Sara Holbrook had two of her poems used on the Texas state assessment tests. She verifies what I thought as a student. The questions are ridiculous. The test makers seem to think that their interpretation of a work is the only interpretation, and that they can read the author's mind and know their intent.

"Texas paid Pearson $500 million bucks to administer the tests". Is that right? Was that for just one year? What else could we do with $500 million?

She mentions a study showing that the results of another standardized test could be predicted pretty well using just three data points about families in the community: the percentage with income over $200K; the percentage in poverty; the percentage with bachelor's degrees. So the standardized test tells you nothing that you can't guess by looking at local incomes and education levels.

What a scam.