Higher CRCT failure rates should erase doubts about whether test sheet tampering occurred last year
By using open records to obtain CRCT scores from the major metro districts and diving into the data, the AJC investigative team examined how schools under suspicion for test tampering in 2009 fared this year when testing protocols were tightened and answer sheets were guarded like gold bullion. (You can see the results for yourselves here as we have just posted them.)
Not very well, it turns out.
The newspaper’s analysis by AJC reporters John Perry and Heather Vogell found that score drops in the 39 “severe” Atlanta schools drove up the district’s overall failure rate in reading, English and math.
For all of you who have insisted that this was a witch hunt, consider this: Most schools that did not have unusual erasure patterns showed a slight gain in their CRCT scores. Is this also random?
Those schools with suspicious erasure rates last year and jump in failures this year ought to be doing some soul searching. And Superintendent Beverly Hall ought to searching for the reasons for the plummet in scores. And for the people responsible for any tampering.
Yes, there are fluctuations in test scores year to year. But abnormal fluctuations can’t be ignored in light of the state erasure analysis.
While the state won’t release final school results until mid July, the AJC used the state’s Open Records Act to obtain preliminary scores for nearly 500 schools in the six biggest metro districts. In general, the scores showed that students at schools where state officials said cheating concerns were “severe” suffered average score drops of as much as 11 points, while students at schools considered “clear” made slight gains.
Responding to evidence of cheating uncovered by an AJC investigation in 2008, the state reviewed every 2009 CRCT answer sheet to measure how often kids changed wrong answers to right by virtue of erasures on the sheets. Because every test sheet was checked, the state was able to develop a reliable index of how often test answers were changed from wrong to right and flag schools that had inordinate occurrences of answer changes, right down to the classroom level.
The worst incidents occurred in Atlanta.
For some APS schools, the drop from last year was stark. At Gideons Elementary, 92 percent of fifth-graders passed math in 2009. This year, 39 percent did. And at Dunbar Elementary, about 87 percent of fourth-graders passed math last year, compared to 49 percent this spring.
In a statement prior to the AJC’s story, Hall acknowledged the scores dropped but maintained the results overall demonstrated the district’s “continued academic progress.”
I am assuming that she will come out with a stronger statement soon and that it will not gloss over the very real evidence of test tampering.
According to the AJC:
The scores showed that overall, students at schools where state officials found cheating concerns were “severe” suffered average score drops of as much as 11 points, while students at schools considered “clear” made slight gains.
Passing rates mirrored the sagging scores. In severe schools, for instance, the percent of students failing math rose roughly 12 percentage points. In cleared schools, the percent of failing students declined by 1 percentage point this year.
School districts should view stark score drops at severe schools as potential evidence of tampering, said Kathleen Mathers, executive director of the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement.
“Generally, in schools where there proves to be a dramatic drop, we have concerns about what would cause that drop,” she said. “If it happens to be a school that had a high number of answers changed last year from wrong to right, that could be an indication that there had been intentional wrongdoing.”
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130 comments Add your comment
Cere
June 10th, 2010
8:16 pm
I could be wrong, but I always thought the CRCT was designed to evaluate the teachers, not the students. If students consistently score low in one school or one class or one grade level, then something is awry with the teaching methodology and it should be adjusted. This test simply checks to ensure that the “Georgia Performance Standards” are taught. The Iowa (ITBS) is the test that determines a student’s overall knowledge and ability, right? Wrong?
DeKalb Teacher
June 10th, 2010
8:34 pm
Often times, students that transfer in from APS have high test scores, that do not match their ability AT ALL. The committee investigating the system should have looked at individual students that exceed in 5th grade, but when they move to middle school, their scores drastically decrease. Cheating has been obvious to me for quite some time.
Bitter fruit
June 10th, 2010
8:54 pm
How bitter it must be for Beverly Hall, that even as those in denial will still give her accolades, and she may even find an escape hatch in Washington, that her legacy is tarnished forever, and no amount of money, or bonuses can replace the blow to the ego that this will bring.
