Huge academic cheating scandal in Atlanta

[themusicteacher]

http://news.yahoo.com/americas-bigg...eating-scandal-unfolds-atlanta-213734183.html

So, anyone with an ounce of sense could see this sort of thing coming when standardized tests became the end-all-be-all in education. My issues with testing are myriad but I think it boils down to the fact that everyone was looking for a silver bullet, one-size-fits-all, cookie-cutter solution to some schools (and students) not doing so well. Beginning with the idea that measuring our test scores against other countries' is functionally misleading at best and meaningless at worst and ending with the notion that you could actually make schools better by putting intense pressure on teachers and administrators, NCLB has been almost entirely an unmitigated disaster (the exception being that it helped to shed light on schools that were were terrible). A few questions arise:

1. Does this sort of thing prove anything other than teachers don't want to lose their jobs (or want to receive their incentives if they're available) or their funding? For example: does it show they really care but that the problems are too big to solve given the time frame and available resources?

2. Does this help prove that we need to rethink high-stakes testing or that, in fact, we need to redouble efforts and place even more emphasis on testing? (after all, if it means so little, why cheat?)

3. Since we'll doubtless see more of this, does it say anything more about the education system other than people will do what it takes to not lose jobs, funding and local control?

4. Is this an indictment of that particular district and those involved? The educational system in general? Legislative boondoggles that ask too much of or restrict schools too much? Our society?

It should be more than obvious to anyone who observes or is involve in education that these issues have been a very long time in coming and there are no easy answers as to how to solve the problems. This scandal is likely, IMO, symptomatic of much larger problems from many facets of not just the schools but America in general (anti-intellectualism being first and foremost in my mind).

I'd love to hear thoughts and comments on this, particularly from educators and admins.

 

[Complexity]

A great many teachers, administrators, and politicians should be fired, and many of them should be placed on trial.

 

[Orangutan]

The Freakanomics book had something on this. It had some interesting text on how you detect cheating, but more so proposed that by rewarding and punishing administrators and teachers on the results of standardized tests, you have created an incentive to cheat.

 

[Varanid]

The Freakanomics book had something on this. It had some interesting text on how you detect cheating, but more so proposed that by rewarding and punishing administrators and teachers on the results of standardized tests, you have created an incentive to cheat.

Funny! I just watched the movie last night - then heard this report this morning. In the movie, there is a whole sequence on the rampant cheating in Sumo wrestling. I remember thinking about the parallels.

The economist said something to the effect of:
When looking at the results, it was obvious that there was systemic cheating without even watching a single match.

 

[Dr. Keith]

The Freakanomics book had something on this. It had some interesting text on how you detect cheating, but more so proposed that by rewarding and punishing administrators and teachers on the results of standardized tests, you have created an incentive to cheat.

Exactly. Which is why I am glad that our local districts have not used test scores in any way that would create such an incentive.

Instead, they have used testing to highlight sub-populations that need more attention in certain subjects. In fact, testing is allowing the schools to get away from a cookie cutter, one size fits all, approach to teaching and asses where the standard format has fallen short. By focusing on those kids when their tests first show that they are slipping behind the school can catch them up and prevent the cascade effect of not grasping a particular concept.

Tests are a tool. Like any tool, there are good ones and bad ones. But more importantly, there good uses and bad uses. Using a student evaluation tool to evaluate teachers is a bad use of the tool. Not really a reflection on the tool itself.

 

[Muldur]

The problem is that standardized testing is the only objective way to determine conclusively what students have and have not learned.

 

[fuelair]

All of this would be really neat IFF a large majority of the students had the intellectual capability to handle the types of things tested. This requires the ability to remember and be able to apply techniques/methods - often in fields they were not used in per teaching requirements as set up by the specific state - which many do not have. It requires the ability to manipulate data, organize data, analyze data which many students do not have. Teachers/school systems can overcome these and other such to an extent that is exactly correspondant to the teacher to student time available, the interest (positive) of the parent, the availability of specialists in language arts/math/ESOL/ESE to work with the students with problems in any one or more of these areas and the ability and willingness of the student to take advantage of this help. Which, of course requires money that most school systems never had - much less have now.

Fortunately I will be out of teaching just after the feces truly hits the fan here in FL (my estimate is 2014) when we will start the big teacher loss due to the teacher's choice because of the debilitating effects of the new test plans just started and expanding on over the next 4-5 years.

Will be interesting to watch.

 

[paiute]

The Freakanomics book had something on this. It had some interesting text on how you detect cheating, but more so proposed that by rewarding and punishing administrators and teachers on the results of standardized tests, you have created an incentive to cheat.

This was inevitable, given the First Law of Metridynamics: The observed metric will improve.

 

[Complexity]

The problem is that standardized testing is the only objective way to determine conclusively what students have and have not learned.

