"We're at the mercy of the testing company."

For a bit of history on these corporate bloodsuckers, see this piece by Bloomberg News called How Testing Companies Fail Your Kids.

The most recent failure from the St. Augustine Record:

A month-long delay in getting test results from the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test will hold up everything from hiring teachers to placing students to determining courses offered in St. Johns County schools.

"There's nothing we can do. We're at the mercy of the testing company," Superintendent Joe Joyner said Monday. "We can't do anything until they provide us with results."

The testing company is NCS Pearson, which received a $254 million contract, good through 2013, from the Florida Department of Education. Pearson is administering and scoring the exams on paper and piloting the state's new computer-based testing.

According to an Associated Press story, the firm has had problems with exams in other states including South Carolina, Arkansas and Wyoming. They settled a class action lawsuit with the College Board after 4,400 students were underscored on the SAT in 2006.

Late Friday, Florida school districts were told there would be a delay in the delivery of the scores.

Scores were already running late, but until Friday districts expected them before the end of the school year. Now they won't get them until sometime around the end of June, according to state education officials. . . .