Even as they clap for her, she’ll know, that deep down inside they know, what she was truly about.
How bitter it must be, knowing that her obituary will prominently feature fraud and misdeeds.
John Trotter vindicated again
June 10th, 2010
9:08 pm
I know this paper has at times made a regular cottage industry of demonizing John Trotter, but let’s look at the record. While PAGE and GAE were offering praises, John Trotter was telling the truth.
While PAGE and GAE officials tiptoed around the truth, it was Dr. Trotter who had the foresight and the courage to call Beverly Hall was has now been proven to be true: a fraud.
He was right about cheating. He was right about corruption and Crawford Lewis. And now he’s been proven right about Beverly Hall. Sounds like some credit is in order.
drew (former teacher)
June 10th, 2010
9:10 pm
Cere…: “I could be wrong, but I always thought the CRCT was designed to evaluate the teachers, not the students”.
I hope you’re wrong…I think the test was designed to determine if the GPS were “learned”. Believe it or not, sometimes teachers teach something, but for a variety of reasons, it’s not be “learned”. Unfortunately, many people want to use test results to evaluate teachers. Yes, teacher quality makes a difference, and some teachers are better than others. But if you want to evaluate teachers, spend more time in their classrooms, than is spent trying to use technology (a test) to simplify it all down to numbers.
And I guess if merit pay were in effect now, the teachers who inherited the “cheated” students from the previous year, would be denied any “merit pay” this year, which blows another hole in the idea of test scores determine who the good teachers are. Sometimes even the best teacher cannot compete against someone who’s cooking the books.
Private School Guy
June 10th, 2010
10:39 pm
An easier method of investigating the problem would have been to simply retest students whose test showed erasures. That would have cost less money and identified the culprits. Why is common sense ignored?
AtlantaDad
June 10th, 2010
10:41 pm
There’s a independent hotline for anyone with information on 2009 CRCT cheating. The number is 1-877-606-9183. There is also a web reporting site as well. The address is http://www.reportlineweb.com/AtlantaCRCT. Please share.
Private School Guy
June 10th, 2010
10:44 pm
The entire basis of mandatory testing is only to fund the testing companies who were major supporters of George Bush. This is madness. Would a beer company open every single bottle and taste it to make sure they were making good beer? No Child Left Behind is really No Corporation Left Behind.
Private School Guy
June 10th, 2010
10:47 pm
Wouldn’t an easier solution be to retest the students whose tests had high erasure levels? If that was done months and thousands of dollars ago we might know who had really cheated.
Nan
June 10th, 2010
11:28 pm
Hey Catlady…it is against testing protocol for teachers to be reading the tests unless they are 1st or 2nd grade and/or working with a group of students with testing accommodations. How do you and your counterparts know the tests were “markedly easier” than last year….ya’ll wouldn’t be cheating, would you?
Hmmm....
June 10th, 2010
11:40 pm
Nan…..while you are right that the test questions and answer choices are read to 1st and 2nd graders and only instructions are read to grade 3 and above, the teacher is circulating through the classroom and making sure students are in the right place, etc. Kinda of hard to avoid reading the question at hand if you are doing this. Now, looking ahead into the test booklet and using that to review for an upcoming section, that might be cheating.
Nan
June 11th, 2010
12:00 am
@Hmmm…Since Catlady mentioned that the reading passages “seemed simpler”, I thought possibly more than making sure the students were in the right place was going on.
Stan
June 11th, 2010
1:12 am
Who are we fooling? These tests are very narrow in scope in that there is nothing “performance” about them. They are multiple choice, discriminant based test. They do not accurately measure who will succeed and not succeed, however they do dictate how will succeed and not succeed. Lets all learn about how to truly test divergently gifted populations and get rid of this high stakes multiple choice test. One kid can pick the answer for the area of a circle and another kid can produce the circle with the said area… but who gets credit on CRCT day? This is just a billion dollar industry being held up by lobbyist and lawmakers that are in on the action. C’mon man!
