In Testing, the Infrastructure Is Buckling

By Thomas Toch

While most public school students enjoy the idle days of summer, the nation’s testing companies are working around the clock to help states get the results of millions of standardized state tests to parents before the start of the new school year, a deadline under the federal No Child Left Behind Act that many states may not make.

The tests are the linchpin of Washington’s efforts to promote higher standards in public education by cracking down on schools where students don’t measure up. But No Child Left Behind is overwhelming the nation’s testing infrastructure, and the result has been troubling: Instead of encouraging schools to raise the level of rigor in classrooms, the law is giving them powerful incentives to do just the opposite.

The testing system is beset by a host of problems: a shortage of the experts who ensure test quality, intense competition among testing companies that has led to below-cost bidding, underfunded state testing agencies, and the sheer scale of...