<p>In his widely read 2005 book, Freakanomics, economist Steven Levitt described how he used statistical techniques to expose cheating in Chicago.</p>
<p>So anyone with a pulse would have known for the past 6 years not to cheat on standardized tests, as it is nearly impossible to hide. How could they miss that?</p>
<p>There is an a further recent advancement that can look at the dot pattern and identify if the dots are made by the same person or by different people.</p>
<p>I have a lot of school pride, and if my district/school/teachers were cheating to raise our name…I don’t know, but I’d be crushed</p>
<p>CSM is a very respected news reporting service.</p>
<p>Clearly, erasing and changing answers is cheating on multiple levels, and I agree that it is a result of making funding contingent on test scores. </p>
<p>But what about the “gray” area of coaching? I know of districts that spend weeks neglecting the curriculum and teaching to the test. Then they spend many class periods taking practice tests. Test practice appears as homework. There is even an official practice assessment test, which kids also have to practice for. What’s the point? Kids “learn” stuff for the test in hopes that they make a good guess, but they have no idea what they are doing. Maybe it isn’t exactly cheating, but it is certainly not in keeping with the spirit of improving teaching and raising the overall level of achievement. Excessive coaching makes the test results rather meaningless, or at least tainted.</p>
<p>OTOH, I guess you could look at the test contents as a benchmark for what the students should be learning. But then why bother to have any curriculum besides the test?</p>
<p>“Clearly, erasing and changing answers is cheating on multiple levels, and I agree that it is a result of making funding contingent on test scores.”</p>
<p>No offense meant, but the funding did not cause the cheating. I am sure most of the nation’s school personnel are not cheating, even though their funding is contingent on test scores.</p>
<p>The cheating is a result of character defects in those that cheated.</p>
<p>^I agree, dramadad. IMNHO, the motivation here was greed. BONUSES were tied to test results. However, anyone who cheats has a character flaw, regardless of the reason (read: rationalization/justification).</p>
<p>I don’t know why, but it continues to surprise me how depending upon the politics, beliefs, or philosophy of the wrong doer, law breaker or bad person, how there is either a rush to condemn or excuse unethical or illegal behavior.</p>
<p>Cheating is wrong in every walk of life NO MATTER WHO YOU ARE OR WHY YOU DO IT. C’mon people…</p>
<p>Not sure why the parsing of semantics. The cheating is an embarassment to the school system, which was already frought with problems, in a state with nororiously poor test scores. The pressure to improve these scores, with both financial incentives and jobs on the line (schools would close if scores did not improve), was apparently hard for many to resist. the really sad part was the tacit acceptance of this behavior by so many, and the punishment of the attempted whistle-blowers.</p>
<p>Well dramadad and believersmom (are you two related, or something?), I’d think of cheating as less of a character flaw in a weak person and more of a flaw in all humans. The pressure is insane for the teachers, whether they want a raise or want to keep their jobs, or if they don’t want to be punished for whistle blowing. I’d be surprised if you two wouldn’t also crack under those circumstances. </p>
<p>I suppose theft, murder, and greed in business are also flaws. However, we have systems in place to help humans combat their desire to do these things. Why shouldn’t we have systems (aka, non Bush) in place to work with teachers rather than force them to make some very hard decisions, where morality is gray (would you cheat if it meant your kid could go to college?).</p>
<p>hobbithill-
On the outside chance that you are seriously asking me, despite what I thought was a pretty clear position on the issue of cheating, allow me to clarify further:</p>
<p>No I would NOT cheat to get my kid into college. Furthermore, an acquaintance of my S was recently caught cheating THREE times before this kid’s fancy private school kicked him out. As a result, we have had numerous family discussions about this and my kid is pretty clear that if HE ever cheats, the school’s discipline is going to be the least of his concerns. Although, have to say, my son goes to a public HS where all the evil Bush policies are running wild and causing rampant cheating so probably nothing would happen from his school’s end. (yes, I am being sarcastic in case you need a road map) :)</p>
<p>As my late father (a mean Republican btw) used to say, “Peace in the Global Village…”</p>
<p>I did not mean would you cheat on tests. I meant if you would cheat like the teachers did and go along with it so that you weren’t fired or your boss would give you a raise, as higher scores mean higher pay. This is not about individual cheating. It is about a faulty system, but you already agree with that. People aren’t the problem (at least not long term. It’d be great if we could all rally and be moral beacons of beings).</p>
<p>The way school is taught they place way too much emphasis on test scores. For the past 7 or 8 years the entire year’s curriculum revolved around preparing for the standardized tests in April. Giving teachers bonuses for higher test scores just sets up a bad situation. Has anyone here see that movie Bad Teacher? Something kind of similar happened. Cameron Diaz’s character (the bad teacher) found out that the teacher at their school with the higher standardized test gets a bonus and she needed money for her boob job so she roofied a guy at the test making center to get the answers. I’m not saying this is realistic it just shows the ridiculousness of the standardized tests.</p>
