But, she notes, it's the state or school district that has to mount a defense and bear the legal costs, not the publisher. Children from poor communities go to schools which don't have resources, and use less effective methods of instruction. Lots of test scores can be explained by the lack of books. Poor children also move more often. The implications of what's being measured are very deep.
Poor kids can learn just as well as higher income kids.
They're just not getting the resources they need to learn. Despite these questions, and growing opposition by parents and teachers, the test market looks good to publishers. Working to produce unique tests for a state can produce consulting fees for the publisher helping to develop the product, followed by sales of the test itself. Dreifler says that the states don't normally involve publishers in the writing of the standards themselves, but DiMarco says the connection is really tighter than that. Then they can issue a better request for bids.