By Jason Stanford

This might not sound like a big deal, but Pearson has lost the contract for standardized testing in Texas schools. Pearson was there in the 1980s when high-stakes testing spread slowly from Texas to every single public school in this country. But the backlash against testing made Pearson politically toxic, and now they’ve lost the contract in Texas that made their reputation. It’s the end of an error.

Like a military contractor telling the Pentagon that their particular brand of bomb was crucial to preserving democracy, Pearson and its former lobbyist Sandy Kress had been pushing Texas lawmakers for decades for more tests, more often, and in more subjects. Often governors would appoint Kress to state boards and commissions as an education expert, so lawmakers often were ignorant of his conflict of interest.

Then all the testing got a bit too much, and the rebellion was merciless. The Texas legislature banned testing lobbyists from serving on state boards and commissions dealing with “accountability,” a move that seemed directed solely at Kress. What’s more, they banned testing lobbyists from making political contributions. It’s a sad joke I’ve told too many times, but when a Texas politician makes it illegal for you to give him money, you’ve messed up.

Once the political aura surrounding Kress and Pearson turned sour, people started questioning the pedagogical theory that measuring the children against the wall makes them taller. Texas rolled out the a new test a few years ago to make all the kids “college and career ready,” huge cuts to state education funding notwithstanding. Since then, test scores have been flat and have largely correlated to parents’ income and differences in school funding.

It’s also fair game now for people to question the questions, such as that ridiculous test item from a couple years back about the talking pineapple. (Seriously, Google that mess.)

Thomas Ratliff, the vice-chairman of the Texas State Board of Education, raised concerns on two recent questions he got from a teacher whistleblower. Tests are supposed to track the state curriculum, but the recent U.S. history exam asked students about Shirley Chisholm and Bull Connor, two names that do not appear in the curriculum that Ratliff voted on.

The state education agency pointed to a loophole in the law allowing Pearson to test kids on people who were similar to the ones listed in the curriculum. This failed to persuade Ratliff.

“My concern is, if a teacher is required to provide all possible examples of all women who have provided political, social, and economic contributions to American society, that list alone could be nearly endless,” wrote Thomas Ratliff, vice-chairman of the State Board of Education.

He’s got a point. Oprah Winfrey is on that list of important women. If Pearson could ask students about women similar to her, then does a teacher have to do a separate unit on women talk show hosts such as Sally Jesse Raphael and Ellen DeGeneres? And how does any of this determine whether my children (I’ve got two sons in Austin public schools) are “college and career ready”?

Getting rid of Pearson would be a lot more satisfying if Texas had not simply hired another testing company and had instead realized the folly of high-stakes testing. Texas has been doing this for more than a generation, and all we’ve learned is what I heard a south Texas school superintendent say once: Weighing a pig doesn’t make it heavier. What these tests mostly do is measure test-taking aptitude and produce results that aren’t particularly useful.

The problem is that doing this right is hard. Schools in poor neighborhoods need better everything, including funding. Poor parents need prenatal care, and their children need summer school and pre-K. But in a state where most schoolchildren are poor, ensuring equal opportunity is going to be expensive. Demanding that poor kids all pass a test without dealing with poverty just punishes those who don’t start out with advantages.

But this is Texas we’re talking about, so let us celebrate the small victory of Pearson’s demise. Along with Kress, Pearson created—and profited from—this mess. Now they’re gone, and we finally have accountability in education.

God bless Texas.

By Tina Dupuy

At the birth of every conspiracy theory is the question, “Who profits?”

In the dark reaches of anonymous Internet forums, the answer is always Big Government, Big Pharma, Big Farm-a and occasionally Satan, aliens, the Illuminati, the Knights Templar, or the Pentavirate—some omnipotent all-powerful force that enviously pulls off vast nefarious synchronization perfectly.

And this assumption of divine coordination—an attempt to make sense of a chaotic indifferent world—is very bipartisan. It’s not just one party taking to the Internet or broadcast television to wrap themselves in cozy half-baked hyperbole—denying science and doubling down on baloney—it’s at the far reaches of both sides of the spectrum.

Republicans will tend to see the threat as anti-Christian or Big Government tyranny (Sharia law and “gubmint coming fir yer guns”). Democrats tend to see the threat as anti-alternative medicine and anti-nature (i.e., animal protein causes cancer and there are chemicals in everything!).

Distrust, disinformation and a wide range of discussion boards have primed the American public for leaders who can give them reassurance. Figureheads who can tell them what they need to know, what no one else will tell them, what some don’t want them to know. You know, the “truth.”

So in this land of the emboldened science illiterate, I pose the question, “Who profits?”

The answer? Charlatans. Pseudoscience salesmen. Quacks and swindlers ready to feed off human misery with overly simplistic (and probably expensive) solutions.

The herbal supplements market, for example, is a $100 billion business globally. A study released this week from the New York State attorney general’s office found major retailers like Target, Walmart, GNC and Walgreens are selling what for all intents and purposes is snake oil. Herbal supplements with fillers in lieu of herbs. An entire aisle of the placebo effect estimated in the billions.

But if you think Big Pharma is trying to scam you, it’s priceless.

The History Channel, a joint venture between Hearst and Disney, has fed into this fevered fetish with their programming: “Ancient Aliens,” “UFO Hunters,” “Decoded,” “The Bible Code,” “Cities of the Underworld,” “Mystery Quest,” “Nostradamus Effect,” “Armageddon.” We effectively have an ahistorical History Channel.

This is something no one else will tell you … unless you turn on Disney-owned cable television.

Speaking of television charlatans—”Dr.” Oz. Not only has he let psychics come on his show to chat with the dead, he’s a proponent of the widely debunked “detox” craze and was recently called out by Congress for hawking fake weight loss pills on his show. Quacks like a duck, must be a quack.

But like “Dr.” Oz, “Dr.” Rand Paul also gains from his fans’ beliefs rooted in junk science and disproved claims. Paul caused a stir this week by parroting the universally (and frequently) debunked claim that vaccines cause autism. He’s also involved with a phony science organization called the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. “Its periodical, Journal of the American Physicians and Surgeons, has published reports suggesting a link between abortions and higher rates of breast cancer,” reports The New York Times. “A tie rejected by an expert panel of the National Cancer Institute. Another report contended that illegal immigrants brought disease into this country and benefited if their babies were born with disabilities.”

This is a doctors’ association? First do no harm…unless they’re illegals.

Then private-jet-baller, Governor Chris Christie, hoping to split the anti-vax vote opted to feed into people’s fears too. “Parents need to have some measure of choice in things as well, so that’s the balance that the government has to decide,” he said to a reporter this week. Christie is suddenly and shockingly pro-choice when it comes to public health. Unlike when he was pro-mandatory quarantine…like in October.

Charlatans are indicative of simple economics: supply and demand. As long as we demand manure, someone will step up to shovel it. And business appears to be good.