A Rebound for Test Scores

As president and CEO of TestU, former NBA player Len Elmore '87 is shooting to improve students' performance on standardized tests.

For most NBA players, a professional basketball career is the culmination of a lifelong dream. But for Len Elmore '87, a decade of professional basketball was more like an interruption.

"I spent 10 glorious years playing professional basketball, and I wouldn't trade the experience for anything in the world," said Elmore. "But you're a kid playing a boy's game even as you grow into a man. You're constantly besieged with all the trappings of celebrity, and you're never able to grow."

Throughout a career made up of stints with the Indiana Pacers, Kansas City Kings, Milwaukee Bucks, New Jersey Nets, and New York Knicks, Elmore maintained his dream of becoming a lawyer. After his playing days were over, he worked as both a corporate attorney and a prosecutor, but parenting soon began to take him in a different direction. When his 12-year-old son's academic performance started to level off and his 9-year-old son ("a 99th-percentile type") seemed unchallenged, Elmore reluctantly enrolled them in private schools.

"The thing that really moved me was that they had friends who were really stuck because they didn't have an opportunity to go to private schools," he said. "And why should that be? Why should they not have the same kind of access? And that's what it's really all about; it's about equity assurance when it comes to all children."

Last year, Elmore left his law career to become president and CEO of TestU, an online educational company. TestU offers products to school systems to help prepare students for standardized tests--both national exams such as the SAT and ACT and state-based tests such as the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System. Additionally, the company provides products that enable teachers to better evaluate student progress and tailor an academic program for students' specific needs.

Though Elmore believes TestU's services can help all students, he is most focused on the benefits they can provide to disadvantaged students.

"I think we can have the greatest impact on the achievement gap, where kids of color right now lag far behind their white counterparts in standardized tests," he said.

While Elmore agrees with critics of standardized tests who believe that scores should not be the sole factor in judging student performance, he does think the tests are useful tools for recognizing, and heading off, problems.

"When African-American students are averaging 860 on the SATs as opposed to their white counterparts that are close to 1,100, you've got to believe that something's wrong," said Elmore.

Citing studies that indicate the majority of the U.S. workforce will be people of color within the next 40 years, he paints a gloomy picture of the future if changes are not made: "These standardized test scores today foreshadow an ill-equipped, ill-prepared workforce going forward. Our global leadership is at stake here."

Though Elmore's day job keeps him quite busy, he still has time for basketball as a commentator and play-by-play voice of ESPN's college basketball coverage.

"I continue to stay close to college basketball because it's a big part of me," he said. "And I also see the ability to establish that same vision for athletes to become successful not only on the court, but off the court beyond your playing days, by developing a sense of self-reliance as well as community responsibility."

--Michael Rodman

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