The groves of academe were once generally viewed as oases of intellectualism and tranquility, but the times, as Bob Dylan observed, they are a-changin'. Nowadays those same groves have turned increasingly competitive, with students (and their parents) at practically all scholastic levels becoming increasingly concerned about achieving ever higher grades. Not surprisingly, publishers that offer study guides, educational testing materials and preparatory aids for the myriad undergraduate and graduate exams have stepped up their efforts accordingly.
And there's an important new wrinkle in this publishing arena—one that's taking precedence over just about every other issue, and one that involves, interestingly, the federal government. In the words of Tom Russell, associate publisher at the Princeton Review, "The biggest story right now in this area—by far—is the emergence of high-stakes testing at the state level. States are relying more and more heavily on mandatory tests as a way to hold schools accountable for student progress."
While Congress and the president may have spent last month on vacation, their staffers were putting in long hours wrestling with what promises to be a ground-breaking overhaul of American education. President Bush's "No Child Left Behind" legislation would require annual testing of students in grades 3—8 in math and reading. Federal funding to the states would then be determined by how well students performed on these standardized tests.
A conference committee of House and Senate members hopes to present an education package to President Bush this month, but there are still differences to be worked out. The House wants to increase spending by $23 billion over the next five years, while the Senate looks to pump it up to $41 billion. And disagreements still exist over how Washington will hold states accountable for student performance.
Uncertainty over the consequences of this mandatory testing of elementary and middle school students is not confined to Capitol Hill. Publishers are now confronted with a vast and potentially very lucrative new market—but one with so many variables that even the few publishers who have already ventured into state-specific test prep find it a daunting prospect.
"It's often like trying to hit a moving target," says Barron's marketing director Lonny Stein. Even with 60 years of experience in publishing test guides for New York's Regents exams—and plans to actively pursue publishing opportunities for other state guides—Stein is still somewhat cautious. "We don't want to act prematurely. There's a huge battle over establishing standards, and we have to wait until these standards are set. But Barron's has the experience under our belts and we're very excited about meeting the challenge." Until then, the publisher's Let's Prepare series introduces students to the new assessment exams given by the New York State Board of Regents. Let's Prepare for the Grade 8 Language Arts Test by Michael Greenberg is due in January, to be followed in March by Curt Lader's Let's Prepare for the Grade 8 Intermediate Social Studies Test.
While agreeing that state assessment tests are "the new frontier of the test prep business and represent a huge potential for growth," the Princeton Review's Russell notes that "we've all been accustomed to producing a certain kind of test prep guide—strategies for cracking or outsmarting the test. But these new exams are constructed quite differently than the SAT, so we need to think differently about how we publish for them." With test prep guides already in place for high-schoolers in California, Texas and Massachusetts, the Princeton Review will launch its elementary-level Roadmap Guides series in 2002. Says Russell, "It's important for us to establish ourselves in this new territory and with the Roadmap Guides series, we have the product to do that." Roadmap Guides: Ohio Editions will be published in January with eight books—four for fourth graders and four for sixth graders, covering Ohio Proficiency tests in math, writing, reading, science and citizenship. Roadmap Guides: North Carolina Editions are due in March with six guides—two each for third, fifth and eighth graders for North Carolina End-of-Grade Standards tests in reading and math. The series, reports Russell, will be expanded next fall to encompass additional states.
"Test preparation materials for eight- and nine-year-old students require a different approach than materials for a pre-law student," says Maureen McMahon, publisher of Kaplan Publishing, which now markets test prep guides to 11 states. "It isn't effective to give a nine-year-old a thick book of practice tests, when the real priority should be to introduce the child to the basic test-taking skills that are second nature to older, more experienced test-takers." McMahon notes that while many parents are uncomfortable with the idea of test prep for young students, they do recognize that it would be a mistake not to prepare their child for these high-stakes tests—"Parents are looking for ways to accomplish this goal without high-stress drills and practice tests." As a response, Kaplan created two state-specific elementary level series: Chris Kensler's Word Whiz and Drew and Cynthia Johnson's Parent's Guides. The vocabulary-building Word Whiz Guides to Elementary School Vocabulary are out this month for California, Florida, New York and Texas. The Parent's Guides series offers an overview of state tests in Florida, Massachusetts, New York and Texas, with a first-time guide to Georgia due this month.
