Saturday, September 17, 2011

The underbelly of standardized testing.

When I think of the "black market", the picture that comes to mind is generally some vague vision of a Somali pirate port, half a world away, where to you can find great bargains for all your illicit needs. What doesn't come to mind, is a school psychologist. In fact, even the most hardcore school psych I know, shout out to Dr. Coffee, (who is probably currently rolling through the inner-city streets of Chicago, thumping the bassline of NPR's Fresh Air in her Prius), doesn't come to mind with I think of someone dealing in the illegal trade of a controlled commodity.  So when my psych friend here in Peru showed me the pirated tests that she uses here in the schools, I had to laugh.

Apparently, sixty dollars at the the local university can get you a pirated version any of the major tests that are typically highly controlled, and higher priced, in the US. Here's the Standford Benet LM (definitely not the latest version), that I borrowed to look over.