Gobbledygook and Pearson: Has There Ever Been A Lower Bar, Indeed

Todd Farley's recent post in the Huffington News caught my eye.  He writes about Pearson's assertion of the importance of their automated scoring process that doesn't actually read students' writing, but comes up with a score that may or may not be related to what human scorers produce. Farley writes:

In other words, all this hoopla about a study Tom Vander Ark calls "groundbreaking" is based on a final conclusion saying only that automated essay scoring engines are able to spew out a number that "by and large" might be "similar" to what a bored, over-worked, under-paid, possibly-underqualified, temporarily-employed human scorer skimming through an essay every two minutes might also spew out. I ask you, has there ever been a lower bar?

I could well be wrong on this, but it seems to me that for the sake of significant profits (ones you and I can most likely not even fathom, or perhaps want to fathom), Pearson and other test making and test scoring conglomerates are willing to sell any poorly conceived and executed idea in order to maintain the cash flow. The question before us is what do we as students, parents, educators, and concerned citizens do in response?

I urge you to read all of Farley's post. Curious what you think.