Why aren’t people more concerned about the impact on kids from CRCT cheating scandal?
Albany Herald columnist Carlton Fletcher talked to the mother of a child in the Dougherty County schools about the fallout from the erupting CRCT scandal there and wrote a good piece about the conversation.
As we discussed here six days ago, state investigators issued a scathing report on cheating in Dougherty County schools, writing that there was “an acceptance of wrongdoing and a pattern of incompetence that is a blight on the community that will feel its effects for generations to come. This is the Dougherty County School System. Hundreds of school children were harmed by extensive cheating in the Dougherty County School System. In 11 schools, 18 educators admitted to cheating. We found cheating on the 2009 CRCT in all of the schools we examined. A total of 49 educators were involved in some form of misconduct or failure to perform their duty with regard to this test.
The mother told Fletcher that she was frustrated with the people who see the scandal only through its impact on the adults named in the cheating report. She wanted someone to write about how the allegations of cheating affected the children.
Here is an excerpt from the column:
The mom told me a little about her son, about how he doesn’t quite know how to deal with the things he’s hearing about the scandal. Although the bright-eyed youngster was timid about talking with me, he did say one thing that stuck with me.
“People are saying (here, the youngster mentioned the name of one of his teachers) did wrong, that she cheated,” he said in a voice that was halting and quiet. “My mama always told me that cheating is wrong, but I don’t want (teacher) to get in trouble. She just wanted us to do good on our tests.”
Her son’s comments brought tears to the young mom’s eyes. “I think that’s the worst thing about all this,” she said. “The people whose names are in the newspaper and on the television, the people who we trusted to educate our children, they took a shortcut to try and make themselves look better. They were willing to do what they knew was wrong just so they could meet some quota.
“They didn’t think about the little children like my son who idolize them and look to them for guidance. I know it’s not their job to raise my child, but it is their job to reinforce what I’ve tried to teach him. And one of those main things I’ve tried to teach is what’s right and what’s wrong.”
I offered no meaningful response to the woman’s comments. Clearly, she wanted to vent. And, frankly, I didn’t know what to say. I’ve said for years that No Child Left Behind, while good-intentioned, is a flawed standard by which school systems are judged. Among its unintended byproducts is a tendency of teachers to “teach tests” and, apparently, of educators to seek shortcuts to meet what most agree are all but unattainable standards.
But blaming this piece of legislation for unethical and illegal behavior is an example of one of America’s favorite cop-outs and one of its people’s biggest failings: finding a way to point a finger at others for our own shortcomings.
The CRCT scandal has a face for me now. When I listen to some bureaucrat use mumbo-jumbo to try and explain away the action of people who should have known better, I’ll think of this mother and her son, innocents who are left to pay a steep price for others’ betrayal. And I’ll also think, sadly, about the words of a friend who teaches in the school system: They’re only beginning to scratch the surface.
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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113 comments Add your comment
freelunch
December 27th, 2011
5:21 pm
It is a shame when teachers feel they have to cheat to please corrupt principals and board members who wrongfully enrolled their children in the free lunch program. Dougherty school system is full of people who feel entitled to anything they can get for nothing.
To Digger Good Mother
December 28th, 2011
10:38 am
You say “A teacher cheats because some students can not or will not learn.”
Hogwash.
A teacher cheats because he or she has no integrity and no honesty and has the morals of an alley cat.
Digger
December 28th, 2011
3:34 pm
What would you know about honesty?
Digger
December 28th, 2011
3:44 pm
And stop insulting alley cats.
Ole Guy
December 28th, 2011
4:07 pm
This question goes in line with the predominant attitudes that kids are “made of glass”, and must be treated with the utmost in delicacy. While it is true that the cheating…promarily intended for monetary gain at the “leadership” levels, as well as an attempt to put a “smiley face” on an otherwise less-than steller educational system…hurts all concerned, kids are (presumably) resiliant and have the capacity to “bounce back” from this sort of thing…IF THEY ARE ALLOWED TO.
As with the “at risk” label, kids will perform poorly ONLY if they receive the message that they are expected to/allowed to/given “considerations” of all sorts if and when they do.
Only if…that’s ONLY if schools AND parents follow MY adhearance to standards; to my insistance that kids meet established standards of both deportment and academic performance, can kids rise above the wake of recent cheating scandals. If the education community insists on perpetuating unearned accolades, passing-to-outstanding grades in the face of mediocrity, and the insistance of labeling kids “at risk”, for no other reason than the fact that they were born into less-than-ideal circumstances…sure, kids will be adversley impacted by the scandal…only if WE, and the kids, allow and accept it.
