Posted on 06/19/2002 2:11:05 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
SUGAR LAND -- Two administrators at George Bush High School have resigned amid allegations that student records were manipulated to improve the school's rating on the TAAS test.
Jean Bailey, the school's dean of instruction and TAAS coordinator, and principal David M. Baker resigned before the Fort Bend school district's investigation was completed, district officials said Tuesday.
District spokeswoman Mary Ann Simpson said the pair would have been fired had they not quit.
"We were outraged when we learned of this," Simpson said.
The district began investigating in March after receiving an anonymous letter with detailed allegations about a scheme to improve the school's chances for a high rating in the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills, which students had taken the previous month.
The investigative team, led by the school system's attorney, Bernadette Gonzalez, and the director of testing and evaluation, Kathy Aaron, interviewed 21 employees, including Bailey and Baker, as well as four students, officials said.
Although the probe found numerous violations of local and state education policies and rules, investigators said they found no evidence of cheating or tampering with test answers. Their final report was issued earlier this month.
The report states that "a preponderance of evidence suggests" that Bailey, 50, violated district policies and procedures, Texas Education Agency rules and TAAS rules and procedures.
Simpson said that, to achieve an "exemplary" rating on the test, Bailey kept some students who might not score well from taking it. She also voided the test scores of others, Simpson said.
The report criticized Baker, 54, for failing to monitor Bailey's activities sufficiently.
Bailey and Baker could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
Among their findings, the investigators reported that the school registrar told Bailey in January that 15 students who had been considered exempt from the test would be required to take it after all.
Only three took the test, however, investigators said.
Also, the report states, Bailey reviewed the answer sheets of another 24 students, improperly voided some and directed her secretary to void others.
The panel also said that three students who were receiving English as a Second Language services were improperly exempted, even though they were not recent immigrants and were supposed to take the test.
Additionally, the report states, Bailey violated the state education agency's rules when she ordered a custodian to discard a stack of TAAS booklets he had found near a trash can.
Investigators also said the answer sheets for 20 10th-graders were changed to portray them as 11th-graders.
The school's state rating is based only on the scores of 10th-graders. "The accountability rating for Bush High School will be, therefore, inaccurate," investigators said.
They concluded that Bailey intentionally manipulated the grade levels of dozens of students to improve the school's chances for obtaining an exemplary rating.
"One witness reported that when he told Bailey about his concerns that she was violating TEA and TAAS rules and regulations, Bailey is alleged to have said she didn't care," the report states. "She is alleged to have told witnesses that she would hang the reprimand from TEA alongside the certificate showing that Bush High School had achieved exemplary rating."
Simpson said it will be up to the Texas Education Agency to decide whether the school's TAAS rating will be affected.
"We don't think they will punish the entire campus due to the unethical behavior of two administrators," she said.
She added that it is impossible to determine what the rating would have been had the tests been administered correctly.
About 430 10th-graders were present on the three days of testing, but only 392 took the test, officials said.
Students who did not take the exams will have several opportunities in the next two years to take the tests before graduating.
Bailey was a teacher for 21 years and worked in the Brazosport school district before coming to the Fort Bend system in April 2000, district officials said.
Baker joined the district two years ago after working in the Lubbock school district.
When the probe began, Baker was reassigned to the athletic department and Bailey was placed on administrative leave.
No other school officials were investigated, Simpson said, and no others are suspected. Neither are any teachers or students suspected, she said.
Adrienne Sobolak, spokeswoman for the state education agency, said the investigative report is still under review.
Sobolak said local educators sometimes feel intense pressure to produce high TAAS scores.
"I can speculate that they were feeling so much internal pressure for whatever reason that they lost sight of the purpose of the test."
She said criminal charges could be filed if it is found that TAAS documents were tampered with.
State law prohibits altering or tampering with official documents, Sobolak said, and TAAS booklets and answer sheets are state property.
In 1999, a principal in the Houston school district and one in Fort Bend County resigned after allegations of tampering with student answers on the TAAS.
She should be hanging out in a jail cell.
Houston, we've located the problem.
I need one good example of how student achievement was improved by taking money out of the classroom and investing in a "dean of instruction." And she has a secretary, no less.
If she simply stuck to her normal twaddle, she would have been a pure waste of tax dollars. As it is, the district has received a negative return on its investment.
Here's another point of view about accountability.
Orlando Sentinel MY WORD - Low scores? Throw out the test - By L. Calvin Dillon | My Word (June 18, 2002 ) [Full Text] If you really want to help the students and teachers at Mollie Ray Elementary and the other schools where test scores are low, don't throw more money at them. Throw out the test and the school grading system.
I know what you are thinking; "This must be one of those teachers from an F school, trying to rationalize and justify how he really did teach his kids, but they flunked anyway because of poverty or lack of parental involvement." Actually, I teach at the only high school in Orange County to get a B on Gov Jeb. Bush's grading system. My problem is not with what grade schools get; my problem is that we are giving grades at all.
We don't grade police departments on how many people "fail" and get arrested. We don't grade fire departments based on how many houses they "let" burn to the ground because they "didn't care about the ones they couldn't save." Why don't we treat schools with the same understanding and respect? The answer is simple; we don't respect what teachers do, and we are blindly putting our faith in the ability of a single measure to tell us what we are worth.
The reality is that some kids will never test well on a multiple-choice standardized test. I am not talking about kids raised in poverty, or minority children who traditionally perform poorly on standardized tests. I have been working with rising seniors who have failed the 10th-grade FCAT three times already.