Dr. John Trotter
June 11th, 2010
1:45 am
Thanks to the kudos offered by the blogger of 9:08 PM. I am not really looking for vindication (although “it show do feel good” sometimes), but I am simply amazed that people are shocked by revelations of corruption in Atlanta and DeKalb. I have made it a point in the last couple of years to state very openly here at on the MACE website (www.theteachersadvocate.com) and elsewhere that the three biggest educational hypocrites in Georgia are Crawford Lewis, Beverly Hall, and Mark Elgart. I don’t think that there is mucn doubt about the hypocrisy and fraud surrounding the names of Crawford Lewis and Beverly Hall. But, I agree with an earlier blogger that it seems that the AJC is tip toeing (sp?) gingerly around the fraudulent mechanizations of SACS. How can it be anything but fraud? SACS (and its unheraled leader, Mark Elgart) touts these noble standards, but its office is located in DeKalb where the superintendent and others were indicted, not to mention where some notorious cheating scandals took place. What’s up with the thunderous silence of SACS relative to Dekalb…and to Atlanta, a school system which is mired very deep in corruption? Enquiring minds want to know. Does Mark Elgart have too many friends at places like Emory University and Fernbank (located in DeKalb) and at the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce and the Piedmont Driving Club who have implored him to engage in “benign neglect” with respect to DeKalb and Atlanta? I guess that Clayton County and Warren County are just full of working class people. Yep, the real discrimination taking place here is class discrimination. Clayton County ought to beg and plead to get at least one of its citizens inducted into the gnostic club, the Gridiron Society. Then, its school system could go to h_ll in a handbaskets but some of its Boys could intervene with ole Markie Elgart. You reckon ole Mark Elgart is waiting with baited breath to be invited to join the Piedmont Driving Club or the Gridiron Society? Mark, Mark, don’t feel blue. Maybe you’ll be able to join the Alpharetta County Club. Or, better yet, perhaps too many of the upper crust at the AJC are members of these clubs. Hmm.
Hmmm....
June 11th, 2010
7:03 am
I don’t know how you can not read some of the test as you are circulating, Nan. This is the section of the test that is being taken that day…..Not looking ahead! That would be a security breach. Teachers are not to sit while the kids are testing, so as you walk around and make sure that your kids are on the right page, etc. The teacher is not changing the answer, etc., because of course, again, that would be a testing violation. In fact this year, I did not even encourage my students to erase their stray marks for fear that it could be construed as cheating. If you have not experienced the testing experience, please do not comment.
APS Parent
June 11th, 2010
12:33 pm
I have been told some very ugly things about the parents of Springdale Elementary and their attitude about the principal. I guess she is not the right color for that school.
catlady
June 11th, 2010
12:34 pm
Nan, I WAS referring to my colleagues who read the test. The ones you just named, in fact. Whether anyone else read it or not, I don’t know. I am unfortunately one of the ones always called upon to test, usually sped, but any kid with accomodations. That’s how I form MY opinions. How do you come up with your ideas?
catlady
June 11th, 2010
12:51 pm
In addition, Nan, I frequently have to “bubble in” for students whose accommodations allow them to mark the answers in their books. While doing so (in the presence of at least one administrator), I see the pictures that go along with some of the passages, and I surmise the subject. I don’t read the question during this time (who would have time, as this comes out of my lunch or planning time), but a reasonably intelligent person who knows the GPS could make a good guess about the question,even if they had not read it. Not brain surgery.