Can't agree.

People who do well on standardized tests tend to do well on standardized tests. Some people test well; others do not.

Doing well on a really well designed standardized test (e.g. one that has enough choices, choices that are all plausible, choices that represent common errors) can indicate knowledge of the material.

Doing poorly on a really well designed standardized test may be the result of a lack of familiarity with the question/answer styles, test anxiety, OCD, distractability, or a host of other conditions that can interfer with test taking.

It is easy for cheating to occur in many standardized testing situations.

Standardized testing can only test limited aspects of a person's knowledge and competencies.

 

[MattusMaximus]

The Freakanomics book had something on this. It had some interesting text on how you detect cheating, but more so proposed that by rewarding and punishing administrators and teachers on the results of standardized tests, you have created an incentive to cheat.

This ^

I teach in a highly competitive school district, and I have seen many instances of cheating among individual students (and groups of students) over the years. I see no reason to believe that adults under similar high-pressure situations, as that outlined in the OP, would behave any differently.

Sad, but true

The thing that burns my ass is the inevitable bashing that public-education haters are going to deliver on this news. They will use this as just another excuse to claim that public education, teachers, unions, yadda yadda are worthless. And they will further argue that "it'll all just get better" if we push private school vouchers, etc.

Of course, they neglect to mention that the private sector doesn't have a much better track record on cheating and honesty. Remember Enron, and what about the current scandal with Rubert Murdoch's News Corp?

 

[MattusMaximus]

The problem is that standardized testing is the only objective way to determine conclusively what students have and have not learned.

Wrong.

Ever heard of a lab practicum?

 

[Dr. Keith]

The thing that burns my ass is the inevitable bashing that public-education haters are going to deliver on this news. They will use this as just another excuse to claim that public education, teachers, unions, yadda yadda are worthless. And they will further argue that "it'll all just get better" if we push private school vouchers, etc.

Of course, they neglect to mention that the private sector doesn't have a much better track record on cheating and honesty. Remember Enron, and what about the current scandal with Rubert Murdoch's News Corp?

This ^

And really, it is easy to list all the problems with testing, now where are the solutions? How else can you measure the progress of millions of diverse individuals and create some meaningful data that will help identify successes and failures in such a complex system? What is the alternative? No accountability, that is the alternative.

PS: Private schools in our area will not take the same tests as the public schools. I think it is primarily out of fear that they won't compare well when adjustments are made for socio-economic differences.

 

[Dr. Keith]

Wrong.

Ever heard of a lab practicum?

I agree for most purposes, but can you imagine the variance of testing conditions that would exist in a nationwide lab practicum administered by teachers who are being judged based on the results of said practicum?

For nationwide comparative purposes the lab practicum falls a bit short.

 

[fuelair]

Can't agree.

People who do well on standardized tests tend to do well on standardized tests. Some people test well; others do not.

Doing well on a really well designed standardized test (e.g. one that has enough choices, choices that are all plausible, choices that represent common errors) can indicate knowledge of the material.

Doing poorly on a really well designed standardized test may be the result of a lack of familiarity with the question/answer styles, test anxiety, OCD, distractability, or a host of other conditions that can interfer with test taking.

It is easy for cheating to occur in many standardized testing situations.

Standardized testing can only test limited aspects of a person's knowledge and competencies.

This!!: I test VERY well on standardized multiple choice tests (words, numbers, symbols figure arrangements, patterns... makes no difference). Most students tend not to - most people tend not to (simplest way to cover is unless the MC is on a subject with specialized form and language I have not been taught or in a foreign language I score in the 90-100% range equivalent for that test) like my students. That's why I hate having to give them that type of test - though for most of those I have had in the last 12 years if we have questions that need more than five words to answer many do not bother ...can't win.

By the by, for the further interested, each year when we are introducing ourselves to each other at the beginning of the year I use this to point out a large misunderstanding people seem to often have on this: I tell them I made a 98 out of 100 (I am simplifying percentiles - but you knew that already)on the NTE (back in the early 80s) (this is, of course, true). Then I ask "So, does that make me really smart?" Usually general agreement. "So," ask I, "am I probably smarter than anyone else in this school?" Usually general agreement.
"OK," says I, "How many people are in this school?" We go through the numbers and get the actual approximate figure. I then ask how many hundred people do we have. Usually around 22 00. I then point out that I am at 98, so I am 3rd smartest of 100, but there are 2200 so there are at least 44 people smarter than me just at this school and as many as 65) - and that's just at our school - so, (I tell them) I do not want to hear anyone saying they can't do this - that I know it because I am smart but you aren't. I know it because I went to school and eventually learned it and if I can, you can........ (Then I explain the only effective way to cheat and explain it with the EM story and How Not to Try to Write a Paper and explain it with the DD story.)