These are not uneducated, illiterate students who have been "socially promoted on their merry way to a lifetime of poverty." These are children whose skills lie in other areas, such as music, the arts, or verbal communication. Some suffer from test anxiety. They get good grades in hard classes, they do quality work, and they can read just fine. They just can't pass this test because they don't fit the mold of the kind of child who scores well on it. You cannot measure every child's worth with a test like FCAT.
One of my rising seniors gets so worked up the night before the test that she vomits and gets no sleep. She has flunked it three times. If she does not pass the test before March, she will not graduate. This is a smart, motivated child who works hard and consistently makes the honor roll, but Bush's A+ Plan and FCAT will deny her a high school diploma because of one test score.
Another of my 10th-graders missed passing by one point. Are we really prepared to put enough faith in this test to say that, because a child misses one question on one test, he doesn't deserve his diploma?
Mollie Ray missed scoring a D by three points on the state's scale. Yet we are confident in devaluing the hard work those teachers and students did because of those three points. Lakeville and Palm Lake Elementary schools each scored an A, but the difference between the school scores was 90 points. How does this make sense?
In February, state lawmakers in Kansas answered questions from the Kansas statewide achievement test so they could get a feel for what the experience is like for the children. I challenge Bush and state legislators to do the same. If your test really is the accurate measure of a person's value and education you claim it to be, take it yourself and see what you are worth. [End]
L. Calvin Dillon lives in Oviedo.
He was happy, we were happy, the administration was happy and our parents were happy. Everyone was happy! Except no one learned anything.
The more things change...
It is a fact that the Sophistic appeared as a sweeping attitude of abnegation, of doubting every thing. And it emerged with the intention of demolishing whatever structure the logic of the pre-Socratics had methodically built up. But what was the motive behind this activity? As far as we know, this attitude of the Sophists was the result of disillusionment with the answers given by pre-Socratic philosophy. The great thinkers of Sophistic realized the vanity of a theoretical investigation which never arrived at positive conclusions that were acceptable to all. This at least was the lesson they learned from the schools of [p. 183] pre-Socratic philosophy which accepted as the ultimate principle of the universe some times water, other times fire, some times speaking of 'becoming' and other times of 'being'. This theoretical disillusionment led to Scepticism [Protagoras] and to Nihilism [Gorgias] of knowledge and as a consequence the correlation of all the 'truths' and 'values'. Thus the Sophists doubted all things. To them all things were relative, the logical concepts, the ethical values, religion, justice, the state, and so on. And because they were all relative, they could support two different arguments for the same thing. Thus emerged contradiction which stood alongside reason, and counter-logic which paired with logic. It is perhaps conceivable that the democratic government of Athens in the 5th Century B.C. which accepted reason and contradiction, had encouraged the growth of Sophistic counter-logic. On the other hand, the opposite could have happened, that is, Sophistic counter-logic could have influenced the theoretic presupposition and basis of the democratic dialogue.The Sophists were primarily teachers, and in fact very highly paid teachers. They taught general education and they taught rhetoric. They exploited the needs of their age and specially the demand of the Athenian parents for the education of their young to prepare them for an active part in public life and in the democratic administration of the city. Thus the Sophists became the founders of pedagogical science. But also of many other sciences such as psychology which is the basis of pedagogy, and the art of 'persuasion' generally--an especially Sophistic art--of linguistics and grammar which was essential training for thorough mastery of rhetoric, and other similar and associated sciences.
Much argument has been spent on the differences between the Sophists and Socrates. Yet, they had more in common than they had differences. Plato was responsible for emphasizing the differences and toning down the similarities. But both the Sophists and Socrates ceased to preoccupy themselves with the natural being or becoming of the pre-Socratics, and directed their interest to man and his works. Also common was the belief that the former way of life, of tradition, could not survive, for it had already been corroded in their day. The answers given to this last problem by the Sophists and Socrates differed. The Sophists replied negatively by striving to demolish tradition and the traditional values, whereas Socrates in a positive manner, strove to build these up from the beginning on logical foundations.
Exactly!!
Enjoyed your post.
Princes and noblemen invited Socrates to give lectures in exchange for a luxuriant lifestyle. Socrates taught several pupils but did not accept any fees for his services.
In fact, Socrates believed that accepting pay would corrupt teachers. Socrates' love of truth stands in sharp contrast to the Sophists who would argue either side of an issue for pay.
Now compare the quality of teaching by professional teachers in government schools (high pay) to the quality of teaching in private religious schools (negligible pay) and the quality of teaching in homeschools (no pay).
Type of school: Gov't schools -------> private/religious schools -------> homeschooling
Teacher salary: High pay -------> modest pay -------> no pay
Teaching method: Sophistic -------> Sophistic/Truth-based -------> Truth-based
Moral instruction: Nihilism -------> Pragmatism/Virtue -------> Virtue
Moral environment: Nihilistic -------> Pragmatic/protective -------> Protective
Teaching method: Arguing 'both sides'/sophism -------> Pragmatic (pedantic)/truth-seeking (socratic/dialectic/heuristic) -------> truth-seeking (socratic/dialectic/heuristic)
Competence.
---max
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I will suggest that if we get government out of the education business, the problem will be solved in less than three years.
Have you missed the educational value of FreeRepublic?
Bricks and mortar schools are on their way to becoming an anachronism. One super teacher can teach billions via the internet. Online schools are going to proliferate like rabbits.
Learn it. Live it. Love it.
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