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government-required, high-stakes state tests. We think it would be valuable
to assess the predictive value of these expensive examinations—not to men-
tion looking at their diagnostic value also. Testing is big business—one of
us lives in Texas where the state paid Pearson a total of $468 million for a
5-year contract
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and an estimated $1.2 billion for the period 2000–2015.
Supposedly, these examinations provide some kind of putative account-
ability, but we think a rethinking of high-stakes testing is long overdue. We
suggest tracking (with the permission of the trackees) a random sample of
former students to assess the benets ...