TO CHEAT OR NOT TO CHEAT?

Dr. Wendy Ghiora – Posting #85 - March 12, 2011

The results of standardized tests are the driving force behind most public education institutions in the United States. It’s rather a sad note that performance on this one test determines major financial and political consequences for the staff and can result in less than a quality education for the students in our public schools today.

Scoring below grade level can mean a student is placed in additional hours of reading or math and is not permitted to take elective courses such as music or art. These students may have P.E. eliminated from their schedule. Many students are also subjected to being “taught to the test” for the entire school year. . Worse than that, this pressure has caused some teachers and even school principals to cheat on these pivotal tests. Is there an alternative to cheating?

Back in pre-historic times, when I attended school, there was no big deal made out of the yearly standardized tests. Why? Because our teachers had done their job; they had taught us what we were supposed to know as second, third or whatever graders we were. We took these tests each spring and never thought much about what they meant. That’s the way it should be.

USA Today (3/10, Upton) reports, "The standardized tests required by the federal No Child Left Behind law have become one of the most important - and controversial - ways to measure a student's progress, a teacher's competence, a school's success and a state's commitment to education." USA Today adds, "Teachers cheat sometimes and so do principals, according to academic studies. .. In an investigation of standardized testing in six states and the District of Columbia, USA TODAY found that an infraction such as casually coaching one student can carry nearly the same punishment as deliberately changing answers for a whole class."

Investigation Exposes Cheating At Michigan School. USA Today /Detroit Free Press (3/10, Dawsey) reports, "The teachers and principal at George Washington Carver Academy, a charter school" in Highland Park, MI, "have learned firsthand what happens when an official probe concludes that the staff cheated on a standardized test. Monitors sent by the Michigan Department of Education have watched over teachers here for the past two years as state tests have been administered." According to USA Today, "Educators at Carver cheated on the tests in many ways, stopping just short of giving students the answers, the state investigation found."

If schools in the very poorest of neighborhoods can “make the grade” without cheating, surely more fortunate schools should be able to follow suit. In New York City, most schools don't know if their students are progressing until the 3rd grade test. That just doesn't cut it. At the Harlem Success School, they test when students enter school to know children’s starting points. They test using both internal curriculum assessments and nationally-normed tests. The internal curriculum assessments allow school staff to target academic interventions in real-time, track trends in student learning, make curriculum enhancements, and provide useful feedback to teachers and parents. The nationally-normed tests allow the teachers to see how they match up to schools across the country.

Here are the results from this school that uses a culture of planning, goals, continuous evaluation, and teamwork, frequent communication with parents and relentless teaching and nurturing instead of cheating:

100% of Harlem Success 3rd graders passed the math exam, with 71% achieving the top score of "4," ranking the school #1 out of all public charters in the state.
• 95% of Harlem Success 3rd graders passed the English Language Arts exam, with nearly a quarter achieving the top score of "4," ranking the school #2 out of all public charters in the state.
• Harlem Success Academy ranks #32 out of all 3500 public schools in New York.
• No public school in the state scored higher than Harlem Success on the math exam.
• Harlem Success outperformed its school district by nearly 25 percentage points in English Language Arts. The percentage of students "advanced proficient" in math surpasses even the affluent Upper East Side of Manhattan by nearly 35%.

When teachers ’and principals’ jobs are threatened, some feel the only alternative is to cheat. However, teaching kids what they are supposed to know and understand in the first place is so much easier, don’t you think? As with any endeavor, the progress has to be watched carefully with vigilance and changes and improvements made the moment an insufficiency is noticed. This is basic to achieving any sort of a goal or end product in any field, including education. Let’s try it in our schools, shall we?

~ I would prefer even to fail with honor than to win by cheating ~ Sophocles