Under Pressure, Teachers Tamper With Test Scores

[Elmore Furth]

Freakonomics columnist Steven Levitt concluded that 4 percent to 5 percent of elementary school teachers cheat.

Could the 'Race to the Top' cause worsening SAT scores? It is probably not an accident that the 2009 SAT scores dropped, reflecting a failure of 'No Child Left Behind.'

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/08/26/sat

By TRIP GABRIEL
Published: June 10, 2010

The staff of Normandy Crossing Elementary School outside Houston eagerly awaited the results of state achievement tests this spring. For the principal and assistant principal, high scores could buoy their careers at a time when success is increasingly measured by such tests. For fifth-grade math and science teachers, the rewards were more tangible: a bonus of $2,850.

But when the results came back, some seemed too good to be true. Indeed, after an investigation by the Galena Park Independent School District, the principal, assistant principal and three teachers resigned May 24 in a scandal over test tampering.

The district said the educators had distributed a detailed study guide after stealing a look at the state science test by “tubing” it — squeezing a test booklet, without breaking its paper seal, to form an open tube so that questions inside could be seen and used in the guide. The district invalidated students’ scores.

Of all the forms of academic cheating, none may be as startling as when educators tamper with children’s standardized tests. But investigations in Georgia, Indiana, Massachusetts, Nevada, Virginia and elsewhere this year have pointed to cheating by educators. Experts say the phenomenon is increasing as the stakes over standardized testing ratchet higher — including, most recently, taking student progress on tests into consideration in teachers’ performance reviews.



Under Pressure, Teachers Tamper With Test Scores

[Posteritatis]

1. And that's on top of the fun stuff like school administrators forbidding failing grades. (nt)

[Rosa Luxemburg]

2. apparently I hear that this is widespread

[Lasher]

4. You're damned right it is.

I know from personal experience that this is so. Good teachers teach to meet the goals, bad teachers (and there's a shitload of them) lie about it.

[BrklynLiberal]

3. This was so totally predictable, and probably so widespread, that it barely

needs to be reported. It can just be assumed...by every one, every place.

[proud2BlibKansan]

5. Principals cheat more often than teachers

That's what I see.

[Smarmie Doofus]

6. Yes, school 'reformers', some teachers will inflate the test scores.

This, apparently, is a revelation to some folks.

Yes, school 'reformers', ALL teachers will be under pressure from admins to inflate test scores... just as they are now.

No, school 'reformers', test results tied to tenure, pay raises and renewal of individual one-year employment contracts will NOT be reliable test scores.

Question: does this matter to you? If not... WHY not?