TYT: Atlanta Schools Cheating Scandal

[The Northerner]

Run time: 03:38 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbSKGFzPkaM   Posted on YouTube: July 07, 2011 By YouTube Member: TheYoungTurks Views on YouTube: 7265   Posted on DU: July 07, 2011 By DU Member: The Northerner Views on DU: 967

 
Numerous teachers and principals in the Atlanta public school system were caught cheating to improve student scores on standardized tests in part for financial bonuses. Ana Kasparian and Michael Shure discuss.

[Atypical Liberal]

1. Nothing wrong with standardized tests.

I fully support standardized testing. The reason why this cheating was caught was by statistical analysis of the data, including erasure rates of answers.

I have heard suggestions that testing should be done with portfolios, or essays, or other subjective means of evaluating students. The problem with these kinds of approaches is that they make it very hard to make comparisons across large bodies of students from different schools or even different classes, because it is up to the subjective assessment of different teachers to determine the grade. You will have teachers of different skill levels, different biases, and even, as this scandal shows, different motivations in grading. At least with standardized testing you can use statistical analysis to detect cheating. How will you detect it if there is no black-and-white assessment? You can't.

The other problem I have with the criticism of standardized testing is the insinuation that it is the test that is the cause of the poor academic performance of those students who under-perform. I strongly suspect that this is not the case. The students who are under-performing are probably not brilliantly educated about the subject material and simply mis-understood or mis-assessed by a poorly designed test. Almost certainly these students will be found to be under-performing by any legitimate metric used to measure their performance. Assuming this is true, instead of agonizing over what kind of test is appropriate for measuring student academic performance, we would be far better served identifying the causes of why students are not performing well on the existing tests.

I do take issue with using test scores as a means to somehow "hold teachers accountable". Teachers have very little power or authority to force kids to learn. Only parents have that ability. I am constantly amazed that the conservative movement, usually so big on the idea of "personal accountability", wants instead of holding parents and students accountable for their academic performance to hold teachers accountable for it. As the saying goes, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink". Teachers simply provide the water. It is up to parents to force their children to drink it. Only parents can provide the incentives and punishments for achieving (or not achieving) academic goals.

[1monster]

3. The problem is that the standardized tests have become the BE ALL and The END ALL of

education.

I started subbing just before the FCATS in Florida. Teachers had more diverse options for teaching their students. I know of one fifth grade teacher whose students all got As by te end of the school year. How? She simply had her students work on anything they did not understand until they did understand.

It was a lot of extra work for her, but it made sense. Most school work, especially in maths and sciences, build on material already learned. One cannot move up in math if one doesn't understand the basic material. She worked with her students until they did understand. And that made learning the next steps easier.

That isn't possible today, because the state mandates the pace at whcih the students are taught. If some students didn't quite get the middle lesson on which everything else the taught in the school year is based on. Tough!

Further, the standards keep going up and up and up. All students are now required to pass Geometry and Algebra II for graduation. ALL STUDENTS . Even those with learning disabilities who will never be college students without a miraculous event.

There used to be a balance in education. The purpose of an education was to ready students for life so they could get a job and make a living. For those who could do with their hands, but were not able to solve problems with their minds, there were vocational programs where the students were taught a trade and then apprenticed to an employer for practical experience. By the time they reached graduation age, these students would be employable in their chosen field and often the school helped them get their first post-graduation jobs. And some of those kids ended up financially better off than the "smart" kids.

Today, those kids are expected to pass the same courses that college prep kids take -- even when they will never use (if indeed they ever understand) the materials taught in those courses.

I work quite often with students who fall into the lower tier of learners. I know one school that was set up for students who could not make the grade in regular schools. This school had smaller clasesses, and classes that did not move as quickly as regular classes. Homework was rare as the students did almost all work in class so the teacher could supervise and help the students understand. It would take many students longer to graduate... I know some that stayed in school until they were 20 or 21 -- but they eventually made it. It doesn't work that way any more. With the FCAT, the princiapal is given two years to make the school a "passing" school. FCAT grades count very high in that "passing" grade. If, in two years, the school does not "pass" the FCATs, the principal if fired, and at this point, 85% of the faculty is let go. The state also has the option of closing the school altogether. And this is an "alternative school" which was never supposed to be graded this way at all.

The way the scores are calculated for the school grade is ridiculous. A student's grade is not compared to his/her grade from the previous year. The score of grade 9 last year would be compared to grade 9's score this year. All different students, maybe different teachers. The scoring rubric makes no real sense.

If one is going to use standarized testing, looking for improvements, one would need to compare the rate of improvement of the individual student to him/herself, not last year's class to this year's class.

There is no real teacher evaluation in the way standarized testing is used.

[Atypical Liberal]

4. I agree with most of that.

I agree with most of what you said. School is being made to be more regimented and educators are having less control over the curriculum. But standardized tests themselves are not to blame for this.

What this is symptomatic of is the fact that we are creating an education system that is intended to teach certain specific subjects to a certain level of mastery, and standardized tests provide a consistent way of measuring success in those subjects.

If we wish to change the curriculum, that's fine, I still like standardized testing as a way to measure student success of whatever curriculum is agreed upon.

I also somewhat agree with you that many kids are not college material, and this "everyone goes to college" idea is a bad one. Unfortunately, our society may have less and less opportunities for non-college-educated people.

Then again, blue-collar workers may have the last laugh. Knowledge is the most portable thing there is. But if you need someone to fix your car, it's hard to outsource that.

[stockholmer]

2. What a mess, and the right-wing scum will just bear down & SMASH the teacher unions with this, grrrr

This is one of those issues that a typical fluoride-head, mind-addled American sheep can simply be given a 10 second second sound bite/phrase and THAT is what will stick in their brain. PR disaster.