But not all publishers view the opportunity to annually research and produce a variety of test prep guides for 10, 20 or even 30 states as the only way to be a player in this new market. "We have the luxury of doing useful titles that will not have to be state-specific," says Diane Steele, Hungry Minds publisher, Consumer Education and Reference Group. "Our Dummies titles can support requirements of any state test law." (Hungry Minds was recently acquired by John Wiley; see News, Aug. 16.)
Schaum/ McGraw-Hill's editorial director, Barbara Gilson, sees the move toward nationwide assessment testing as "an opportunity for us to develop an entirely new area of non-state-specific test prep guides directed toward parents working together with their children. Parents aren't any more familiar than their kids with these new tests—they both need the skills to do well." The grade-specific Get Ready! for Standardized Tests series (McGraw-Hill) debuts this month with titles on Math and Reading for grades 1—4. McGraw-Hill Children's Publishing's Spectrum Test Prep series for students in grades 1 through 8 (due in December) is designed, says publisher Tracey Dils, as a grade-level—specific series covering reading, language, arts, math, science, writing and social studies for students in all 50 states.
Finding the Right Spot
Unlike, say, a store's gardening section, in which "a rose is a rose is rose," a store's test prep sections can frequently become daunting, booksellers agree—deciphering the abbreviations, understanding the specifics of each test and the appropriate audience, etc. The Princeton Review, in fact, has come up with a sort of "guide to the guides," says Russell—a booklet entitled "Cracking the Test Prep Section." He explains, "It's sort of a playful parody of our Cracking line of test-prep guides and it explains what all the abbreviations stand for and what the peak selling seasons are for each title. Booksellers can contact their Random House rep for a copy."
Now, as if these changes weren't enough to give publishers a faint heart, there's one more hurdle—how and where to merchandise all the new titles. "The greatest marketing challenge," believes Kaplan's McMahon, "involves where state test books are shelved in stores. They clearly look out of place in the test preparation section next to MCAT and LSAT guides. The problem is that there isn't a predictable place where parents can find these books in stores."
It may not be predictable, but booksellers are locating the section in their stores that works best for their customers. At Book People in Austin, Tex., Peggy Hailey reports that the TAAS (Texas Assessment of Academic Skills) guides have their own "Education Application" section within the Children's department. New York City's Bank Street Bookstore, says bookseller Gabriel Voiles, arranges all test guides in grade-level sequence on one long shelf—"we try to organize them the way our customers actually look for titles." It's geography that counts for owner Betsey Detwiler at Buttonwood Books & Toys in Cohasset, Mass. She merchandises the MCAS (Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System) guides in the education section rather than the adult test guide area, because it's located near the family/parenting section and adjacent to juvenile reference. At Book Passage in Corte Madera, Calif., buying director Nancy Perkins agrees with Detwiler, noting that books in the general test prep section are bought by students shopping for themselves, while placing the Golden State exam guides in education means they are in a section where parents are accustomed to buying books for their children.
Capital, Say We!
In the more traditional test prep market—that bastion of upper-case letters SAT, AP, GRE, GMAT, TOEFL, etc.—change is also in the wind, albeit nothing as dramatic as in the educational testing arena. Take, for example, the 21st edition of Barron's How to Prepare for the SAT I by Sharon Weiner Green and Ira K. Wolf. An optional "Safari" CD-ROM is offered with this volume, which simulates a trek through jungle country (complete with sound effects) as it reviews test subjects.
Cracking the SAT & PSAT (Princeton Review, July)—the only test prep guide, says the publisher, ever to hit the New York Times bestseller list—is also available packaged with a CD-ROM; no sound effects, but it does offer additional practice tests. At HarperResource, the ninth edition of the 14-year-old Gruber's Complete Preparation for the SAT (July) carries an amusingly appropriate endorsement from noted newscaster Ted Koppel: "I thank you and my 15-year-old son thanks you." In the words of HarperResource associate editor Edwin Tan, "Gary Gruber's critical thinking skills method sets this book apart; he's the acknowledged expert on SAT strategies."
