“We cannot make AYP.” And so the erasing and lying began in a DeKalb school.
Through an open records request, the AJC has obtained affidavits of two DeKalb school administrators who admitted that they reviewed CRCT answer sheets, realized their school would not make its critical benchmarks and then systematically doctored answers so their kids not only passed, but passed with flying colors.
The details are in this AJC exclusive story.
And they are chilling.
As AJC education writer Kristina Torres reports:
A few dozen of their elementary school students had just finished high-stakes summer retests — exams first taken in spring but not passed. With just a glance at the answer sheets, Atherton Elementary School Principal James Berry and Assistant Principal Doretha Alexander saw they were in trouble.
“We cannot not make AYP,” Alexander said. Not making AYP, or adequate yearly progress, meant not meeting a required federal benchmark. These students, all fifth-graders, also faced being held back if they did not pass.
“OK,” Berry answered. He pulled a pencil from a cup on Alexander’s desk. “I want you to call the answers to me.”
With that, he began to erase the students’ answers.
In light of the devastating state audit of CRCT test sheets that revealed possible answer tampering in many schools. I suspect this scenario happened more than any of us ever suspected. I want to salute the AJC education team members who set this whole thing in motion with their in depth look at CRCT scores over the last 18 months.
In the fall of 2008, prior to the state’s investigation, the AJC published an analysis that showed improbable gains at some schools on tests taken first in the spring and then in the summer. One of those schools was Atherton, where half of the DeKalb school’s fifth-graders failed a yearly state test in the spring. When the 32 students took retests, not only did every one of them pass — 26 scored at the highest level. At the time, Berry told the paper that he knew of no problems with test security.
To my AJC colleagues who spent months on this investigation and who prompted the state to finally act, I offer my gratitude both as a journalist and a parent of four kids in public schools.
And to the education world, I have to ask how this was allowed to go on and what is the next step to restore public confidence and improve teacher morale?
Many of you complain that the actions of Berry and Alexander reflect a test mania that has gotten out of hand. But without testing, how can we know for sure how students are doing? And why is testing vilified?
No one complains about testing in medicine when they are sick. Yes, you trust your doctor’s evaluations that you have a serious disease. but you undergo the tests to verify the doctor’s observations and professional judgment.
So, while parents may trust a teacher’s assessment that their child is on target, why not test to verify?
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119 comments Add your comment
SallyB
February 12th, 2010
9:41 pm
PARENT OF 2 DCSS CHILDREN:
You say….”I believe they felt the end results justified their means…….. I don’t think we should judge their administrators so harshly…Our own integrity comes into question on a daily basis … how many of us pass the test 100% of the time?”
The end results???????Children promoted when they cannot read?????These people thought this is good….this is OK????
That is the crux of the problem here. The children are being cheated!!!!
TeacherTooLongForThis
February 12th, 2010
9:43 pm
Teachers, just ask your kids how many have been helped by a teacher in one way or another on a past CRCT test. About twelve out of twenty-six in my high achieving class said they had at one time or another. The sad part of it is that none of them thought anything was wrong with it. “She was just trying to help us.” or “He wanted to help our school.” We are teaching them it is OK to cheat.
You get a average of two answers changed per test, right? And probably 30% changed from right to wrong. (Some people shouldn’t second guess themselves). So, when almost all the tests have 8,10, 15 or 20 (or more!) answers erased, all from wrong to right, come on-get real. Case closed. So maybe one or two students got out of sequence, well thats easy to tell. But OK, try this: lets throw out all the answers that were not changed, and only count the ones that were changed. Congratulations, all you students got 100’s! Absolutly mind boggling the level of stupidity. Oh, they wont notice if we change ten anwers or so per test to correct answers, of almost EVERY student…Einsteins, they only have to change the sensitivity on the bubble detector to see your changes. Let’s give the suspicious classes the benefit of the doubt. Thats what we’ve been hearing from the supers, right? Put a proctor in every class, and ONE official with the key to where they are kept overnight. No more, “We get to them on Monday, Im tired” kind of thing. If your school and class comes within a reasonable percentage of this years gain, all is forgiven. Keep up the good work. If not, find another profession where it doesnt hurt people and especially kids if you cheat on the job.
