When standardized test scores soared in D.C., were the gains real?

[Iwillnevergiveup]

USA Today
By Jack Gillum and Marisol Bello

##snip##

"A USA Today investigation, based on documents and data secured under D.C,'s Freedom of Information Act, found that for the past three school years, most of Noyes' classrooms had extraordinarily high numbers of erasures on state tests. The consistent pattern was that wrong answers were erased and changed to right ones."

##snip##

"Noyes is one of 103 public schools here that have had erasure rates that surpassed D.C. averages at least once since 2008. That's more than half of D.C. schools."


A damning endictment of Michelle Rhee who is now looking to raise $1 billion for her non-profit StudentsFirst.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2011-03-28-1Aschooltesting28_CV_N.htm

edited for link

[Iwillnevergiveup]

1. Immense pressure, big bonuses for high achievement

and massive teacher/ principal firings always come back to bite school districts. It's not just D.C.

[rpannier]

2. Very interesting article

I wonder if Duncan will read it?

or more importantly if the MSM will decide to mention it

[Scottybeamer70]

3. With all that money at stake......

do you really believe that no one would cheat to get it? Look around at what goes on in lots
of areas of our lives........there are many, many who would cheat their way to a hefty check!
Let's start with congress.................

[Iwillnevergiveup]

4. Ms. Rhee made New York Magazine this week, too

http://nymag.com/news/features/michelle-rhee-2011-3/index2.html

##snip##

"When, in the midst of Wisconsin's standoff, I ask Rhee whether she was supportive of the draconian anti-union bill, she says no. She believes that teachers should be able to collectively bargain salaries and benefits, though not issues surrounding in-class performance. But she adds that she sympathizes with the impulse behind the legislation. 'There's frustration, and rightly so, with the way collective bargaining has played out over the last couple of decades.'

"'Rhee is trying to hold togeher a coalition of Democrats who are somewhat skeptical of teachers' unions and right-wing ideologues who want to destroy unions entirely,' says Richard Kahlenberg of the left-leaning Century Foundation. He argues that the popular position of hte moment - love the teacher, hate the union - is internally inconsistent and unsustainable, and wrote in a recent Washington Post column that 'Democrats like Michelle Rhee paved the way for Scott Walker.'"

##snip##