Educational Testing Service

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Educational Testing Service
Type 501(c)(3)
Founded 1947
Headquarters 660 Rosedale Rd,
Lawrenceville NJ 08648 Flag of the United States
Products TOEFL and TOEIC tests, GRE General and Subject Tests and Praxis Series assessments
Services Testing, assessments and research for educational use
Website ets.org
Welcome sign at entrance to ETS headquarters in Lawrence Township
Messick Hall, one of the many buildings at ETS headquarters
Lord Hall, another building at ETS headquarters
Behind Messick and Lord Halls is a lake with fountains in the middle of it

Educational Testing Service (or ETS), founded in 1947, located in Princeton, NJ, US, is the world's largest private educational testing and assessment nonprofit organization.

ETS develops various standardized tests primarily in the United States for K–12 and higher education, and it also administers international tests including the TOEFL(Test of English as a Foreign Language), TOEIC(Test of English for International Communication), GRE(Graduate Record Examination) General and Subject Tests, and The Praxis Series assessments — in more than 180 countries, and at over 9,000 locations worldwide. Many of the assessments it develops are associated with entry to US tertiary (undergraduate) and quaternary education (graduate) institutions, but it also develops K–12 statewide assessments used for accountability testing in many states, including California, Texas, Tennessee and Virginia. Via its five regional offices, ETS annually administers 20 million exams in the United States and in 180 other countries.

Contents

[edit] History

ETS is a US-registered 501(c)(3) non-profit organization created in 1947 by three nonprofit educational institutions and testing services: the American Council on Education, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, and The College Entrance Examination Board.[1] It was founded in 1947 to take over the operation of the Cooperative Test Service of the American Council of Education. Starting in 1937, this organization pioneered the use of mark sense technology and the IBM 805 Test Scoring Machine.[2] The international headquarters is located on an 376-acre (1.52 km2) campus outside of Princeton, New Jersey in Lawrence Township, Mercer County, New Jersey[3][4][5]; processing, shipping, customer service and test security is in nearby Ewing. ETS also has a major office in San Antonio, TX, which houses is K–12 Assessment Programs division. The ETS Assessment Training Institute (ATI), located in Portland, Oregon, provides materials and services to teach educators the proper use of assessments. ETS Europe is headquartered in Utrecht in the Netherlands.[6] ETS employs about 2,700 individuals,[7] including 240 with doctorates and an additional 350 others with "higher degrees." Work that ETS does that is not associated with its nonprofit educational research mission is conducted by for-profit subsidiaries, such as Prometric, which administers test by computer for licensing and certification in the professional world, and ETS Global BV, which contains much of the international operations of the company.

About 25% of the work carried out by ETS is contracted by the private, not for profit firm, the College Board. The most popular of the College Board's tests is the SAT, taken by more than 3 million students annually. ETS also develops and administers The College Board's Advanced Placement program, which is widely used in US high schools for advanced course credit.

In England and Wales ETS Europe was contracted to operate the National Curriculum assessments on behalf of the government. ETS took over this role from Edexcel in 2008. The first year of their operation was struck by a number of problems, including the late arrival of scripts to examiners, a database of student entries being unavailable,[8], and countrywide reports of problems with the marking of the papers. The opposition Conservative party has criticised the awarding of the contracts to ETS, and produced a dossier listing previous problems with ETS' service.[9] Their contract with the QCA was terminated in August 2008: ETS is to pay back £19.5m and cancel invoices worth £4.6m[10].