<p>
There are two kinds of standardized tests: the one given by the state and the one given by the College Board. I don’t think there is no cheating in College Board test; however the test is monitored by the College Board, therefore there is less cheating.</p>
<p>I think state standardized tests are useful for kids from elementary school to middle school. Beyond that the tests are useless, wasting tax payers’ money and should be abandonned. HS state standardized tests only benefit school admin bureaucrats and real estate developers.</p>
<p>If inner city students would go home to a good book every night and read it for 2 hours rather than watch television, their test scores should not have to be manipulated. With the increase in their reading comprehension brought on by all the home practice, they should score far better in most areas being tested than they are now.</p>
<p>Like so many things, this was all about money. Teachers and administrators who improved tests scores, increased graduation rates not only received accolades (Beverly Hall - 2009 Superintendent of the Year by the Department of education) but cash. Teachers received bonuses and the school system received large amounts of federal grants. Beverly Hall, the architect of this whole disaster, earned large bonuses each and every year by APS for reaching the goals. But it was all cheating on tests and manipulating of the data. For example, the graduation rate increased dramatically in Atlanta Public Schools for which Hall was paid well for. However, the way that this was accomplished is students were transferred to other school districts if they indicated that they were planning to drop out. Teachers held “erasure parties” at private homes where they changed the answers to the tests en masse. </p>
<p>My kids attended Atlanta Public Schools for elementary and believe me, there are some fantastic teachers in this school system. However, the whole system is run like The Mob and if all 178 of those including the superintendent end up in handcuffs, I would feel that was a start.</p>
<p>This whole 'teaching for the test" thing is just a total money grab - teachers want the bonuses, school systems want the accolades and in some cases cash from the federal government, and the companies that make the tests are rolling in the dough.</p>
<p>There really has to be a better way to educate children and assess how well they are doing. Back when I went to school, there was yearly Iowa Tests of Basic Skills and then PSAT/SAT in high school. Greed and cash, once again, are out of control.</p>
<p>I graduated from APS a couple months ago. There are multiple problems that each require massive attention.</p>
<p>1) Broken families - A lot of these children come from broken, unstable, and impoverished families. </p>
<p>2) Lack of Discipline - Stemming from Point 1, a lot of these “parents” know absolutely nothing about how their children are doing in class unless a teacher calls home. Some of these parents in turn come and attack the teacher. Teachers are really powerless here and can’t do anything to discipline students. Detentions and suspensions are extra breaks for a lot of these children.</p>
<p>3) No evident planning for the future - Stemming from Points 1 and 2, these children don’t have a functioning model of success to emulate nor do they have any evident discipline to enact them. The culture promotes showing off so a lot of these parents would be caught dead if they don’t have X name brand clothes, nails or hair undone, and nobody runs to take the kid to see whether (s)he has dyslexia or if the child’s “slow”.</p>
<p>The thing is that while a lot of administrators may have been greedy and encouraged cheating for the money, a lot of these teachers I’m sure HAD NO OTHER OPTION! They already spend considerable class time teaching the test and assigning the test for homework.</p>
<p>Funding is only a small part of the problem, though it is a major problem in and of itself. Schools are funded via local property tax, but there is little revenue to collect 'round these parts.</p>
<p>ATL way to represent.</p>
<p>Am I wrong or does NCLB say that every child will be reading at grade level by 2014? And that each school will make proportionate progress toward that goal each year? So, by 2014, all of our school kids will be average or above average?
Daughter, very facile with everything except reading, read at 5th grade level after 10th grade - very good tutor could get her to 9th grade level but not beyond. Scored in the 600s on math part of SAT - tutor said would be well into 700s if she could read.
Daughter earned college degree in business and has been very sucessful in life, but she would have been a drag on the school under NCLB.</p>
<p>money makes people do weird things…immoral things… lol</p>
<p>If you’re not cheating, you’re not trying. Or so the saying goes…</p>
<p>Ok, I have to put in my $.02</p>
<p>I don’t like cheaters… but c’mon… I see people pointing the finger at this and it makes me wonder…</p>
<p>Do all of you report your income taxes with 100% accuracy?</p>
<p>(you don’t have to answer that)</p>
<p>My point is taken from something I read in the Bible; “Let he among you who is without sin, be the first to cast a stone”</p>