Posted on 12/19/2004 2:51:09 PM PST by Zack Nguyen
DALLAS -- Dozens of Texas schools appear to have cheated on the state's redesigned academic achievement test, casting doubt on whether the accountability system can reliably measure how schools are performing, a newspaper found.
An analysis uncovered strong evidence of organized, educator-led cheating on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills at schools in Houston and Dallas, along with suspicious scores in hundreds of other schools, The Dallas Morning News reported.
Texas education policies on student accountability became the model for the federal No Child Left Behind law enacted after President Bush's election in 2000.
The newspaper analyzed scores from 7,700 Texas schools, searching for ones with unusual gaps in performance between grades or subjects. It said research has shown that schools that are weak in one subject or grade are typically weak in others.
More than 200 schools had large, unexplained score gaps between grades or between the TAKS and other standardized tests, such as the Stanford Achievement Test.
It found, for example, that the fourth-graders at Sanderson Elementary School in the Houston Independent School District scored extremely poorly on the math TAKS test this year, rating the school in the bottom 2 percent of the state.
However, the school's fifth-graders ended up with the highest scale scores on the math TAKS of any school in Texas, with more than 90 percent of the students getting perfect or near-perfect scores.
Houston Superintendent Abe Saavedra said he has asked the Texas Education Agency to investigate the scores at Sanderson, which the U.S. Education Department named a Blue Ribbon School in 2003 because of rapid improvements in test results.
"At HISD, our credibility and integrity must remain absolutely beyond question," he said in a statement.
Similar results were found at Harrell Budd Elementary in Dallas. Third grade students finished in the bottom 4 percent in reading. But Budd's fourth-graders had the second-highest reading scores in the state, behind a Houston magnet school for gifted children.
Dallas district spokesman Donald Claxton said officials there plan a thorough investigation.
"If there's cheating going on, we want to stop it," he said.
Jim Impara, a former state assessment director in Florida and Oregon, said he believes such school rating systems are changing the culture of education.
"When you have a system where test scores have real impact on teachers' lives, you're more likely to see teachers willing to cheat," he said.
Teachers and Teacher's Unions at it's best!
Can we court-martial and execute education dragoons?
How do we prosecute the rule-breakers? It would be difficult to "nail" any particular person. (Them's thick as thieves.)
Should this really surprise anyone. I'm sure if we demanded that those involved be fired, the NEA would defend them. What Scum!
This is just analysis, based on some people, but there's no "smoking gun" so to speak.
Come back to me when theres proof and with facts, not some theory.
Who would have jurisdiction for prosecuting such crimes and do they have enough political clout to work against entrenched, corrupt school boards?
Nothing to see here, let us move on.
The "smoking gun" lies in the disparity between (state) mandated (and, therefore, money-related) tests, and non-mandated tests (SAT, ACT, etc.) and independent studies.
So, the [NEA infested] state licensing boards would prosecute a [union] teacher? What color is your sky? ;)
As such, I get to listen to the frustration with the 'system' nearly every day. And, I can tell you, it foils a certain type of marriage relationship.
Let me give all of you a run-down. These state tests, such as the WASL and ITBS that are used in WA st. are jokes designed by idiots. The students are given questions in these tests on material that they haven't been taught at grade levels that they don't have the mental maturity to answer.
It is like teaching only music for six months and then giving them a test on the biology of plants. No wonder the kids don't pass the tests. It is cruel, especially for the ones who try to do well.
In addition, if a teacher does know what a student needs to know to pass the test, that is considered cheating.
Folks, the whole thing is run by escapees from insane wards. This applies across the nation.
It is STUPID! STUPID! STUPID!
Those of us in business can't operate like this. And, it is obvious that our educational system isn't either
One more thing, before you all get bent on blaming the teacher, consider that they operate at the behest of the administrators who are very highly paid and much of the time have very little classroom experience. Many times they get their administrators papers because they want the money and out of the classroom because they can't stand to be near the kids.
Flame away.
I'm guessing that you're not from Texas. NEA isn't nearly so powerful here as it is in other states.
It's no wonder that by the time I get them in College, they all think it's OK to cheat.
We had more cheaters caught this semester than ever before.
Good explanation. The administration can clal the teachers in, one by one and grill them like there's no tomorrow.
Right. Here, they teach the test to the kids they think can pass it and cram the rest into special ed. Then, they hire high-salary "Special Ed Specialists" and give the superintendant a raise for his "courage."
P. S. The NEA is less powerful here but, they have most districts by the short hairs - I mean their purse strings, of course.
Well, the scores vary extremely widely within the same school, and even between grade levels that are very close to each other.
Plus, I find the reaction if administrators very telling. They didn't say, "What?! I'm offended by the mere suggestion that we would ever cheat!" They said, "We'll launch a full investigation and find any cheaters."
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