Private School Guy: I would agree with you on tests that are valid and reliable. The CRCT is not; you are likely to get markedly different scores from one DAY to the next, not to mention one YEAR later. (There are those who would say it isn’t fair because the kids wouldn’t remember the material from the year before. To that I say, “Hogwash!” If the child really LEARNED the material, mastered it, they would remember it. I can still remember all kinds of stupid facts that I mastered in school, can’t you? And stuff I didn’t, like using a slide rule. lol) Much of the problem revolves around the “in-expertness” of the test design, IMHO. For example, one year on the third grade form I was giving the question about the state bird showed up three times, as I recall. Now, with such low cut scores how could you have a lot of confidence in any “proficiency” derived from that?
Look at their scores longitudinally, however. First grade: well below passing. Second grade: well below passing. 3rd: well below. 4th well below. 5th: EXCEEDS. 6th: well below. That would be pretty obvious, especially if there was a large group of kids that showed the same “amazing” pattern.
catlady
June 11th, 2010
2:30 pm
Guess the blog blocks (12:40 or so) will be in place while Ms. Downey is busy at the meeting. Question: Why can’t the AJC solve this problem, rather than Ms. D having to do it by hand?
Maureen Downey
June 11th, 2010
2:58 pm
@catlady, I have asked the same question. Just got back from the Republican panel. Interesting contrast. Will post shortly.
Dekalbite
June 11th, 2010
3:43 pm
Calling for teachers’ heads when you compare two different sets of students is absurb. Comparing my students last year to my students this year with standardized tests scores is useless in terms of learning or teaching. I need to compare my students at the first of the year and then then exact same group of students at the end of the year. We used to do this in DCSS as the ITBS was administered in the fall and then again in the spring to the “exact same group of students.” The idea of comparing this year’s crop of 4th graders to last years crop is only useful to administrators and newpaper reporters (no offense intended Maureen). Teaching occurs in the classroom between the teacher and his/her students. I need to know the strengths and weaknesses of each individual student (something that really not inherent in the CRCT – a criterion referenced test done with a small insular group of students – i.e. Georgia students). Rather, a nationally norm referenced test (e.g. ITBS, CAT,etc.) gives me a better grasp of how my students are mastering specific skills when compared with their peers.
We need to make up our mind about standardized testing. Do we want to use tests to drive pay or do we want to enable teachers to use testing to determine and address the strengths and weaknesses of individual students? You can’t have it both ways. Standardized testing was not invented to pay teachers. It was invented to help teachers assess students and provide remediation, enrichment, or acceleration. That was the goal of standardized testing. That’s why we are having such a difficult time – we are completely misusing this invention. The losers are students or hasn’t anyone figured that out by now.
SPARK Parent
June 11th, 2010
4:50 pm
@ APS Parent- There is a contingent of Springdale Park parents who opposed Yolonda Brown because she is black (not that they’d come out and say that). However, after having had her as principal for a year, I think even more now oppose her, not because she is black but for numerous other reasons including the fact that her former school was on the severe cheating list, she is never on campus, is unresponsive to parent communication, and has no connection with or understanding of the community she serves.
For The Love
June 12th, 2010
1:59 am
And just why do people STILL try to tell me that GPS are just great. One even told me that Georgia was 4th in the country. Guess what, she works for the school board too!!! I wanted to inform her that that was 4th from the bottom not from the top. She is much more educated than me and I didn’t want to make her feel dumbed down like the GPS. Some people just have to believe what they have to believe since they are still willing to send and do such dis-service to their children I guess.
catlady
June 12th, 2010
5:02 pm
One more thing, Nan, about the thought that the CRCT was easier (altho it could be from the cut scores being lowered significantly instead of dumbing down the test itself): We had kids reading on low second grade level who passed the end of 3rd grade test, and 5th graders working on third grade level that passed. These kids cannot do classwork out of regular grade level books, yet passed the CRCT. THAT ALONE tells me something is “hinky”. We’d all love to think that it was because of all the interventions we did with them, but you don’t achieve remediation like that in 30-40 minutes a day with a group of 12, no matter how talented you are, especially with unmotivated students. The test scores were surprisingly high, given what we had observed about the children.