I have always played a square game with the system. Three other teaches and I raised test scores by twenty points on our grade level in three years in a deprived area. It can be done, and NOT by teaching to a test. You can’t teach to a test-it is impossible and doesn’t work. You have something that’s going to be tested, OK? Write it, test on it, color it, sing it, most of all talk about it, in all sorts of different ways, over and over, until becomes part of the vocabulary of the class. If you are creative (it helps to have raised children) you can actually make it fun. There are no shortcuts, and you actually have to work at it, and think about it. But I guarantee you that it works. Anywhere, I don’t care how bad, you will get gains, real one. But remember, it works in spite of the county you work for. They just have some hoops for you jump through which will make it look like they are doing their job. Waste as little time with that as you can. We just need to find the right teachers, thats all.
It’s not the tests. No use complaining about that. They are what they are. And they really aren’t that hard, OK. Don’t make it into a big deal. Yes, they are just put together by people who are very limited in their understanding of what the tests should about, and how to ask a decent question. It’s not a perfect world but they do tell you ahead of time what is basically going to be on it. Come on, I know it’s work, but lets do it. That’s why we get paid the big bucks, right? Don’t ever forget that there is an ethical core of committed teachers at work at a lot of places where real learning is happening. I salute you all, and you know who you are.
And if the state or the locals won’t do it, the Georgia Professional Standards Commission has to step up and absolutly clean house. This profession could use some new blood anyway.
TeacherTooLongForThis
February 12th, 2010
10:46 pm
Maureen, Please, do not put the comments that came in from this name. They were sent in by mistake at 9:41, it was a tongue in cheek article, that was fiction tthat someone sent in by mistake, thinking it would be funny. Thank-you very much.
Ole Guy
February 13th, 2010
8:05 am
Realizing that the kids couldn’t pass MY math test, which was straight outa the book, I noticed that the very same kids had “A”s in math…and were AP math at that. When I queried the lead teach on this anomaly, she kindly indicated that the previous teach “gave them a few points for effort”.
Of course, this was some years ago, however, this “educator fixation” on maintaining a false sense of achievement among the kids probably started a long time ago, certainly long before concerns of AYP began seeping into, and destroying, from within, the ed system.
This is in no way meant to suggest that a degree of “slack” should be afforded those whose hands have been in the cookie jar, so to speak…simply an indication that the problem has, in all likelihood, been around a lot longer than many wish to consider.
So, one would suppose that, as with the No Child fiasco, this AYP crap should be abolished. Kids will probably be a whole lot better off if they are allowed to fail with dignity, and be afforded the chance to learn from their failures. Rather than holding such an aversion to the notion that one’s kid failed, just allow the normal learning curve to work. Some kids (adults also, for that matter) learn faster than others…why toss a guilt trip on slower learners?
arnold
February 13th, 2010
9:07 am
Current NCLB assessments cheat the student.
Standardized testing was developed to aid teachers in assessing the strengths and weaknesses of students. The Iowa Test of Basic Skills, a norm referenced test, was developed in 1935, and its sole purpose was the improvement of instruction. Criterion referenced tests compare how a student does against a set criteria rather than comparing him/her to other students of that grade level/age. Criterion referenced tests are most appropriate for quickly assessing what concepts and skills students have learned from a segment of instruction. In both norm referenced tests and criterion referenced tests, the goal is to modify instruction for students in order to help them succeed.
These assessments were developed to assess students, not teachers so the goal of these tests is instantly subverted when you switch goals. The goal is no longer student centered – it now becomes teacher centered.
A more proper and thorough assessment would be a performance based test. The student performs a task that shows they have mastered the skill. For example, a student would be required to draw a house to scale versus bubbling in the correct answer for perimeter or area because they memorized the formulas. These tests assess higher level critical thinking skills, something that we sorely need today in the workplace. By the way, it is impossible to have those high level critical thinking skills if you do not have content mastery – otherwise it’s just opinion based on no facts – something we have in abundance today. Unfortunately, performance based tests are very labor intensive and therefore expensive. So as a quick and dirty substitute we use standardized tests such as the CRCT.
So how do NCLB standardized tests cheat children?
The focus of assessing students true strengths and weaknesses has shifted to “teaching to the test” and practicing “test taking skills”. When that happens as it frequently does, I as a teacher cannot tell if the student mastered the content last year or just became a good test taker. Indeed Georgia spends millions of dollars for online practice tests. These practice tests don’t diagnose or teach. They just allow the student to “get comfortable with testing”. Whole (and expensive) programs are built and marketed around getting students to “pass the test”. It is difficult to overestimate the amount of money that goes into the testing and remediation business. Just note the $8,000,000 DeKalb County spent on America’s Choice, a program developed by a non-profit organization the NCEE and spun off as a for profit company.
