Cheating toll in Dougherty: 49 educators implicated
Remember when Dougherty County said its own investigation of CRCT cheating found no evidence of test tampering and credited the improbable score swings to smart test-taking skills? That led to an angry Gov. Perdue sending in his own investigatory team.
And now the results are about to be released: 49 educators implicated in cheating.
One clear fact from the cheating scandal: Systems cannot do their own probes. Either through a lack of investigatory expertise or a lack of will, they are not capable of eliciting the truth. (The legal powers accorded to the state’s investigatory team make a big difference, as do the use of trained investigators to conduct the interviews.)
And now the AJC is reporting this morning:
As many of 49 educators have been implicated in a test cheating scandal in Dougherty County, The Albany Herald is reporting.
Former Attorney General Mike Bowers, former DeKalb County District Attorney Bob Wilson and special investigator Richard Hyde investigated cheating on the 2009 Criterion-Referenced Competency Test in Atlanta and Dougherty County.
Both investigations were triggered by an erasure analysis conducted by the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement. That analysis showed a statistically improbable number of erasures and wrong-to-right answers on the 2009 CRCT.
In July, the investigators issued a stinging report about widespread test cheating in Atlanta Public Schools over several years. Investigators spent the last few months interviewing hundreds of people in Dougherty County, in Southwest Georgia. That school system was second only to APS in schools flagged for potential cheating as a result of the erasure analysis.
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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58 comments Add your comment
smac5
December 21st, 2011
10:31 pm
So the investigators said the superintendent was the cause of all the trouble because she was weak and didn’t stand up to the Board because the Board was dysfunctional. And the principles were the cause of the trouble because they weren’t getting enough guidance because the Board was dysfunctional. So wait – they were damned for not taking enough power, and for taking too much. Because the Board was dysfunctional. Does anyone see an amazing ability in the investigators to find whatever excuse to blame the professionals? Because they can’t fire the Board, I suppose. And you wonder why no one wants to be a school admininstrator.
another comment
December 22nd, 2011
1:24 am
Their are bad teachers in the so called “Good Schools and Districts too.” It is a teacher problem when the class average on the AP midterm exams are failing grades. The students studied their butts off all weekend. Took the on-line AP practice test, which they scored above a B on. Now that some of the students have confronted this “Coach” teacher, he is claiming that he didn’t post any grades. Sure! All he has done all semester is brag about failing students. That most of these students have never failed anything in their lives and failure is good. well this jerk, failure of a teacher needs to be fired.
Then we have the East Indian Physics teacher, who also had the average of her Exam’s that is way below failing. Virtually, every child has a private tutor in this class, just to do the homework, at $50 a pop. Mine has a Private High School teacher, he says it is crazy that they don’t know this and haven’t been taught it. He does not do my childs homework. But my child has found out that some of the really rich kids have private tutors up to 3 times a week ( $150 a week) and they make their tutors do the homework, do their projects. So of course those kids have all high scores on all of the homework scores, the project scores. The biggest problem is the teacher does not know how to teach. No one in a public school should have to spend $2,000 + a year per course to hire private tutors. If teachers in higher level classes don’t have an average class score passing the exams, they can’t teach and should be fired. These kids are getting screwed especially with the changes to the Hope Scholarship. You get one bad teacher in touch science, or AP classes your kid is now screwed out of HOPE.
ScienceTeacher671
December 22nd, 2011
7:38 am
another comment, it seems as if all your children’s teachers are too challenging and make your children work too hard.
Frankie
December 22nd, 2011
9:19 am
@Good Mother…you wrote, “but one look at your keyboard would reveal the reason…the “x” key is located next to the “c” key, which, of course, indicates a typo instead of a misspelling. ”
but the “T” that you left out because you were spelling inflexion and not inflection, has nothing to do with hitting the “C” or the “X”.
It is okay to admit you did not know how to spell the word insteasd of coming up with a ridiculous excuse. ……lol…….
annoyed with GM
December 22nd, 2011
7:23 pm
Don’t even try it, Good Mother. If your “inflexion was truly a typo, it wouldn’t have happened more than once, and you would have spelled it inflextion if you had actually mistaken the x for the c.
To Frankie from Good Mother
December 23rd, 2011
11:35 am
Regarding the “t”…..good catch!
I am loling with you
To annoyed from Good Mother
December 23rd, 2011
11:36 am
I agree ! Mea culpa!
ahother teacher
December 23rd, 2011
12:15 pm
Cheating has been high tech and subtle. we all know people who do it. just to watch people cheat is amazing. I have taken technical tests lately at those testing centers where you have to deposit
all your materials from yoru pockets, even your watch and lock it in a locker. No one changed results for my PRAXIS and other tests to help my feelings. What in the world anyone needs to be doing anything,altering, but authenticating, signing for those completed tests?