Posted on 07/21/2011 11:46:46 PM PDT by JohnBrownUSA
Thirty-four schools in New Jersey are being investigated for possible cheating after an examination of standardized test data revealed irregularities and raised questions, the state Department of Education said.
State education officials said some schools showed especially high deviations from the normal amount of wrong test answers being erased and a right one marked.
In numerous U.S. cities, including Atlanta, Philadelphia and Washington, accusations and findings of test cheating being condoned and organized by teachers to make their schools look better have put the issue in the national spotlight, and prompted education officials across the country to re-examine testing procedures and protocols.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
The #1 state that the GOP should investigate is Wisconsin due to it being ground zero this winter for union protesters whining about having to pay their fair share of their health care coverage and retirement benefits.
It wouldn't surprise me if the teachers in Wisconsin cheat on student tests so that they can deflect how bad their teaching really is.
This is why limiting collective bargaining is so important.
To keep the teachers honest, we need to turn over every stone and investigate whether or not they are truly educating our children.
After all, it's all about the kids, right?
To keep teachers honest, we need to END single payer education. It has never worked, doesn't (obviously) work, and will NEVER work.
To keep teachers honest, we need to END single payer education. It has never worked, doesn’t (obviously) work, and will NEVER work.
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You’re right. We need to rid our society of socialized schooling.
The crooked test scores also justifies the gargantuan salaries, benefits and pensions these corrupt people suckup.
That includes all that they can steal.
Dr Beverly Hall is now under scrutiny in Atlanta for rampant, systematic cheating on test scores involved 44 Atlanta schools and 178 teachers and principals.
Hall absconded to Atlanta after the Newark, NJ school district she headed had a $73 million shortage.
Here’s Dr Beverly Hall showing off her medal----named 2009 Superintendent of the Year award by the American Association of School Administrators for "increasing Atlanta district's test scores and graduation rates."
Beverly Hall is a bigtime calculated liar and con artist......a walking crime wave.
One observer said that, for public consumption, Hall puts on a sweet, sap-happy "Grandma’s Baking Sugar Cookies" act..............but behind the scenes she’s a ruthless, savage hag, dropping victims left and right like an armed fascist dictator.
You have to wonder how Hall ever got educator credentials. Is her doctorate legit? All of her CV should be rigorously scrutinized.
Her activities in the state of NJ (before she went to GA) need to be exposed.....and prosecuted when warranted.....including the $73 million budget shortfall under her watch.
A few days later, Lewis was summoned to the main office where he found Atlanta Principal Waller and [Success for All Facilitator] Sandra Ward with the CRCT booklets. Principal Waller looked at Lewis and then immediately looked at the test booklets. Lewis then knew what Atlanta Principal Waller was asking him to ‘get into undetected’ — the test booklets. Lewis found a key in his desk drawer that opened the room where the tests were kept.
Lewis used a razor blade to open the plastic wrapping around the test booklets, copied the test for each grade, and resealed the wrapping using a lighter to melt the plastic. Once Lewis copied the booklets, he placed a copy of the social studies test in [Atlanta teacher] Damien Northern’s car and a copy of the reading and language arts test in [Atlanta teacher] Dorothea Wilson’s car.’
The initial indictment, returned October 19, 2010, contained 18 total counts of mail and wire fraud, travel and use of facilities in interstate commerce to promote bribery, and bribery in connection with a local government agency receiving federal funds.
Ritacco's supwrtintendent's salary was a whopping $234,000 annually......plus perks and pensions the Sultan of Brunei would envy. Ritacco cashed in 50 sick days each year between 2002 and 2007 as part of his contract to get a payout for sick/vacation/personal days not used. Ritacco sold back 250 sick days between 2002 and 2007 for a total of $219,517. Each year, Ritacco cashed in the full amount for at least $41,000. Ritacco stands to receive an additional payout for the remainder of his unused sick leave and vacation time that he did not use before he retired if he is exonerated on 17 federal corruption charges.
Since he was indicted, school officials are withholding Ritacco's $53,149 payout for unused sick and vacation time until the corruption charges are resolved. And are also holding Ritacco's $155,039 annual pension. Even if Ritacco is convicted, he still gets the $201,990 he put into the pension system.
