As testing has taken on a more significant role in the college admission process and, more recently, in K-12 education through the increasing popularity of high-stakes testing, so have the urgency of questions surrounding test preparation initiatives, through both private and educational ventures and school-sponsored preparation programs. This…

Accountability and performance incentive plans in education are compromised by goal distortion, gaming, and corruption. Education policy makers who design such plans have paid insufficient attention to similar experiences in other fields. This paper describes institutions in health care, job training and welfare administration, and in the private…