Remember when the term Big
Oil was coined? It was actually popularized in print beginning in the
1960s. It encompasses the world’s five or six largest publicly owned oil and
gas companies: BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, etc. The term has become a pejorative,
linking the excesses and blunders of the oil giants to the negative effects
they have had, from political manipulation to environmental damage. When people
think Big Oil, they think of the Exxon
Valdez oil spill in Alaska in 1989 or the Deep Horizon (BP) oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. Effects
of both are still being felt.
Now we have Big Test.
I use this term in the same manner as Big Oil, to describe a conglomerate of
companies that, following the pattern of Big Oil, are in cahoots with politicians
and policy makers to shape a sphere of influence to their own ends, with little
regard to who gets hurt along the way. Big Test is doing the same
“environmental” damage in schools as Big Oil did along the shores of Alaska and
the Gulf Coast. People and institutions are being negatively affected as
testing companies are raking in unprecedented profits. Unlike Big Oil, however,
Big Test is not yet being held accountable for the damage they are doing.
Schools are suffering from a massive “test spill.” Students are being enslaved—and I use that term intentionally—by seemingly unrelenting
tests that deprive students of real learning time and rob schools of funds they
need that are, instead, now diverted into the deep corporate pockets of Big
Test. The message from the disasters promulgated by Big Oil should offer
cautionary tales for citizens, parents, and concerned educators. Big Test needs
to be called to account—before
further damage is done to children, schools, and the very future of our
democracy.
(As a side note: I use the term Big Test in a different manner from Nicholas Lemann, who wrote The Big Test: The Secret History of American
Meritocracy, which is about the SAT. Lemann’s book, written more than a
decade ago, is worth another look, however, in light of recent maneuverings by
the College Board. Readers may be interested in a recent New York Times article, “The Story Behind the SAT Overhaul,” in the
Sunday, March 6, 2014, issue. See http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/09/magazine/the-story-behind-the-sat-overhaul.html?_r=0)