The whole assessment and remediation industry has drained literally billions of dollars from the classroom while simultaneously robbing teachers of the unvarnished data they need to make determinations about students’ needs. I call that cheating our students.
Change our Focus
February 13th, 2010
8:51 pm
Arnold, I so totally agree with your comment. Too much emphasis has been placed on one test – the CRCT. Students should receive multiple assessments and student gains should be reported from those assessments. Our CRCT should be redesigned to be more performance based where students are completing performance tasks such as short and long answers and charts, diagrams, etc. This type of criterion referenced state test would give a more accurate evaluation of what the student knows. It would also eliminate alot of the erasures that currently are negatively impacting our state. Of course, performance based assessments would require more resources which our state currently does not have.
Schools should be more proactive in administering state exams efficiently. Having specific procedures in place that require teachers to turn in tests immediately after test administration daily, and erasures counted in the presence of the teacher and recorded on a signed sheet, would protect the teacher and the school from negative audit findings. My previous school system had teams handling the test after the week of administration and each team member had to sign when tests were “cleaned up” from smear marks, etc. A security truck picked up the test and a special team in the county had them shipped to the state. Georgia should adopt these types of standard procedures. Every school should give the same test on the same day at the same time. I believe that this type of administration would lend to less problems with inaccurate reporting of student achievement.
Perhaps some people in the state office can visit other states to observe how tests are administered. Our state appears to be in a problematic situation that definitely needs to be fixed. This is not a good time for Georgia to be getting such negative publicity.
Public School Parent
February 14th, 2010
9:45 am
I agree in principle that students need to be periodically tested to measure proficiency and whether they are making progress. As a parent, I want this information and I imagine most teachers need this also. This is why we ended up with the NCLB and then the (very flawed) CRCT. We had groups of kids falling into the cracks. But please use the ITBS as the yardstick and let’s eliminate the CRCT.
More important, the testing frenzy has NOT fixed the problem because students are just promoted and passed along. The problem begins in elementary school and by 8th grade it is almost too late to “remediate” many of these students. I don’t recall the exact number, but something like 40% of all 8th graders falied the math CRCT in 2009. How many of these same students had failed math in previous years yet were passed on.and on and on? And the parents scream bloody murder if the school suggests that their child repeat a grade.
Maybe we should do away with individual grades in elementary schools and just have blended groupings of students. School systems should ban “graduation” celebrations for 6th grade. This is just plain silly and a waste of time and money and stigmatizes the children who are simply not ready to progress to middle school.. .
Use testing for its original purpose: to assess the student, not to grade the entire school.
An advocate for public education change & choice
February 14th, 2010
9:51 am
@ Echo: My point if you read carefully was that there is FIERCE LOBBYING on the part of school districts and teachers union in opposition to just about any progressive measure that comes to the floor trying to bring change to the way public education is adminstered. If you understood abit better what’s going on under the gold dome you would reconize that there are some Teachers Union who spend alot of money trying to prevent laws from coming about that would set precedent for other areas of the country to follow.
alwaysaconcernedparent
February 14th, 2010
10:08 am
As a parent, I am always concerned about the school’s performance. Here is the problem, COMMUNICATION. All should be accountable early on and not at the last minute. Parents should Not be pointing, there is work that is needed at home that may not be done. The teachers have a responsibility to figure out the childs learning style, and no discount the child’s defects as permanent. Parents and children, If you have a problem with the teacher, go to the principal early. All children do not learn the same. Do not throw away our children. Teachers if you are having a problem with the child behavior or learning style, talk to the parents. Principals, solve these issues so that the temporary defects do not become permanent. Then when it comes to testing more will be on board.
CJ
February 14th, 2010
3:02 pm
My son is in public school in Georgia. Last year he had an A/B average in second grade, yet he failed the CRCT in Math and barely met requirements in LA. He is a very sharp, articulate, and well mannered child. He was required to take remedial Math in third grade, but was taken out of that class after 3 weeks. Now he is being required to remain after school for an hour and a half of “CRCT training,” which started the beginning of this month. He is also required to attend intersession for further “help.”
I work closely with the teachers and administrators at his school to make sure that my son is getting a proper education. I support the school as much as I can, but feel that the state has let down local school systems and students.
The CRCT needs to be thrown out. If you have to start coaching the whole student body after the first of the year up til the CRCT testing period, there is a BIG problem.
