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"When teachers are cheaters" | HOMEPAGE |
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As the pressure to improve test scores increases, more administrators are fixing the numbers
This spring has been a season of embarrassment for the nation's public schools. In suburban Potomac, Md., an elementary-school principal resigned last month after parents complained their children were coached to give the right answers on state tests. In Ohio, state officials are investigating charges of cheating by teachers at a Columbus elementary school that was recently praised by President Clinton for raising test scores. And in New York City, more than four dozen teachers and administrators from 30 schools stand accused of urging their students to cheat on various standardized city and state tests.
IT'S
BAD ENOUGH when kids get kicked out for cheating. But as the school year
ends, an alarming number of teachers and principals face charges of fixing
the numbers on high-stakes tests that determine everything from whether
an individual kid gets promoted to an entire district's annual budget.
Although there are no firm statistics, school officials agree that the
problem has become much worse in the past few years as more states have
adopted testing as a way to audit national and state educational standards.
In theory, the exams ensure that teachers pass on the right lessons. The
problem is that high scores- ton high standards - have become the holy
grail.
In some parts of the country, educators can get bonuses of as much as $25,000
if they raise their student's scores. In other places, school officials
can lose their jobs if their students don't produce the right numbers.
And the repercussions extend beyond the classroom, even affecting real-estate
values. Scores have become "the only exchangeable currency we have any
more about whether schools are bad or good", says Joseph Renzulli, director
of the National Center on the Gifted and Talented at the University of
Connecticut.
Even the
best tests are designed with much more modest goals. They're supposed to
be diagnostic tools to help pinpoint gaps in learning. They don't provide
a full picture of a child's or a school's accomplishments any more
than a single blood test can supply all the data a doctor needs to treat
a patient. And they can have a significant error rate, says George Madaus,
a professor of education and public policy at Boston College. "You can't
use these tests by themselves to make any decisions," he says.
That has'nt stopped policymakers from trying to use tests as a quick fix
for all that ails public schools. And the pressure quickly trickles down
to principals and teachers who are supposed to be role models. No one's
condoning cheating, but test critics see it as the inevitable side effect
of score mania. "Cheating is simply one more piece of a dangerous fallout
from the politicians and bureaucrats placing too much emphasis on standardized
tests," says Peter Sacks, the author of "Standardized Minds," a critical
look at the testing movement.
In the worst cases,
teachers or administrators are accused of out-and-out fraud. In Columbus,
for example, students say adult tutors actually told them the right answers
- a charge the school's principal denies. Last year a Texas grand jury
indicted the Austin Independent School District on charges of criminal
tampering. In what was believed to be the country's first prosecution of
a school district, investigators alleged that low-scoring students were
excluded from the test, thus raising the overall results. One official
resigned, denying wrongdoing, and the district avoided a trial through
plea bargaining.
NONSENSE CONTENT
In other cases, teachers are alleged to have coached students by having them study earlier versions of an exam. Sometimes teachers have kids practice questions that are almost identical to ones that will be on a test. That's not technically cheating, but it isn't real teaching either. Lorrie Shepard, an education professor at the University of Colorado at Boulder, uses the example of third graders preparing for a math test that the teachers know will contain a question asking kids to circle one third of a set of three umbrellas. The kids practice by circling one third of a set of three ice-cream cones. They'll probably get the right answer on the test, but are they learning the broader point about fractions? "Can they even circle two thirds of the ice-cream cones?" Shepard asks."What about two thirds of nine Popsicle sticks?"
This sort of "teaching to the test" is a far more serious threat than outright
cheating, according to some experts. Renzulli calls this the "ram, remember,
regurgitate" curriculum, a new version of the three "R's". "It's nonsense
content,"says Linda McNeil, a professor of education at Rice University
and author of "Contradictions of School Reform: The Educational Costs of
Standardized Tests." In Texas, she says, some kids spend months doing nothing
but preparing for the test. "It's like you're mentally teaching kids to
hit the delete key," she says. "You're training them to forget. The real
cheating is of a solid academic curriculum."
Other educators
worry that all the publicity about cheating could trigger more than just
a backlash against tests. "We may find ourselves in a position where the
standards movement may die, and I think that would be a tragedy," says
Bob Chase, president of the National Education Association. A better solution
is to de-emphasize tests and focus on more sophisticated assessments like
student portfolios and classroom performance. That may not entirely eliminate
cheating, but it certainly would make it a lot harder to play with the
numbers.
With
Ellise Pierce in Dallas and Erika Check
Yes, the repercussions of
failure are too great, and teachers are under too much pressure to deliver
good scores.
| 12% |
No, cheating is always wrong,
and teachers should act as role models.
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Table of contents |
"When teachers are cheaters" | HOMEPAGE |
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TQM in US schools |
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