I do love teaching - wish I could do more of it!!!

 

[fuelair]

This ^

And really, it is easy to list all the problems with testing, now where are the solutions? How else can you measure the progress of millions of diverse individuals and create some meaningful data that will help identify successes and failures in such a complex system? What is the alternative? No accountability, that is the alternative.

PS: Private schools in our area will not take the same tests as the public schools. I think it is primarily out of fear that they won't compare well when adjustments are made for socio-economic differences.

No!!! Say it ain't so!!!!

 

[MattusMaximus]

Tests are a tool. Like any tool, there are good ones and bad ones. But more importantly, there good uses and bad uses. Using a student evaluation tool to evaluate teachers is a bad use of the tool. Not really a reflection on the tool itself.

Well said.

 

[MattusMaximus]

PS: Private schools in our area will not take the same tests as the public schools. I think it is primarily out of fear that they won't compare well when adjustments are made for socio-economic differences.

This is one of the things which pisses me off about the "privatize schools" movement, specifically the voucher movement: they want to get their hands on public tax dollars, but they don't want to be held accountable worth a damn. Talk about wanting to have it both ways

 

[Garrette]

This!!: I test VERY well on standardized multiple choice tests (words, numbers, symbols figure arrangements, patterns... makes no difference). Most students tend not to - most people tend not to (simplest way to cover is unless the MC is on a subject with specialized form and language I have not been taught or in a foreign language I score in the 90-100% range equivalent for that test) like my students. That's why I hate having to give them that type of test - though for most of those I have had in the last 12 years if we have questions that need more than five words to answer many do not bother ...can't win.

By the by, for the further interested, each year when we are introducing ourselves to each other at the beginning of the year I use this to point out a large misunderstanding people seem to often have on this: I tell them I made a 98 out of 100 (I am simplifying percentiles - but you knew that already)on the NTE (back in the early 80s) (this is, of course, true). Then I ask "So, does that make me really smart?" Usually general agreement. "So," ask I, "am I probably smarter than anyone else in this school?" Usually general agreement.
"OK," says I, "How many people are in this school?" We go through the numbers and get the actual approximate figure. I then ask how many hundred people do we have. Usually around 22 00. I then point out that I am at 98, so I am 3rd smartest of 100, but there are 2200 so there are at least 44 people smarter than me just at this school and as many as 65) - and that's just at our school - so, (I tell them) I do not want to hear anyone saying they can't do this - that I know it because I am smart but you aren't. I know it because I went to school and eventually learned it and if I can, you can........ (Then I explain the only effective way to cheat and explain it with the EM story and How Not to Try to Write a Paper and explain it with the DD story.)

I do love teaching - wish I could do more of it!!!

What are the EM and DD stories?

 

[fuelair]

What are the EM and DD stories?

The EM (initials for the girl) is wherein 5 of us boys cheated off of a girl on 7th grade math exam - she cooperated. On a division problem, I worked it on my own, noticed she had it wrong and let her know - carefully. She - operating on the "who is cheating off of who" theory did not do so, nor did the other four boys. I made a B, the rest, including EM made Cs and looked like they were copying me and missed one. Lesson A) don't cheat. Lesson B: but, if you do, make sure the person you are cheating off of really is better than you on evrything.

The DD story is a 9th grade student I had. They were assigned to choose an animal and do a media center research paper (short) on that animal. DD's paper was turned in neatly tied in a purple string on notebook paper and with a lovely drawing in pencil of an earthworm. It was titled "Worms". (I am now leaving out fun details involving other teachers and a guidance councilor who said he was pretty sure she did copy it directly from an encyclopedia with no other thoughts on it.). First line of the report:
WORMS
An industrial city located on located on the Rhine river in Germany.


after a page and a half describing this, she went to the specific topic clearly meant to be "what worms eat" as it went on:

The Diet of Worms


This moral tale teaches: check your topic, check your source, do not plagiarize, know what the words you are writing down actually say AND DO NOT JUST COPY STUFF.

They laugh, but then they forget............................

 

[Muldur]

Can't agree.

People who do well on standardized tests tend to do well on standardized tests. Some people test well; others do not.

Doing well on a really well designed standardized test (e.g. one that has enough choices, choices that are all plausible, choices that represent common errors) can indicate knowledge of the material.

Doing poorly on a really well designed standardized test may be the result of a lack of familiarity with the question/answer styles, test anxiety, OCD, distractability, or a host of other conditions that can interfer with test taking.

It is easy for cheating to occur in many standardized testing situations.

Standardized testing can only test limited aspects of a person's knowledge and competencies.

Either you know the material or you don't. Rigorous testing is the only way to determine this.

There is no dispute about that fact, as it is self-evident.