[edit] ETS criticism

ETS has been criticized for being a “highly competitive business operation that is as much multinational monopoly as nonprofit institution”. [11] Due to its legal status as a non-profit organization, ETS is exempt from paying federal corporate income tax on many, but not all, of its operations. Furthermore, it does not need to report financial information to the Securities and Exchange Commission. [12]

In response to growing criticism of its monopolistic power, New York state passed the Educational Testing Act, a disclosure law which required ETS to make available certain test questions and graded answer sheets to students. [13]

Problems administering England's national tests in 2008 by ETS Europe were the subject of thousands of complaints recorded by the Times Educational Supplement.[14] Their operations were also described as a "shambles" in the UK Parliament, where a financial penalty was called for.[15] Complaints included papers not being marked properly, or not being marked at all[16] and papers being sent to the wrong schools or lost completely.[17] It has even been suggested that the quality of service is so poor that the Department for Education and Skills may not be able to publish the 2008 league tables of school performance.[18] The UK government asked Lord Sutherland to conduct an inquiry into the failure of the 2008 tests. The report [19] included in its main findings:
• primary responsibility for this summer’s delivery failure rests with ETS Global BV, which won the public contract to deliver the tests;
• ETS’s capacity to deliver the contract proved to be insufficient. A lack of comprehensive planning and testing by ETS of its systems and processes was a key factor in the delivery failure;

The Better Business Bureau (BBB) gives ETS a grade of 'F'.[20] According to the BBB, the possible reasons for this are typically the number of complaints filed against business, the failure to respond to complaints filed against the business, or the number of complaints filed against business that were not resolved.

Americans for Educational Testing Reform (AETR) claims that ETS is violating its non-profit status through excessive profits, executive compensation, and governing board member pay (which the IRS specifically advises against[21]). AETR further claims that ETS is acting unethically by selling test preparation materials, directly lobbing legislators and government officials, and refusing to acknowledge test-taker rights. It also criticises ETS for forcing GRE test-takers to participate in research experiments during the actual exam.[22]

[edit] Tests administered by ETS

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ History of the Educational Testing Service
  2. ^ Elizabeth Rourke, Fredrick Ingram (1991). "Educational Testing Service". International Directory of Company Histories. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_gx5202/is_1991/ai_n19122000. 
  3. ^ Alan Stoskopf (Spring 2000). "Sat + Ets = $$$". Rethinking Schools 14 (3). http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/14_03/sat143.shtml. Retrieved on 2007-07-04. 
  4. ^ "Board: New SAT to produce better writers". CNN. 2002-06-28. http://archives.cnn.com/2002/fyi/teachers.ednews/06/28/sat.overhaul.ap/index.html. Retrieved on 2007-07-04. 
  5. ^ Randy Elliot Bennett (2005). "What Does It Mean to Be a Nonprofit Educational Measurement Organization in the 21st Century?" (PDF). ETS. http://www.ets.org/Media/Research/pdf/Nonprofit.pdf. Retrieved on 2007-07-04. 
  6. ^ "ISTE 100 Directory: Educational Testing Service". International Society for Technology in Education. http://www.iste.org/Template.cfm?Section=Educational_Testing_Service1&Template=/TaggedPage/TaggedPageDisplay.cfm&TPLID=27&ContentID=2547&CFID=300660&CFTOKEN=58512743. Retrieved on 2007-07-04. 
  7. ^ Jennifer Merritt (2004-04-26). "A Syllabus Way Beyond The SATs". Business Week. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_17/b3880102.htm. Retrieved on 2007-07-04. 
  8. ^ "Headteachers angry at Sats 'nightmare'". http://education.guardian.co.uk/sats/story/0,,2280299,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=8. 
  9. ^ "A history of exam failures". The Guardian. 19 July 2008. http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,2291802,00.html. 
  10. ^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7562835.stm
  11. ^ "Testing Giant Exceeds Roots, Drawing Business Rivals' Ire". New York Times. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30915FB3B5E0C738FDDA00894DF494D81&n=Top%2fReference%2fTimes%20Topics%2fOrganizations%2fE%2fEducational%20Testing%20Service. Retrieved on 2007-07-07. 
  12. ^ "Teacher Watch: ETS Monopoly Continues". HorseSense and Nonsense. http://andyhilbert.blogspot.com/2005/11/teacher-watch-ets-monopoly-continues.html. Retrieved on 2007-07-07. 
  13. ^ "Educational Testing Service - Hoover's profile". Answers.com. http://www.answers.com/topic/educational-testing-service-company-private-not-for-profit?cat=biz-fin. Retrieved on 2007-07-07. 
  14. ^ Warwick Mansell (04 July 2008), Chaos casts doubt over tests deadline, Times Educational Supplement, http://www.tes.co.uk/search/story/?story_id=2644172 
  15. ^ MPs criticise testing 'shambles', BBC, Tuesday, 20 May 2008, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7409234.stm 
  16. ^ More questions about Sats results, BBC, Thursday, 17 July 2008, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7511922.stm 
  17. ^ Schools hunting missing papers, BBC, Thursday, 24 July 2008, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7521459.stm 
  18. ^ Mike Baker (Wednesday, 18 July 2008), League tables 'might be scrapped', BBC, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7513619.stm 
  19. ^ Sutherland Inquiry
  20. ^ BBB entry for ETS
  21. ^ United States Internal Revenue Service (February 7, 2007). "Good Governance Practices for 501(c)(3) Organizations" (PDF). http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-tege/governance_practices.pdf. Retrieved on 2009-05-31. 
  22. ^ Americans for Educational Testing Reform (10 May 2009). "America's Corporate Guinea Pigs - How ETS Exploits GRE Test-Takers" (PDF). http://aetr.org/downloads/How_ETS_Exploits_GRE_Takers.pdf. Retrieved on 2009-05-30. 

