We are growing accustomed to delays in receiving test results particularly since the mount of standardized testing has grown exponentially under NCLB. With a handful of vendors – albeit huge entities – problems have increased. Imagine for a moment that we had a national curriculum and national tests as do our colleagues in Britain.

The Guardian reported over the holiday weekend an embarrassing delay in scoring the latest round of national tests known in Britain as SAT’s (School Attainment Tests, not to be confused with Scholastic Aptitude Tests). There is somewhat of a connection our SAT in that the scoring vendor is ETS Europe – the Eupopean counterpart of our own ubiquitous Educational Testing Service. ETS Europe, according to their website, has a presence in 42 European countries.

This has been a huge embarrassment for the National Assessment Agency (NAA) as well as ETS-Europe. We are talking about the scoring of approximately 1 million tests. Consider as a matter of scale what the challenge would be for the United States should we develop and administer national tests in just math and reading.