imprimatur to the ITBS and TAP. And Paul Vallas would collapse into incoherent babbling were it not for the million dollar "research" being served up at his beck and call by Melissa Roderick (John Easton, Tony Bryk, and those grim faced kids from the "Consotrium) from the University of Chicago or G. Alfred (Fred) Hess (and his graduate moles) of Northwestern University. So we can't forget the professors and their contribution to the PR. The politicians like Rich Daley and Paul Vallas look kind of dumb talking about all this stuff if they aren't flanked by a couple of somber looking (or, in one local case, wild-eyed) professors. Their media handlers require it. That's the final touch to put all their mumbling run-ons, banalities, one-liners, and pseudo "facts" into complex sentences with lots of four- and five-syllable words that the average TV reporter doesn't understand. Hope this helps. George Schmidt -------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the ARN-L list, send command SIGNOFF ARN-L to LISTSERV@LISTS.CUA.EDU.