Schools scramble to stop cheating scandals

Washington Times ^ | August 2, 2011 | Ben Wolfgang

[Presbyterian Reporter]

In the wake of school cheating scandals across the country, several states are racing to implement new testing protocols before classes resume.

In New York, Education Commissioner John B. King Jr. created a task force last month to review all aspects of student assessment.

"The Commissioner will be announcing a series of measures to ensure the integrity of our testing system before our students return to school in September," New York State Education Department spokesman Jonathan Burman said in a statement Monday.

Specific measures haven't been announced, but state officials said they want to avoid problems that have plagued school systems in Atlanta, the District of Columbia and Philadelphia, where teachers are suspected of erasing wrong answers on standardized tests and replacing them with the right ones, all to make it appear that students were performing better than they actually were.

Education specialists say the scandals are largely driven by the high stakes attached to the tests. After the implementation of the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act, schools can be labeled as "failing" if test scores don't improve, leading some teachers and administrators to take matters into their own hands.

Atlanta became the poster child for such corruption after a recent government probe found that 44 schools and 178 teachers and principals had been faking test scores for the past decade. Dozens of schools in Pennsylvania, including many in the Philadelphia area, are under investigation. In the District, the inspector general for the federal Education Department is looking into suspected cheating, and D.C. Public Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson has welcomed the review.

Similar cheating charges have confronted schools in Dallas, Baltimore, Houston and elsewhere.

More than 30 New Jersey schools remain under investigation for falsifying test scores, and state officials are taking a variety of steps to prevent cheating.

[Presbyterian Reporter]

I looked at the results for my own community and there are two high schools with very suspect results. One school went from a "D" grade to an "A" grade. That is statistically impossible without teachers cheating.

Check the results in your own community.

[struggle]

Same thing happened to a high school in Port Royal, MS. Went from a ‘1’ (lowest) to a ‘5’ (highest) in one year with a new principal.

[from occupied ga]

Schools scramble to stop cheating scandals

Note the inadvertent honesty in the headline - stop the scandals, not the cheating.

[TexasFreeper2009]

A representative of the state and or federal government should be present at all testing for NCLB

[YHAOS]

. . . closing the barn door . . .

[wrench]

Prison time, forfeiture of test score based bonuses, and loss of all retirement benefits will make this sort of behavior stop instantly.

While I hate the phrase “for the children”, this crime really does penalize the kids the most. A student really only has one chance to learn, and that window isn’t but a few years long. If the “educators” are spending their time in the lounge altering test sheets, the kids are being short changed on their instruction.

Get rid of all the wiz-bang electronic toys and go back to the 3 “R”s.

[struggle]

Well, from my 6 years experience as a teacher administering standardized exams, I’ve never seen a state rep. at a test, but the admin. have always said that they “could” come.

The point where this stuff happens is in the classroom (teachers pointing at answers, nodding, shaking heads), and when the tests get put in the vault (they get taken out and erased - but this can be found out by erasure analysis).

[reaganaut]

Education specialists say the scandals are largely driven by the high stakes attached to the tests. After the implementation of the 2001 No Child Left Behind Act, schools can be labeled as “failing” if test scores don’t improve, leading some teachers and administrators to take matters into their own hands.

- - - - - - - - -

I’m surprised the WT gave the ‘its Bush’s fault’ line.

To the *cough* educators - here is a concept: TRY ACTUALLY TEACHING!!!!!

[shoff]

Where did you find this information I would like to check local but I can’t find it.

[EyeGuy]

“Note the inadvertent honesty in the headline - stop the scandals, not the cheating.”

####

First thing that struck me as well.

That said, this whole No Child Left Behind merit-based “improvement” construct is a scam of the first order. Kind of like the sham “graduation rates” of certain NCAA athletic programs(See Georgetown University ThugBall program),

The one student aspect that has the closest correlation with academic performance is a quality home life, with parentS (plural emphasis) actively involved.

Not money.

Not “good schools”.

Not class size.

Not “quality” teachers.

[reaganaut]

How do we check the scores?

[TexasFreeper2009]

Any teacher and or administrator caught doing this should be immediately fired and lose their pension. Any school where this is widespread should be closed immediately with all the teachers and administrators fired.

I think they should be prosecuted for fraud too.

[Craftmore]

I worked for an insurance company many years ago that had a 2 week state licensing school.Every day of that 2 weeks was used taking practice state tests.
the entire class consisted of learning what the different types of questions were and how to recognize the correct answer.No actual training was given in state insurance laws or regulations.
I explain this,because when the state of Ohio started testing our schools,I saw the exact same thing occur in my childrens classrooms.Only instead of spending 2 weeks,the teachers would spend an entire month twice a school year teaching my children how to pass the 2 tests given each year.Out of a 9 month school year,2 months were wasted taking practice tests on how to recognize the correct answers,but NO actual learning or teaching occurred.I saw this happen in all 3 school districts within my area.This was in Athens county Ohio,and happened in Nelsonville ,Athens,and Alexander school districts.When I would confront the teachers,principals,and superintendent,I was told it was the only way they could meet the states requirements.
I feel this is cheating of an even worse type than simply erasing answers,as it cheated my children of 2 months of valuable learning time.It also caused burn out of students when all they do for 2 months is take practice tests.

[Presbyterian Reporter]

Our school district is county-wide and the test result information is posted on the school district website for all years from 2001.

If your school district does not post the data on their website, give the Superintendent a phone call and scare the hell out of him or her that you are demanding to see the results for each school for the past ten years.

[Presbyterian Reporter]

Go to your school district website to see if they post the results. Otherwise, place a phone call to the superintendent and demand to get the results for each school for the last ten years.

[PapaBear3625]

Well, from my 6 years experience as a teacher administering standardized exams, I’ve never seen a state rep. at a test, but the admin. have always said that they “could” come. The point where this stuff happens is in the classroom (teachers pointing at answers, nodding, shaking heads), and when the tests get put in the vault (they get taken out and erased - but this can be found out by erasure analysis).

One solution might be to bar any teacher from proctoring the testing of her own students. On test day, the teachers get put on buses and randomly sent to schools in neighboring school districts, with assignment made on testing day to preclude making quick deals with known counterparts.

[Presbyterian Reporter]

One solution might be to bar any teacher from proctoring the testing of her own students.

---

I think it will require poll watchers from each political party to stop cheating. On test day each classroom would be monitored by a Republican and a Democrat.

And then the finished tests would be placed into a tamper proof box.

The Teachers Union has too much at stake here to trust them in anything.

[A_perfect_lady]

I wish I could make Freepers understand how bad these tests are, how disconnected they are from the kids we teach and the curriculum that is imposed upon us. The people who make these tests and the people who impose our curriculum are not the same people, folks. We get this curriculum wherein we are instructed... ORDERED... to have the kids read Maya Angelou, bell hooks, Gary Soto, Amy Tan... contemporary writers from a politically correct roster who tend to write fairly simply, in short sentences...

Then the kids get the state tests with excerpts from Call of the Wild and Anne of Green Gables. You can just imagine these kids' reactions. They have no idea what the heck they are looking at.

As a teacher, my options are: don't teach the curriculum (and get into trouble), help them with the test (and get into trouble), or let them fail (and get into trouble.) It's miserable.

[struggle]

In my experience, students are organized alphabetically and assigned to classrooms in that manner. Teacher’s don’t proctor most of the kids that they teach.

[DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis]

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