If you look at sample or past CRCT tests, you will see that what is being taught daily in the classroom cannot be measured by the CRCT. Questions are worded awkwardly and the pressure on students to “do their best” is tremendous!
v racer
February 15th, 2010
3:26 pm
Standardized tests are the only true measure of academic performance. Teachers who can’t teach will inflate grades for students who can’t learn. Properly administered standardized tests will provide useful, meaningful and true results. Those who complain that, “we have to teach the test” don’t have a clue. If the test requires that the student add two numbers, you teach the test by teaching the student to add two numbers. What’s wrong with that? “Too much pressure for teacher and student” is the mindset that is taking our country from the top of heap to the bottom. There are plenty of capable, educated, eager and responsible unemployed folks who would do a better job than any of those teachers who cheated. Fire them, indict them, jail them. These tests are so important that adult cheaters should be charged with a felony.
v racer
February 15th, 2010
3:35 pm
Too much stress say the loser parents, teachers, administrators and students. The adult world is a constant test and kids need to learn how to cope. As for the teachers, administrators and parents who fold under too much stress, it’s too late for them.
irishmafia
February 15th, 2010
4:18 pm
What I find amazing is that with all that has been written so far about the possible cheating not one reporter has mentioned the fact that Hall’s huge bonus opportunities are tied into improved test scores , so why would she have any incentive to clean up the mess? Oh I forgot that would be politically incorrect
irishmafia
February 15th, 2010
5:04 pm
” Tired of hearing ” PLEASE ! Your ignorance about how the government works is appalling. A typical Liberal -George Bush did this Republicans did that. First and foremost George Bush did not pass any bill, if you had a 8th grade civics education you would know that only Congress can propose and pass legislation, the President can only agree to it or veto it. Second Bush did not “slash funding “again only Congress can propose or approve spending. By the way the Democrats have had the majority since 2006. Also when government “slashes” budgets ,more often than not they cut the increase that was proposed ,rarely if ever does any government program get less money than they had before ,there are exceptions but not often
irishmafia
February 15th, 2010
5:15 pm
Great points Trotter, —if I hear one more time -”oh the poor economically disadvantaged kids” I say bull$&$*. Please explain how poor families from Asia that don’t even speak English somehow have their children routinely rise above poverty and graduate at the top of their classes? Same with many students from Eastern Europe WHY? because it all starts and ends at home ,education will only be as important to kids as their families make it period end of discussion! Teachers administrators and all the money in the world can’t change that
Maureen Downey
February 15th, 2010
5:22 pm
irishmafia, I think one explanation is that literacy still runs deep and long in the family histories of those immigrants. I saw a study once on the achievement levels of immigrant children whose parents, grandparents and great grandparents were literate in their native language versus those who had no history of literacy in their families and it was quite different. If your family has a history of being educated, the children do better, even in a new country in a new language. I was talking to an immigrant from eastern Europe about a month ago, He was stocking shelves at a store, but had been an engineer in his home country. Both his kids were in college and receiving HOPE. I know there are exceptions to this but I do think that a family that has always valued reading gives a child a boost.
Maureen
irishmafia
February 15th, 2010
7:07 pm
Schools cheating on tests is now n the forefront but other types of cheating are rampant –it’s just no one wants to check -here’s a great story for an investigative reporter. Title 1 money from the federal government is one of the largest sources of income for school systems, it is based on the number of students getting FREE and reduced lunches . So how do you determine who is eligible for a FREE lunch? Pretty much just filling out an application. An investigation in NC showed that 2 out of 3 families receiving free lunches were not eligible, and since school systems verify 3% or less of the applicants there are many receiving it illegally.
The free and reduced-lunch program, one of the federal government’s most expensive food entitlements, is meant to help low-income students succeed in the public school classroom by ensuring they have nutritious meals each day. LOL that’s working great isn’t it?
The $8 billion per-year school lunch program is designed for children from families having incomes at or below 185 percent of the poverty level, or for children who automatically qualify based on residential status or participation in other government aid programs.
In the NC investigation nearly seven in 10 applicants could not or would not justify their income to school officials
No proof? No problem
Federal guidelines require adults only to self-report household income on school lunch applications. No proof of income, such as a pay stub or W-2 form, is necessary to get the benefits. That’s in contrast to other federal entitlements, including the Food Stamp Program, which require applicants to document their income status to participate.
School officials said they have scant leeway to verify income after participants join the free and reduced-lunch programs a certification statement that parents are required to sign promising that their reported income level is accurate. The statement warns that adults “may be prosecuted” if they “purposefully give false information.” Yet there are no federal guidelines for any sort of punishment other than the loss of the free lunch
But according to Food and Nutrition Service at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the federal agency that oversees the free and reduced-lunch program, no parents have been prosecuted in North Carolina for falsifying information when applying
School districts benefit from having students in free and reduced-lunch because the program is associated with additional taxpayer dollars. Schools with a higher percentage of free and reduced-lunch students receive a larger discount on the federal government’s E-Rate program, which is meant to provide telecommunications services for schools and libraries and more Title 1 money to use for the school.
