This is positively scary. When one state comes out with 67% of their students getting 2s and 3s out of 6 possible on as essay, so the Dept of Education Rep tells them to start giving more 3s, and not regrade ones already graded? That's ridiculous, and actually - in my opinion, given how much is riding on these stupid scores - criminal.

Anyone who has ever wondered how they grade all those essays relatively quickly, should read this.

I interviewed for one of these jobs in Michigan, and when I realized you had less than 2 minutes per essay to score a major portion of the "standardized" test, I decline the job offered. I was hoping that in the 15 years since then, it had gotten better. It looks like it has gotten worse. These "barely college grads" who score essays at a clip of one to two every minute, determine what schools are "failing", "need improvement", or are "proficient". They come in sick, drunk, hung over, or just too tired to function, whip off a set number of scores, trying to match a "bell curve", and flush students' and schools' goals down the drain at will.