Pearson Losing its Hold in the Testing Game
The state of New York recently announced that it was replacing Pearson as its testing vendor and is going to go with Questar Assessment Inc, a smaller Minneapolis based company. Questar is receiving a $44 million, five-year contract. Pearson’s $32 million contract ends this December and was responsible for developing the Common Core-aligned tests that have been given to New York students for several years. Pearson’s tests have had repeated complaints about the validity and content of some of its questions.
Just a few months ago, Pearson lost its three-decade testing contract for the state of Texas. Educational Testing Service won the state’s new testing contract of a mere $280 million spanning the next four years. Pearson will keep a small portion of the testing business though, just $60 million compared to Pearson’s last contract with Texas for $468 million over the past five years. Living in Texas, I know many educators were glad to see that Pearson’s presence was lessened. A new test was developed that was supposed to be harder because the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) test was too easy and teachers were achieving high passing scores. The new test that replaced TAKS, the State of Texas of Assessment of Academic Readiness (STARR) is extremely difficult and is not without controversy over the questions and difficulty level.
In 2014, Pearson lost its contract to provide tests for public schools in Florida, and a new $220 million, six-year contract instead went to the AIR (formerly known as the American Institutes of Research).