Like this entire field, the venerable SAT, too, has undergone modifications of its own: students who want an edge with the country's most competitive colleges now focus on SAT II exams. The Princeton Review's Cracking the SAT II series offers test prep guides for French, Spanish, biology, chemistry, physics, U.S. and world history, and writing and language. Barron's newest entry in this niche is its ninth edition of How to Prepare for the SAT II Spanish by Christopher Kendris and José Diaz, due in October.
Each year, more than 1.4 million American students rise to the challenge and take one or more Advance Placement tests. McGraw-Hill's new Five Steps to a 5 on the Advance Placement Examinations series debuts in October with five titles, among them Calculus AB by William Ma and English Language by Estelle Rankin. The series allows students to tailor their study plans to suit their academic personalities—a "Month-by-Month" plan for those who study throughout the year, the "Calendar Countdown" for students who begin studying promptly on January 1, and "Basic Training" for all those confident enough to tackle the subject in just four weeks.
APCD Spanish, the College Board's sixth and final entry in its APCD series, is a huge hit with students, reports Carole Campbell, assistant director of AP Placement and Operations: "They can put the CD in their pocket or backpack and use it anywhere they have access to a computer." Cliffs AP Calculus AB & BC by Kerry King and Dale Johnson (Hungry Minds) features a new, larger format and thumb tabs for easy reference, and Roselyn Tevkolsky shows would-be Steve Jobses and Bill Gateses How to Prepare for the AP Computer Science Advance Placement Examination (Barron's).
Cliffs Notes are making their test prep guides "more user-friendly," says Hungry Minds senior acquisitions editor Greg Tubach. Cliffs Quick Reviews in 30+ subjects have added tear-out yellow pocket guides that distill the rules and fundamentals. "The book," notes Tubach, "is backpackable and the pocket guide has pocketability." Cliffs Notes is also introducing its first-ever foreign-language test prep guides—Cliffs Quick Review Spanish I by Jill Rodriguez (Nov.) and Gail Stein's Cliffs Quick Review French I.
According to the latest statistics, the average age of those taking the GED High School Equivalency Exam is 25, and a hefty 65% go on to continue their education. To reflect the changes in this year's GED exams (the first since 1988), the 11th edition of How to Prepare for the GED (Barron's) by Murray Rockowitz et al. is available with an optional CD-ROM that offers computerized practice tests and automatic scoring. Also out from Barron's earlier this year was Passkey to the GED. Peterson's GED series, released under the Arco imprint, includes eight titles covering the five required areas (math, science, social studies, reading, writing) as well as GED en Espanol, GED Basics and Master the GED, all due in December.
Some 2,900 colleges now grant credit for CLEP exams. The Official Study Guide for CLEP Examinations (The College Board, June), reports associate director of CLEP Ariel Foster, helps students prepare for all 34 CLEP exams and is the only guide with information (on a CD) about the new computer-based test that was instituted this July. Master the CLEP 2002 was published in July by Arco.
While it may sound to the uninitiated like something one orders scrambled from a vegan restaurant, TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) is taken each year by thousands of non-English speakers from around the world. This year's test takers can choose from three editions of How to Prepare for the TOEFL by Pamela J. Sharpe (Barron's, Oct.)—the book only, the book with CDs that provide audio for listening comprehension instruction, or the book with a CD-ROM that presents a practice exam in a computer adaptive format. Coming from British publisher Peter Collin, also in October, is English Vocabulary for the TOEFL Examination by Mark Aston.
Elementary School on Up
Elementary and middle school students will benefit this academic year not only from test prep guides, but general study guides that aim to involve both student and parent.
"Most children are not uniformly competent across the curriculum and families want the tools to help their children with his or her specific area of difficulty," says Schaum/McGraw-Hill's Gilson, who sees a move toward more preparation material directed at parents and specific aspects of the curriculum. Get Ready! for Social Studies series (McGraw-Hill, Mar.) focuses on students in grades 4—8 with titles covering U.S history, world history, geography, civics, and writing book reports, essays, and research papers. Out this month from the Learning Express is a helpful trio by Elizabeth Chesla: 8th Grade Reading Comprehension Success, 501 Reading Comprehension Questions and A Parent's Guide to 8th Grade.