So why do we wonder if it’s possible that so many of these schools would seek to change answers on tests to keep themselves in AYP? As an added note almost all if not every one of the schools on the list receive substantial Title 1 money and have the vast majority of their students receiving FREE lunches courtesy of the americans who actually pay federal income tax.
Glenn Dowell, Ed.D.
February 16th, 2010
9:38 am
TO BEVERLY HALL SUPPORTERS…….
There should be a recall of the entire Atlanta Board of Education. These mindless sycophants do not have the intellect to monitor Hall. Ethics complaints should be filed against each board member. It is the Board’s responsibility to monitor Hall. They allowed this crisis to occur which means that they willfully abdicated their elected duties and as such are complicit and co-conspirators in the APS crisis.
I witnessed one of her con games a few years ago when students were presented to the Board as participants in the CLOSEUP program hosted annually in the nation’s capitol. Hall gave the board the impression that this was a major accomplishment for the students and that their selection was something special and unique fo these participants. THE HOAX: the fact of the matter is that any non-american student enrolled in a public school in this country can participate in the program. The basic intent of the Washington program is to assist the students in inculcating the values essential for our form of government.
Pursuant to the APS crisis, I served as a test proctor for many years while employed by APS. After following test protocol and observing tests being locked up securely at Bunche Middle School for the day,I unexpectedly returned to the school to catch the Principal ( who later became an Assistant Superintendent) along with her staff, in the school’s Media Center changing the students’ answer sheets. This happened several years ago. When I complained to the principal she indicated that she and the staff were merely cleaning up the sheets. I also complained to the Research and Evaluation Department.
This woman ultimately became a respected member of Hall’s cabal of crooks. It is common knowledge that for Beverly Hall, C.R.C.T. means (C)REATING (R)ESULTS (C)HEATING on (T)ESTS.
The fact of the matter is that the African- American community around the country has been the victims of a hoax that says to our children who are already affected by a “surfeit of woes”, that it is OK to cheat. YOU SHOULD VOLUNTARILY LEAVE ATLANTA, BEVERLY HALL-AND TAKE KATHY AUGUSTINE, YOUR C0-ARCHITECT OF THIS HOAX WITH YOU.
BY THE WAY, KATHY AUGUSTINE, HALL’S DEMONICAL ”ALTER EGO” TRIED TO GET AWAY FROM THE APS CRISIS BY APPLYING FOR THE SUPERTENDENT’S POSITION WHICH WAS PREVIOUSLY VACANT IN BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA. HER ATTEMPT SOME SAY WAS TO GET OUT OF TOWN BEFORE THE APS MESS HIT THE FAN. AH-H-H-H- BUT I WAS THERE TO SHARE WITH COMMUNITY STAKEHOLDERS THAT TO EMPLOY AUGUSTINE WOULD MEAN THAT THE BOARD WOULD ANSWER TO HER RATHER THAN THE REVERSE.
IT IS SO DELIGHTFUL TO KNOW THAT HALL AND AUGUSTINE HAVE TO REMAIN IN ATLANTA TO GET WHAT THEY DESERVE-PUBLIC RIDICULE FOR PULLING THE HOAX OF THE CENTURY ON OUR CHILDREN.
Tiredofit
February 20th, 2010
7:51 pm
Success in school requires active participants from students, teacher, AND PARENTS!!! If more parents in these College Park, Decatur areas would quit having so many kids they can’t provide for and don’t have fathers around to help, maybe low scores would not be such a big problem in black schools and people wouldn’t have to resort to cheating. Teachers can’t do everything, but if you teach in Title One mostly black school, you are basically raising the kids b/c most of the parents don’t do jack s–. They give you cell phone numbers that don’t work, don’t show up for conferences, don’t dress their children appropriately for the weather, send the kids to school sick, but take a cell phone from their child and watch them bring their ghetto selves up there and curse and make fools of themselves. We need to start giving tests to people before they have kids. Attention all you so called title one mothers: If you don’t have the finances, the father in the child’s life or the TIME, DON’T HAVE KIDS! And DON’T KEEP HAVING THEM, YOU IDIOTS!!! And then most of yall sit at home all day anyway. Get a life! You are part of the problem!