Test scores too good to be true?

[bluestateguy]

Look for more cooking of the books and fancy statistical footwork as politicians mandate that standardized test scores be linked to teacher tenure, evaluation and pay. Oh, and maybe school administrators will find convenient ways of suspending underachieving students from school on the days designated for standardized testing. I don't condone the cheating and the book cooking, but with these policies coming down from Washington and state capitals, such responses are understandable.

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20110305/NEWS0102/103060362

An investigation of school standardized testing in Ohio, five other states and the District of Columbia has uncovered hundreds of suspicious patterns, including extreme increases and declines in year-to-year scores for entire classes and grade levels.

A USA Today analysis of standardized tests scores of tens of millions of students found at least 1,610 cases in which public school classes - a school's entire fifth grade, for example - boasted what analysts say are statistically improbable gains on state tests. There were another 317 examples of equally large, year-to-year declines in entire grades' scores.

These test score anomalies surfaced in Ohio, Washington, D.C., Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida and Michigan. For each state, the newspaper obtained three to seven years' worth of scores.

The paper and its news media partners also collected dozens of public records about state and school district investigations into allegations of testing violations by teachers and other educators.

more

[madfloridian]

1. Meanwhile, the attrition rate at charter schools...

continues to grow with no publicity.

Charter schools that boast high test scores should reveal their attrition rates as well.

You know, make it public and all that.

[chaplainM]

2. Sounds like Chapter 1 of Freakonomics! n/t

[Liberal_in_LA]

3. k&r

[devils chaplain]

4. "If it seems to good to be true...

it probably is."

Timelessly true. Real progress in education is going to happen in small steps, not leaps and bounds. There doesn't seem to be a "magic bullet" for improving education.