£31 million paid out each year to tell us what we already know - That's the price of school testing

It is of little surprise to me to hear that there will be delays in getting the results of this year's SAT's tests for 11 and14 year olds. Stories about the way that ETS, the company awarded the contract to mark the tests, have been circulating around the education system for some months. To put it bluntly, ETS seem incapable of organising a piss up in a brewery.

Sadly though, the clowns at ETS are being paid £31.2 million per year for five years to do this marking. It wouldn't be so bad were it not for the fact that with the amount of ongoing assessment going on in schools, the teachers already know the level the children are at. So in effect we are paying £31.2 million for a company to mismanage and mess up the delivery of results that the teachers already know because the teachers teach the children every day.

The problem is with SAT's is that they measure what is measurable, not what is important.