Dive Brief:

• Teachers aren’t necessarily the ones grading the new Common Core-aligned tests that many districts rolled out this year.
• Test graders are required to have a four-year college degree and are held to rigid standards when scoring, but classroom experience is not a prerequisite, officials from Pearson and PARCC told The New York Times.
• Still, Pearson also says that nearly 75% of its graders have a year of teaching experience — though the Times found that some of that experience might be from as long as 45 years ago.

Dive Insight:

The revelation drew some criticism from teachers, who objected that graders not trained in teaching are unlikely to appropriately judge student learning. “Even as teachers, we’re still learning what the Common Core state standards are asking,” Lindsey Siemens, a special education teacher in Chicago, told The New York Times. “So to take somebody who is not in the field and ask them to assess student progress or success seems a little iffy.”

But Pearson has touted its rigorous training program, which has multiple checks to make sure graders are consistent. Nearly half of those who enter Pearson training don’t make it to the grading stage. As more test scores roll in and the stakes of students’ performance set in, how they are graded will receive more scrutiny. The question of who grades them will likely remain a contentious one.