[edit] Further reading

  • Bickerstaffe, George, "Students Without IT Need Not Apply", Financial Times (London), October 26, 1998, p. 17.
  • Brennan, Lisa, "ETS, Kaplan in Legal Skirmish over Test Security", New Jersey Law Journal, January 23, 1995, p. 3.
  • Celis, William, III, "Computer Admissions Test Found to Be Ripe for Abuse" New York Times, December 16, 1994.
  • Elson, John, "The Test That Everyone Fears", Time, November 12, 1990.
  • Honan, William, "Computer Admissions Test to Be Given Less Often", New York Times, January 4, 1995.
  • Kladko, Brian, "Computer Technology Passes Judgment on Students' Essays", Record (Bergen County, N.J.), July 9, 2001.
  • Merritt, Jennifer, "Why the Folks at ETS Flunked the Course", Business Week, December 29, 2003, p. 48.
  • Nairn, Allan, The Reign of ETS: The Corporation That Makes Up Minds, New York: Ralph Nader, 1980.
  • Nissimov, Ron, "SAT Officials to Stop Flagging Disabled Students' Tests", Houston Chronicle, July 22, 2002.
  • Nowlin, Sanford, "Standardized Test Giants Lock Horns in Court over Allegedly-Stolen Secrets", San Antonio Express-News, April 8, 2001.
  • Owen, David, None of the Above: Behind the Myth of Scholastic Aptitude, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1985.
  • Sidener, Jonathan, "Educational Testing Service of Princeton, N.J., Develops New Grading System", Arizona Republic, February 1, 1999.
  • Tabor, Mary B.W., "Disabled to Get an Extra Chance for S.A.T.s", New York Times, April 1, 1994.
  • "Testing Company Claims State's Bidding Process Is Unfair", Associated Press State & Local Wire, January 6, 2003.
  • Vickers, Marcia, "Hate Exams? Here's a Chance to Profit from Them", New York Times, Business Section, October 5, 1997, p. 4
  • Weinstein, David, "ETS to Create Standardized English Test for Chinese Government", Associated Press State & Local Wire, July 9, 2002.
  • Williams, Dennis A., "Testers V. Cram Courses", Newsweek, August 12, 1985.
  • Winerip, Michael, "No. 2 Pencil Fades as Graduate Exam Moves to Computer", New York Times, November 15, 1993.

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_Testing_Service"
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