To Ole Guy from Good Mother
December 28th, 2011
7:27 pm
You’re blaming the victimes, Ole Guy. The kids are innocent in all of this. It is the adults who have failed and lied and cheated. Please put the responsibility and accountability where it belongs, at the hands, the feet and the minds and hearts of those adults who cheated, lied and stole.
To Concerned Educator from Good Mother
December 28th, 2011
7:37 pm
CE laments :”We will reap what we sow. Can you believe that there are high schools in the city that no longer have a chorus class for students? Is singing human?”
I never ever had a chorus class, CE. I never had an art class either. All we had was football and some semblance of academic classes.
We don’t need chorus and art to succeed. I am a proponent of art for art’s sake. I think music heals and enriches the soul but it isn’t a necessity for learning.
What is a necessity is a dedicated teacher, one who is educated and honest. One doesn’t even need a good parent in order to learn. School is a safe haven for many. It certainly was for me. I had two lousy, disengaged, cruel parents who didn’t give a rip about me but I had a few caring teachers that made all the difference in my life. I graduated high school, earned an academic scholarship to college and earned my degree. I am now a productive, educated tax-payer and am raising my children to be the same.
Some argue school shouldn’t be in the business of running a society. I disagree. Without the few caring individuals called teachers, I would have been a goner.
Children are born wanting to learn and wanting to help and wanting to succeed. It’s in our nature. To do otherwise is a learned behavior we inherit from adults.
W need good schools. We need to hire honest and caring individuals to work with them. Everything else can be learned and taught (both for teachers and students.)
Ole Guy
December 29th, 2011
3:44 pm
Right on, good Mom! Parents hold full and complete accountability for their kids’ behavior. However, at some point in their young lives, these very same kids have to/MUST start assuming a share of that accountability; at some point…generally around the time kids become part of a society outside the home (SCHOOL), they need to start realizing that they share a degree of responsibility toward that “society”. That means appropriate deportment, and, for their own sake, a gradual realization that school work…as seemingly distasteful as it may seem to be…demands a degree of time and application.
Exactly at what point in time, Mom, would you suggest that these “kids”, who, as young adults, stop blaming THEIR folks, and start assuming command of their own destinys? The adult world gushes over the fact that their young ones are able to master such technological mysteries as programing VCRs and the like, yet the very same adults will deny that their kids must start assuming responsibilities outside showing up at the dinner table on time. Quite frankly, Mom, I do not think the adult world even WANTS their kids to grow up and start facing the travails of life. You seem to feel that kids…of ALL ages…must remain completely innocent of every-and-all ills which this life imposes upon them.
I’ve expressed these thought before, and they hold true to this very moment: parents/adults, LIKE YOU, PROF, and MANY MANY MORE, will be responsible for rearing generations completely and uterly incapable of assuming adult responsibilities. You, AND Prof, AND many many more good people out there shold be ashamed of your fear and trepidation. Perhaps you, yourselves, lack a degree of perspective; of self-assuredness. By allowing this cloud of self-doubt to influence your outlook on those future gens’ development, you cheat, not only yourselves and your offspring but also the direction of this Great Country. Perhaps many of YOUR gen have not been tested; have not felt the fires of life at it’s very worse; consequently, your perspectives on life tend to take on an “Alice In Wonderland” persona. When life’s “Big Bad Wolf” enters your kids’ domains (as it surely will), it will always be someone elses problem and, consequently, someone elses’ responsibility to address and overcome.
Congratulations: Mom, Prof, and many many more out there who seem to disapprove of even considering a departure from educational dogma which (painfully) obviously is a dismal failure. Incidentially, Prof, I DO NOT livein Florida. I spend a lotoftime their, both on business and “shux n’ grins”. I reside in the ATL area, HAVE spent considerable time within Georgia education, and, therefore, am fully aware of the “warts and all” within Ga ed; my remarks, therefore, come from a position of factual knowledge, as well as plain and simple truth.
Observer
December 29th, 2011
4:07 pm
@ Ole Guy. What on earth do you mean exactly by this cloud of vague generalities? What specifically are you proposing should be done about the problems of:
*social promotion when the student is several grade-levels behind?
*disruptive students in the classroom that the administration will not remove?
*dismissal of teachers who refuse to cheat?
Remember now, social promotion is allowed BY LAW; physical punishment of students is prohibited BY LAW; this is by BY LAW a “right to work” state (no unions permitted to represent teachers’ rights).
