Pearson Makes Even More Errors With G&T Tests

Can there be a company more incompetent than Pearson?

Once again, a parent inquiry led to the detection of an error in Pearson’s scoring of the gifted and talented admissions test, the fourth in a string of embarrassments for both the testing company and the city’s Department of Education.

The D.O.E. announced Friday afternoon that an additional 82 students who did not previously qualify for G&T are now eligible for district programs, while 64 students now qualify for the more competitive citywide programs.

This latest scoring mistake comes after the announcement of errors last month, which affected the eligibility of thousands of children.

Walcott said if they don't get better, the city is going to terminate their contract.

Not good enough.

Their contract needs to be terminated.

Period.

And since Pearson developed the state tests that so many high stakes decisions are going to be based upon for next year - including student advancement, teacher employment and school closures - those tests need to be released to the public so that we can see just what is on them and how they were scored.

Even Christine Quinn knows there's a problem with Pearson:

At least one candidate for mayor jumped into the fray. City Council Speaker Christine Quinn sent out a statement calling for the termination of the city’s contract with Pearson.

“Students know that there are consequences when you make repeated mistakes and it’s time Pearson learns that same lesson,” the Democratic candidate said.

“The fact that Pearson has again failed to properly score the city’s gifted and talented tests and even more egregiously, lied about conducting quality assurance checks when correcting their first error, is totally unacceptable,” Quinn added. “Any confidence city families had in Pearson has been irreparably damaged, and I urge the New York State Department of Education to learn from DOE’s experience, vet every stage of Pearson’s scoring of the state exams and carefully reconsider whether Pearson should be trusted with future state testing.”

 I can't believe I am writing these words, but here goes:

Christine Quinn is absolutely right about this.

There can be no confidence in any exam developed by Pearson.

None.

Not after the Pineapple and the Hare and all the other mistakes last year, the first round of egregious errors on the G&T tests this year and now a second round after they assured the public and officials that they had conducted quality control after the first round of errors, assurances that turned out to be lies.