Plain Dealer reporter Patrick O’Donnell was given access to a Pearson test-grading facility in suburban central Ohio recently and filed a series of reports from inside its walls. The tone of the pieces is reminiscent of that M*A*S*H episode when the newsreel reporter interviews the frontline medical staff. It is painstaking work in a high-pressure environment, but it is important and must be done with diligence and a touch of humor. Like the sign in the office says:
First up, O’Donnell runs us through the basics of the operation. Most graders tackle one question only, scoring the same one for hundreds of students in a shift; “anchor” examples show the basic form the correct answer should take; and there is selective double-checking of live scorers’ work.
Then there is a look at who has been hired to do the scoring work for Pearson this year. Some 72 percent of all their test graders nationwide have some teaching experience. And yes, some of them were hired via Craigslist.
Finally, while O’Donnell has a reputation as a thorough reporter on his own, he decides to open up the floor to Plain Dealer readers to find out what questions they had about how the grading of PARCC tests works in practice. After some softballs about rest breaks and training levels, we arrive at the coup de grâce—the killer question that the inquirer was likely certain would break the back of the testing conglomerate and end the standardized testing madness in Ohio forever: “Do you think students are being scored fairly? Would you want your child to be scored this way?" You’ll have to read the story to find the answer.
