Expansion (1945 - 1965)
The Formation of ETS
The ceaseless expansion of ETS after 1948 invited controversy. Skeptics claimed that its pursuit of new markets and its cultivation of old ones were inappropriate, even hypocritical, for a nonprofit organization supposedly devoted to research.
Robert L. Hampel
"The Origins of the Educational Testing Service"
The Educational Testing Service, or ETS, was established in 1948. It was the result of a merger of the testing offices of the American Council on Education (its Cooperative Test Service), the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (chiefly its Graduate Record Office), and the College Board.
ETS continued the existing testing programs of the three organizations and undertook psychometric research. The College Board entered an agreement with ETS whereby ETS provided all the admissions testing services offered by the Board under the auspices of the Board.
The College Board contributed all of its assets in excess of $300,000 to ETS; the Carnegie Foundation contributed $750,000; and the American Council on Education gave all its testing assets in excess of $185,000 to ETS.
A variety of different interpretations on the formation of ETS exist. Not any one provides a comprehensive picture of the founding of ETS.
Interpretations on the formation of ETS
Robert L. Hampel, in "The Origins of the Educational Testing Service," Faithful Mirror (New York: The College Board, 2001), interprets ETS's expansion in the years immediately following its formation as a result of meeting organizational challenges. According to Hampel, ETS needed to prove that it was not just a regional organization, that it could be financially sound, and that it could do quality research. Hampel's interpretation presents a balanced exploration of why ETS expanded the way it did without positing a conspiracy behind this expansion.
Nicholas Lemann, in The Big Test: The Secret History of the American Meritocracy (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1999) interprets ETS's creation and expansion as part of a technocratic vision of some philanthropists and east coast educators. Lemann emphasizes ETS's expansionist style. He attributes this to ETS's first president, Henry Chauncey. However, as Robert L. Hampel notes, Lehmann did not utilize archival materials from the three organizations involved in the ETS merger. This, therefore, gives a misleading interpretation.
Ellen Condliffe Lagemann, in Private Power for the Public Good: A History of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1983) interprets ETS's creation as the advancement of the Carnegie Foundation's objectives to standardize and systematize American education and a specific institutional form for education. Lagemann emphasizes the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching since the story of ETS's creation is embedded in her history of the Carnegie Foundation.
John A. Valentine, The College Board and the School Curriculum (New York: The College Entrance Examination Board, 1987) interprets ETS's formation as, he states, "a clean sweep for objective tests" and the culmination of the rise of psychometrics.
Negotiations surrounding ETS formation
Beginning in the 1930s, some educators began to move toward the creation of a national testing agency. Here briefly is the chain of events leading to the formation of ETS.
The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and one of its officers, William Learned, had promoted testing since the 1930s. The Foundation's efforts to find a new home for its examinations after 1946 initiated talks of a merger.
The Cooperative Test Service was a subdivision of the American Council on Education (ACE) since 1930. Its director, Ben Woods, promoted the use of multiple-choice tests.
In 1945/1946, the president of ACE, George Zook, asked the Carnegie Corporation to let the Cooperative Test Service (CTS) take over the Graduate Record Examination offered by the Carnegie Foundation. The Foundation's Learned opposed this.
The Carnegie Corporation then began talks with the College Board and its president, Henry Chauncey. The Carnegie Corporation appointed a committee headed by Harvard University President James Conant to discuss a new testing organization.
CTS's president Zook protested a proposed alliance with the College Board. Conant and other university presidents lobbied for the merger of the three organizations.
On December 19, 1947, the Regents of the State of New York granted a charter to ETS. The College Board officially announced the merger of testing offices and the creation of ETS.
A board of trustees governed ETS. Harvard's James Conant was the first chairman of ETS's board of trustees. ETS's first president was Henry Chauncey, a former president of the College Board.
The formation of ETS led to a few changes in the College Board. With the creation of ETS, College Board officials contemplated the College Board's broadened scope. The College Board's financial status also changed with the creation of ETS.
