Friends for Education Inc., the West Virginia group whose controversial report last fall challenged the accuracy of nationally normed achievement tests, has filed consumer-fraud complaints in all 50 states against four major commercial test publishers.
The complaints charge that the test makers--C.T.B./McGraw-Hill, the Psychological Corporation, the Riverside Publishing Company, and Science Research Associates--have violated consumer-protection laws by selling “deceptive’’ tests that allow most districts to claim that their students performed “above average.’' The vast majority of elementary-school students scored above national norms on the tests, the group’s report found. (See Education Week, Dec. 9, 1987.)
The group asks the states’ attorneys general to seek court orders requiring the testing firms to publish actual national averages, and to administer new tests--at their own expense--to determine where students rank.