Ritacco used his influence to ensure the insurance broker maintained multimillion dollar insurance contracts with the school district, according to court documents. It was the taxpayers who paid the price.
Gartland's insurance contracts were padded with $1-2 million extra fees that was funneled to the superintendent. According to the federal indictment charging Ritacco and Gartland, the illegal deals were hidden through corporations set up during the construction of the Washington Street building.
Gartland paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to MJ Rit, a construction company owned by Ritacco that was doing work at 1000 Washington St., a building that Gartland was rehabilitating.
Gartland is alleged to have lied to the school's insurance carrier, Cigna......falsely telling Cigna that the school board authorized the insurance carrier to pay fees on behalf of the school board from its medical claims bank account for health care related programs and services that never existed, authorities said. That money, stolen from Nov 2003 to July 2009, went into accounts controlled by Gartland, the indictment alleges.
Ritacco exercised almost complete control of a nearly $200 million budget. To date, Toms River, NJ Regional School Supt Ritacco is accused of various crimes including taking up to $2 million in bribes from the school district's insurance broker. Ritacco “retired” Oct. 21, 2010 the same day he surrendered to the FBI.
A representative of the state should be present at all testing done for NCLB. Then the tests should be removed immediately and be graded by the state.
The schools can not be trusted to be honest about this kind of thing since they have so much at stake.
o no not in jersey. inconceiveable.
***A representative of the state should be present at all testing done for NCLB. Then the tests should be removed immediately and be graded by the state.
The schools can not be trusted to be honest about this kind of thing since they have so much at stake.***
There’s a much cheaper way than paying all those state representatives to monitor the exams. NO teacher at the same level of the exams should be present during the exams. Instead, have teachers of LOWER grades monitor each exam. For example, a second grade teacher could monitor a sixth grade exam. The second grade teacher would not know the correct answers and could not help the students cheat.
Our school district offers two advanced courses in 8th grade that are offered to students that maintain a 92 or above average the previously year in those subjects. I started to notice that certain kids would end up with exactly a 92 and there would always be 17 of them. Not one more or one less. I started thinking somewhere in the teachers contract there is a clause for 17 students only, and the teacher also teaches the students the year before that get picked for these classes, so they can inflate a favorite students grade, decrease some one elses. It has nothing to do with ability or offering a student a challenging course. My daughter, of course, ended up with a 90 in both courses, even though she was not allowed to see her final exams which were exactly what brought her grade down to a 90. Report cards arrived in the mail, and if you try to call the school, they say they’ll give the message to the teacher but they are on vacation. Only secretaries are there now. Absolute BS.
Looks like the rats in jersey are going to be taken to the woodshed. And Christie is going to make them hand him the belt.
Back when this story broke in Atlanta I said at the time that NJ had the same nonsense going on; I don’t doubt that we have high school graduates who have ever written a complete sentence. Years ago a friend of mine was held back twice in seventh grade, and when it was clear he would fail the third time he was literally jumped to high school. Because he was so old, they determined it was for the best; he never went to eighth grade.
They arrested these cheaters...will they arrest these union teachers?
Five New York Nursing Schools Accused Of Robbing Students And Awarding Fake Credentials
Big deal....Everybody does it.
Even more frightening is that these marginal students were also admitted to medical school, law schools and other professions.....by sap-happy liberal educators who fear schools are too "elitist" b/c they admit only the best and brightest.
That wont work either, they would still cheat since the outcome of the test affect the “whole school” not just a certain grade. If a school does poorly repeatedly on that test they close it down. Their jobs are litterally on the line, there is too much incentive to for them to cheat.
It would only take one state employee to do this. Just have the tests at each school scheduled on successive days and the one state employee just travels from school to school monitoring and collecting the exams.
If We the People are smart about all this cheating going on nation-wide..its a real opportunity to crowbar the NEA out of the public school system.
That’s right; then it is “buyer beware”...
***That wont work either, they would still cheat since the outcome of the test affect the “whole school” not just a certain grade. If a school does poorly repeatedly on that test they close it down. Their jobs are litterally on the line, there is too much incentive to for them to cheat.***
You are absolutely right. However, I should think they wouldn’t know who was doing which class until the day of the exam.
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