Parents looking to successfully navigate this brave new world of academia can take heart from Jossey-Bass's How's My Kid Doing: A Parent's Guide to Grades, Marks, and Report Cards (Mar.) by Thomas Guskey. "Grades do matter," says senior editor Lesley Iura, " and the more parents know, the better they can help their kids succeed. How's My Kid Doing is a consumers' report for parents who want to unlock the seemingly secret code of modern grading and reporting systems." Brita Immergut's How to Help Your Child Excel in Math (Career Press, May) is "a survival guide," says publicity manager Jackie Michaels, for parents who need to brush up on their math skills to help their kids.
Just because your Mom no longer spends her evenings helping you with your vocabulary words doesn't mean you're too old for a study guide. What would high school and college be without the famous yellow-and-black covers of the Cliffs Notes? This year, Hungry Minds has redesigned 17 titles in the Cliffs Complete series—among the newest editions are Karin Jacobson's Cliffs Complete The Scarlet Letter and Michael McMahon's Cliffs Complete A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Moving on from literature, Hungry Minds offers Biology for Dummies by Donna Rae Siegfried and Algebra for Dummies by Mary Jane Sterling. "They're fun, easy, factual, informationally rich and academically accurate," promises Steele. And timed to hit bookstores along with this month's premiere of HBO's Tom Hanks/Stephen Ambrose miniseries, Band of Brothers, is World War II for Dummies by Keith Dickson.
Kaplan's No-Stress Guides series by Drew and Cynthia Johnson provide middle-school students in Florida, Massachusetts, New York and Texas with effective state-specific test-taking strategies. The Johnson's Ultimate Guides promise the same for high school students in Florida, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Ohio, Texas and Georgia.
For students who are not majoring in a subject but who still need to pass the exams and get a decent grade, Schaum has streamlined its bestselling Outlines series with shortened text and new graphics. First from Schaum's Easy Outlines are Schaum's Easy Outlines of Programming with Java by John R. Hubbard and Schaum's Easy Outlines of Writing and Grammar by William C. Spruiell and Dorothy E. Zemach. Students who want to "ameliorate" their writing skills rather than making them "more better" can choose among Webster's New World English Grammar Handbook (Hungry Minds, Sept.), The Princeton Review's Word Smart by Adam Robinson, Philip Gooden's The Guide to Better English (Peter Collin) and Improve Your Writing, Fourth Edition (Career Press). The last title is part of the publisher's Ron Fry's How to Study series, which also includes such "all-purpose" guides as "Ace" Any Test and How to Study.
LearningExpress has targeted the growing Hispanic market with Judith Rabinovitz's Practical Math: Con instrucciones en Espanol, which helps readers acquire the essential math skills needed for a wide variety of vocational and educational tests. And while Perseus does not publish books specifically targeted to test-takers, the house, says senior editor Marnie Cochran, "always looks for the special book that can transcend the specifics of getting into a school or preparing for a state-specific test." Released last month was The MBA Jungle B-School Survival Guide by Jon Housman and the editors of MBA Jungle magazine.
Vocation, Vocation, Vocation
Whether you want to grow up to be a firefighter, a nurse or a pilot, chances are you'll have to take a test to get the job. "With only 25% of high school graduates ever earning a college degree," says LearningExpress president and CEO Barry Lippman, "we saw the need to deliver materials to help this large sector of the public enter the careers and vocational trades of their choice. The doorway to each is most often passing a test and the common denominator is proficiency in basic skills." LearningExpress now publishes nine vocational guides with 45 customized editions. For the 1.2 million Americans who take the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, the just-published ASVAB Success promises just that.
Peterson's, says sales director Eric Goldwyn, is in the process of revising and redesigning the titles it acquired from Arco in mid-2000. Ready to go with a new look are Scott Ostrow's ASVAB, 17th edition; Peter Solomon and Philip Meyers's Series 7: Stockbroker NASD EXAM book and CD-ROM package that preps would-be brokers for their grueling six-hour exam, and Joan and Norman Levy's PRAXIS 2, aimed at the 300,000 annual takers of teacher certification exams.