“Congratulations: Mom, Prof, and many many more out there who seem to disapprove of even considering a departure from educational dogma which (painfully) obviously is a dismal failure.” Words, words, words. High falutin words.
To Ole Guy from Good Mother
December 29th, 2011
4:18 pm
Ole Guy, you write “Perhaps many of YOUR gen have not been tested; have not felt the fires of life at it’s very worse; consequently, your perspectives on life tend to take on an “Alice In Wonderland” persona. When life’s “Big Bad Wolf” enters your kids’ domains (as it surely will), it will always be someone elses problem and, consequently, someone elses’ responsibility to address and overcome.”
I’ve overcome a great deal and I’m also a veteran. I grew up with hard knocks and two parents that beat the hell out of me. Your constant “beat them into submission” mantra doesn’t bode well with me because I’ve been there and done that and it doesn’t help.
I’m also tough. After college I enlisted in the military, as an enlisted soldier and am a veteran of the Gulf War. (The first one.).
So your assumptions that I’m some candy-ass, lightweight is wrong. I have succeeded and I will teach my children to succeed the right way, through discipline, not beatings and through love, not neglect.
You’ve asked what age are children able to be responsible for their own actions? Well, of course it depends on the matter at hand. I expect them to do their own homework when they are able to read fluently and can understand the directions the teacher gives them. I will, as a good mother, of course, provide them with a consistent homework time ritual. For example, after school at X o’clock, their butts are at the kitchen table doing homework while I am cooking dinner, handy and available for any questions.
When homework is complete and accurate and teeth are brushed and bodies are bathed and chores are done, yes, you can watch a 30 minute TV program and so on.
Children want and need boundaries. We adults are responsible for creating and enforcing those boundaries and most of them are learned in the eight hours a day they are at school. It’s my job to ensure they get to school on time and prepared. Once they enter those doors and I wave goodbye and am off to work earning tax dollars to pay the teacher, I expect the school to do their job.
Ole Guy
December 29th, 2011
4:58 pm
Now we’re hiding behind the law…”Gee, I’d go 75 to 80 mph but, alas, that would be “agin’de law”…”Shux, ah caint’ vote…oh, ah can? You mean ta tell me de law was changed? Ah didn’t know dat! Well, glory be, ah spose de law, when PEOPLE REALLY CARE, can be changed. Opps, ah don’t wanna be quesed’ o issuing (what did you call it, Observer) high falluten words. I spose it’s a lot easier, an safer, to simply watch the edication house burn to the ground. If ah jus comment n’ complain, ah’ll prolly feel a lot better. Ma kids? Their kids, an THEIR kids…oh well! Les jus not have no ha falutin words.
Ole Guy
December 29th, 2011
5:37 pm
Let’s get one more thing straight, folks…bumping up on 66, I remain highly competitive. Both as a “yout” and as an adult, I received GOOD EDUCATIONS, not necessarily because I wanted it, but because the adults in my life were tough, unyielding in their demands, and “not always nice in their approach to dealing with a knucklehead”. Because these adults were not always “nice” in their demeanors, I learned, early on, to attack life’s challenges; when those challenges knocked me on my six, I got up, shook my head, and continued the march. Were there periods of self-doubt, fear and trepidation? YOU BET THERE WAS!
Now before I upset Observer with “vague generalities and high faluten words”, I will leave with but one…suggestion: STOP PISSING AROUND WITH THESE KIDS. The difficultie which they face may be the work of others, and completely out of their realm of responsibilities…BUT…it is they, and THEY ALONE, who have to get on the stick and deal with these issues…NOT the Easter Bunny, Santa, or any of a number of people we popularly hold as responsible. STOP rubbing the fannys of these kids.
If that’s too general and high faluten…GO TO HECK!
Observer
December 31st, 2011
2:25 pm
@ Ole Guy, Dec. 29, 3:44 pm: “I HAVE spent considerable time within Georgia education, and, therefore, am fully aware of the “warts and all” within Ga. ed; my remarks, therefore, come from a position of factual knowledge.”
And on the earlier “Cyberbaiting” blog thread, you also claimed considerable teaching experience.
I guess you’ve forgotten that on the earlier Aug. 11 blog, “What does it mean to be a proficient 8th grader?” you wrote, on Aug. 13, 3:54 pm: “…my public education experience is somewhat limited. As a career switch, following a Military career, I entered the field with certain expectations (of discipline and focus) gleaned from my flying days. I suspected that there would be a certain amount of “re-evaluation”, on my part, as to my expectations. However, at an early point in my soujourn, I realized that my personal “chemistry” and that of the educational community would not be compatible.”
An armchair general.