Schools Suffer - Corporations Win Big in Texas

Standardized tests cost $1.2 billion since 2000

Investigation from KXAN

Tests' price tag $90 million this year

It is testing time for Central Texas students required to pass the state's new standardized test to assess their academic readiness. And a battle over the entire testing system is brewing between the state, educators, parents and students.

Rising costs surrounding state exams has been one of the big talking points among testing critics.
"This has become a moneymaker," said Ken Zarifis, co-president of Education Austin.
You don't have to be a mathematician to figure out testing three million Texas students a year isn't cheap.
"The overall cost is a large number. There's no doubt about it," said Debbie Ratcliffe, a spokeswoman for the Texas Education Agency.
KXAN News has uncovered that the state is spending more than $89 million on testing for the State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness, or STAAR, this year alone. That amount has nearly doubled in the last 10 years.
Every penny goes to a company called Pearson, which develops the test questions, prints and distributes test booklets and scores the exams before sending them back to 8,000 schools.
The state's five-year contract with Pearson, which covers the 2010 through 2015 school years, totals just over $468 million.
Based on figures provided by TEA, Texas taxpayers by 2015 will have paid Pearson nearly $1.2 billion for developing standardized tests and related materials dating back to the year 2000.

Sandy Kress was an education adviser to George W. Bush during his time as Texas governor and later as president, and she was also a former adviser to Gov. Rick Perry. Kress helped develop the state testing accountability system passed by state lawmakers in the early 1990's.
"The question really is, do we want to know how our students are doing? Is it worth it to know? I think it is," said Kress. "What this new system the Legislature has put in place requires is that we know year to year -- mom, dad, the taxpayer -- know year to year whether the student is on the path to having that capacity to get a good job."
Kress told KXAN News he has worked for Pearson since 2002, which was prior to all of his state/national work on the accountability system.
When asked about how much he has been paid by Pearson, Kress said, “That’s between me and them.”