Students may have been helped

FORT WORTH - Two A.M. Pate Elementary School teachers are no longer working at the school after a district investigation revealed that they may have provided students with answers to TAKS tests last year.

Students said the teachers gave fifth-graders answers to the reading and math portions of the Texas Assessment of Knowledge of Skills in 2004, Fort Worth school district officials said.

Fifth-grade reading scores at Pate plummeted this year after the two teachers were placed on administrative leave. This year's math scores have not been released.

On the 2004 TAKS reading test, 89 percent of Pate's fifth-graders passed. This year, when the test was given in February, 29 percent of the fifth-graders passed, the lowest rate among the district's 77 elementary schools.

One teacher, Georgia Johnson, a 25-year veteran, retired after she was placed on administrative leave in early February, said Bobby Whiteside, who oversees the district's Office of Special Investigations.

Mildred Lawrence-Medearis, who has been a teacher for 17 years, remains on administrative leave and under investigation, Whiteside said.

Johnson has an unlisted phone number. Attempts to reach her through Pate Principal Augustina Madu-Odidika and the United Educators Association were unsuccessful.

Association attorney Tanya Dawson, who represents Lawrence-Medearis, declined to comment until the investigation is complete.

Pate is the only school still being investigated in Fort Worth, Whiteside said. No wrongdoing was found at seven other elementary schools that were investigated because of their performance on the TAKS in recent years.

Statewide, several school districts, including Dallas and Houston, have fired teachers in recent months after TAKS cheating investigations.

The investigations began after The Dallas Morning News reported in December that wide swings in test scores indicated that educators at nearly 400 schools statewide may have helped students cheat on the TAKS.

The investigation at Pate has centered on classes taught by Johnson and Lawrence-Medearis after an initial review of TAKS scores from the 2004 test. In those tests, many students who had previously struggled on tests had high or perfect scores, according to district records.

In Johnson's class, 18 of 19 students who took the TAKS reading test passed, including six who made perfect scores. The students' math performances were also stellar.

In Lawrence-Medearis' class, all 29 students passed the reading and math tests last year.

The majority of the students from those classes are now at Dunbar 6th Grade Center. School officials interviewed a dozen students at Dunbar in January, asking them to recall which class they were in and whether they remembered taking the TAKS test last year.

They were also asked: "At any time did anyone help you with your TAKS test? Did you erase a lot or did anyone ever ask you to erase? Do you remember anything unusual?"

While several students said no one helped them on the test, others told district officials that the teachers shared answers with one another and that one teacher helped students work test problems.

One student said that if students did not know how to do a division problem, for example, Lawrence-Medearis would show them how to do it during the test.

Several students said they were worried about being sent back to the fifth grade.

Lea Boiles, the assistant principal at the Dunbar 6th Grade Center, said that some Pate students were placed in honors classes at Dunbar based on their TAKS scores, according to district records obtained under the Texas Public Information Act. But they were later moved to other classes because they were struggling.

Pate Elementary has been rated as a recognized school since 2000. But TAKS test results released in March showed the school had the lowest fifth-grade TAKS reading scores in the district.

Only 29 percent of the 42 fifth-graders tested, passed the fifth-grade TAKS reading exam this year.

Madu-Odidika said the timing of the TAKS inquiry was bad -- only weeks before students began testing this year.

Two full-time certified substitute teachers came in, but there was a "lack of focus because they were really grieving the absence of their teachers," Madu-Odidika said.

School ratings -- from exemplary to academically unacceptable -- are based, in part, on TAKS test scores.

And the stakes are high for fifth-graders this year. This is the first year that fifth-graders must pass the TAKS reading exam to be promoted to sixth grade. Two years ago, they were the first third-grade class to have to pass the reading section to be promoted to the fourth grade.

Despite the intense pressure on students and teachers to achieve good scores, "holding a child back is a much better life lesson than trying to say to a child, 'It's OK to cheat to get ahead,' " said Bill Koehler, the Fort Worth school board president.

The biggest week of the year for TAKS testing begins today and continues through Friday. Students in grades three and higher will be tested on reading, math, social studies and science. Third-graders and fifth-graders who failed the reading portion of the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills in February will be retested Wednesday. They must pass the test to move on to fourth and sixth grades.

"Fifth-grade reading scores at Pate plummeted this year after the two teachers were placed on administrative leave"

Coincidence?

for those of you who don't live in Texas, TAKS replaced TAAS(Texas assessment of academic skills). Before you go thinking this was a hard standardized test, stop. A long time ago when I was in high school (3 years) TAAS was the biggest joke since Clinton. I think it's scary that only 29 percent of students can pass this test. The teachers get graded by how well their students perform on the TAKS test, so I guess the teachers thought cheating was easier than actually making their students learn the material.

***Despite the intense pressure on students and teachers to achieve good scores, "holding a child back is a much better life lesson than trying to say to a child, 'It's OK to cheat to get ahead,' " said Bill Koehler, the Fort Worth school board president.***

WOW - A school board that "gets it". Two of mine are starting their TAKS today. Their schools have really got them pumped up with a positive attitude about the tests.

4 posted on 04/19/2005 5:35:57 AM PDT by daybreakcoming ("Courage is being scared to death -- and saddling up anyway." - John Wayne)

Most administrators are happy to look the other way, since their power and reputation are on the line if the schools they control are in danger of coming under the purview of other government agencies.

Administrative leave. Ugh. FIRE THEM! 1) They knew they weren't teaching their kids squat. 2) They had to cheat because they knew their kids didn't know squat.

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