RN and former nursing instructor Martin Schiavenato's test-taking tips were so popular with students that he founded Bandido Books in Orlando, Fla. The first two titles in the Stressed Out series for nurses, published last month, are Denise Ticker's Stressed Out About Drug Math! and Stephanie Thibeault's Stressed Out About Nursing School! Chicago Review Press has expanded its popular line of test-prep books for nurses with Linda Waide and Berta Roland's Pharmacology Made Easy for NCLEX-PN: Review and Study Guide and Pharmacology Made Easy for NCLEX-RN: Review and Study Guide. "With new drugs introduced every day and drug interactions a more serious concern than ever before," says publisher Linda Matthews, "nursing students need quick, convenient access to up-to-date drug information. And in a market dominated by lengthy tomes at nearly double the price, these guides are the most efficient and economical review choices available."
Calling All Techies
While students taking the SATs may still be marking their answers with a #2 pencil, publishers are increasingly using the Internet to supplement their test prep and study guides.
In October 2000, LearningExpress "invested millions" in www.learnatest.com, says Lippman. At this site, students can select practice exams that range from the SAT and ACT to vocational tests for firefighters, police, Armed Services and paramedics. Test-takers are scored online by the computer, provided a "diagnostic score" that shows areas in which they need help, and then recommended a specific book to help them along. Users can also enter their essays online and within 72 hours a professional reader will respond with a detailed analysis of their work.
As major tests like the GRE and GMAT become computerized, consumers increasingly want to take practice tests that are as close to the real thing as possible. This year, buyers of the Princeton's Review's new SAT, LSAT, GMAT and GRE guides can go to www.review.com, log in with the registration number found in their book, take four extra practice exams (with personalized score reports) and access hundreds of additional drill questions. The response, says Russell, "has been overwhelming." Barron's has a subscription-based Web site (www.barronsregents.com) that allows students to take interactive practice tests for the New York State Regents exams. "It provides instant feedback," says Stein, "pointing out which areas in which they are strong or weak and allows them to focus on where they need the most help." In early 2002, Barron's plans to expand to include SAT I, ACT, GRE and GMAT. Peterson's now has GMAT, GRE, SAT and TOEFL tests available online at www.petersons.com and plans to add ACT, PSAT, AP and ASVAB early next year.
"Technology has certainly made it easier for us to build awareness for our publishing program and to respond to changes in the education landscape," says Kaplan's McMahon. The publisher's site (kaplan.simonsays.com) offers downloadable classroom materials for state test titles and a variety of electronic newsletters for students. Tubach at Cliffs Notes sees his company's online presence "increasing substantially." At www.cliffsnotes.com, 243 Cliffs Notes Literature titles are now downloadable at the retail price.
To Market, to Market
While technology has become an integral ingredient in any test prep publisher's marketing plans, reaching an audience the old-fashioned way is still producing results.
McMahon sees the marketing of test prep and study guides as primarily word-of-mouth. "Parents and students seek out recommendations from educators, other parents and students who have succeeded on the test in question. Traditional consumer advertising doesn't have nearly as much influence as the recommendation of a teacher." Kaplan focuses its marketing efforts on building awareness of its books among educators and PTA/PTO organizations, attending annual conferences and producing regular mailings to schools and parent organizations. The company also provides bookstores with a laminated test-date calendar at the start of every school year. This year Kaplan has created a laminated state test-date calendar. "Test days," says McMahon, "are a lot of information to keep track of, and booksellers tell as that they find these tools really helpful."
Schaum/McGraw-Hill, reports Gilson, has taken its marketing efforts to the streets—actually the malls of America. "We've made a directed effort to sell to parents who may be out shopping on weekends, not necessarily in bookstores, and have been very successful in placing our guides in Target." And because everyone, says Tubach, has a Cliffs Notes story from their years in school, he's taken to the airwaves, during a continuing and very successful series of radio phone interviews.
Crystal Ball 101
No matter what form the new education package will take, all experts agree that the testing of elementary and middle school children is a done deal. What's far from a certainty is how publishers will respond to the demand for such an extraordinary range of product. Years of experience marketing "book" test prep guides as well as the aggressive stance publishers have taken in providing information online seem to provide them with a wide variety of both options and opportunities. Most would echo the optimism of the Princeton Review's Russell—"We have 20 years experience talking to students and parents about tests, so we are in a great position to help them understand and demystify these new tests."
