Basically, what they did was admit that with standards and expectations raised...they couldn’t reach the goals without cheating. And there’s some weight to the consequences involved.
If you have forty-odd kids and you’ve gone through seven years of schooling....with marginal efforts and limited teachers in the classroom, then you whip up some enthusiasm for fixing the problem...it’d all be fine if you were starting with first-grade kids. But the kids in the funnel were already a year...maybe even three years behind. The teachers with these marginally inclined kids were stuck with performers who could not reach the goal intended...without cheating.
While I don’t condone cheating...this ‘no-child-left-behind’ deal was a false premise and triggered thousands of teachers to alter the teaching plan in order to just get marginal kids to pass the test phase.
even with NCLB if they don’t pass then they don’t pass. One cannot mandate that all children will pass or there would be no crime right? You make an excellent point that there should have beem a realistic starting point but we all know that would be politically and even socially unacceptable. There’s no way they could have said everyone from 3rd grade on s screwed or something to that effect.
People don’t always succeed. It’s part of being human.
Think about it.
Can you name one group or person that YOU depend on that might cheat and have it be ‘understandable?
Maybe the guy who installs your washing machine - and water damage ruins your floors... The dryer repairman who causes your house to burn down? The medical doctor that gives the wrong diagnosis and causes your sister to die? Tell me who else ‘cheats’ in a sympathetic way?
If the teachers had been doing their job in the first place, properly evaluating their students, helping those who were behind catch up, and teaching them the material they should have been teaching them, there would have been no shortcomings.
As for the teachers cheating, it's just another step down the same road: they didn't do their job and expected to get bonuses for failure. They didn't even have the sand to stand up and say "We have a problem here."--as they all should have, but instead turned on those teachers who did.
I have seen similar failures in local schools where students having difficulty with material are shoved in a study hall with no help and told to do a stack of papers.
If they could have, they would not ask for help. Then those same students are encouraged to drop out of school, (improving the overall test scores for the school).
I wonder if there is a 'profit motive' in it for the local teachers as well.
That’s just an excuse...I live in the surburbs and our school district didn’t conspire to cheat.
The cheating was also about earning performance bonuses which get paid out when showing improvement. Nothing more than defrauding the tax payer, and they should enjoy their new taxpayer paid leave in prison.