I worked for eight years in standardized testing. I ran systems that facilitated operation of a number of different standardized tests for government and commercial clients. One of the tests was a certification used by states for a particular cosmetic procedure. The test was written in Spanish and English. A significant number of people who took the test did not speak other of these languages, usually Vietnamese. This wasn't a problem because the test key had obvious patterns in it to facilitate passing the test. You simply told another person what the pattern was, and anybody could pass it without being able to read a word of English or Spanish. It was obviously set up this way on purpose, although no other test I worked on was like this.
I learned a few things about standardized tests after working on them for so long: 1. almost none of the criticisms of standardized tests apply to a well-designed and maintained test, in particular "susceptible to gaming" or "culturally biased against minorities"; 2. many tests are badly designed; many tests function only as professional barriers to entry and governments/certification bodies don't care all that much how unfair the tests are as long as the final numbers come out right.
I worked on two tests for the federal government. They both were done with great care to be as fair as possible, although I learned how they manipulated the process to get the demographic mixture they desired.
I learned a few things about standardized tests after working on them for so long: 1. almost none of the criticisms of standardized tests apply to a well-designed and maintained test, in particular "susceptible to gaming" or "culturally biased against minorities"; 2. many tests are badly designed; many tests function only as professional barriers to entry and governments/certification bodies don't care all that much how unfair the tests are as long as the final numbers come out right.
I worked on two tests for the federal government. They both were done with great care to be as fair as possible, although I learned how they manipulated the process to get the demographic mixture they desired.