Test-prep as steroids

NY Times reporter Samuel Freedman now suspects what I wrote just three weeks ago.
Me: “I’m afraid that test-prep works, if only in the sense that steroids work in sports, with the short-term results.”
Freedman: “Under the pretense of fair competition, tens of thousands of high school students and their families employ the scholastic equivalent of steroids—test-prep courses, private consultants, Internet mills for massaging if not entirely creating their essays, exaggerated or cynical accounts of their community service.”
I’m afraid that I can’t claim incredible soothsaying powers or the ability to mind-control NY Times reporters. This analogy has been floating around in the ether, and some reporter was bound to latch onto it. FairTest guy-in-Florida and publicist Bob Schaeffer used it last year when interviewed by Northwestern journalist students.