Ole Guy
June 12th, 2010
6:54 pm
Rather than continue pissing around with “studies” of this nature, people need to be held accountable to the fullest extent. The people who have allowed this sorry state of education are well-compensated; their failures should be proportionatly punished. It is ONLY then that the leadership de jour will ensure positive results.
As it is now, just as with the kids they purportedly serve, there is absolutely no mechanism for consequence at the highest levels.
Future…BE AFRAID…VERY AFRAID.
Bothered APS teacher
June 13th, 2010
1:12 am
It is pretty funny to me that APS seems to be the only school system that is being prosecuted in the media for cheating. Last I checked there were other school districts listed. Do we here about these other cases? Of course not! I find that it is very doubt to compare my last years students to this years students. Furthermore, testing this year was horrible and it should have been expected that the scores would drop. The testing environment was just rediculous. Not ony were the teachers made to feel like criminals the children were uncomfortable as people walked in and out of the classroom disturbing the testing climate.
Also, the passing score of the CRCT is beyond low. A student doesn’t even need to know but 60% of the test to pass. Please tell me what this measures?
As far as our students scores being higher and then going to other systems and becoming low, that works both ways. I have received numerous children from other systems with high scores and grades that come in my room and don’t have a clue. I recent that comment. There are many other factors that can cause changes in a child. Dekalb, Fulton, Clayton, etc. can’t even compare their issues with the issues that we encounter each and everyday. I work my behind off each and everyday for my students regardless of the issued that I encounter. Before you put all APS teachers in one boat come out and visit!!!! I believe we work harder than any other county!
Show Me
June 13th, 2010
11:13 am
@ Bothered,
You are correct. APS has many extraordinary teachers reaching and successfully teaching students who come to school unprepared to learn, due to a whole host of family/socio-economic problems. There is cheating going on in most schools. Even at schools that were considered “clear” because of minimal flagging, there is cheating.
At my former school in Gwinnett, only 2.4% of classrooms were flagged. At closer look, it can be determined by grade/class size that the classes flagged were 7th & 8th grade ESOL LA and 7th/8t grade “intervention team” math. I worked every day assisting in that 7th grade ESOL LA class, so I know. One student in particular could not pass a second grade level AR reading test, yet miraculously passed the reading portion of the 7th grade reading CRCT! The AP over testing is a butt kissing moron with an online PHD who cannot communicate with proper grammar. He spends the CRCT testing weekend locked in his office, where he “manages” all CRCT activities, including any necessary erasures – but just enough to make the students barely pass. I also have first hand knowledge of his unscrupulous testing activites, but when I relayed my concerns in an email, the retaliation began.
Cheating is cheating. The fact that some schools do not need to cheat as much as others does not make them less guilty. The current state of educational testing is an attempt to fix things after the fact. More time and money should go into early childhood and home life interventions. As my very wise father once said, “As the twig is bent, so the tree shall grow.” Georgia’s testing protocol is @$$ backwards!
Lynn
June 13th, 2010
9:27 pm
How can teachers teach students what they need to know in order to pass the CRCT. I am concerned that there are too many behavior problems, and there are too many students in the classroom for teacher to recognize those that need additional help in order to pass the test. I am a preschool teacher that is teaching my students well above grade level already, because it will be needed later. This should not be because in preschool children need to have fun and be kids.
Former APS Employee
June 14th, 2010
6:39 pm
@ Maureen, Are there any updates to this news, especially in light of the AJC’s revelations about APS’ high travel expenses and mismanagement of federal funds? Has anyone asked the Governor or the Fulton County Attorney General’s Office about pressing charges? For the sake of our children, we must correct APS’ wrong and we must do so now.
Grumpy
June 15th, 2010
6:21 am
All you jokers making excuses for Atlanta Public Schools should be ashamed of yourselves. You indirectly condone mediocrity, and it is pathetic.