Test pressure didn’t create the CRCT cheating scandal
The numbers were good — too good. They kept rising, beggaring belief. The people who should have questioned them, should have inquired as to how those producing the numbers kept moving from strength to strength, instead got caught up in celebrating them, even taking credit for them.
The numbers were good — too good to be true.
Enron? Major League Baseball?
Atlanta Public Schools?
Let’s stipulate that the state’s review of dodgy CRCT results, prompted by an earlier AJC investigative series, does not on its own explain exactly what happened in Atlanta’s schools during last year’s standardized tests. The state’s analysis of erasure marks on student test sheets does not reveal who did, or knew, or ignored what. For that reason, Gov. Sonny Perdue and his staff have been wisely patient in waiting for the rest of the facts to come to light.
But let’s also acknowledge that cheating occurred. Barring some anti-APS conspiracy by the state, no innocent explanation suffices for a system whose schools were vastly overrepresented among the suspicious.
Surely, there are many innocent teachers and administrators — just as the majority of major leaguers didn’t take steroids, and only a handful of executives cooked the books.
Still, the alternate explanations from Superintendent Beverly Hall don’t cut it. The idea that Atlanta students are just really diligent about double-checking their test answers (and just happen to get dozens of questions right the second time around) doesn’t pass the laugh test any more than Barry Bonds insisting he was just a vitamin-popping gym rat.
When the next phase of investigation ends and — let’s hope — we learn more about how the cheating took place, some people will rationalize it as the inevitable result of an emphasis on testing.
That rationalization isn’t laughable, it’s abominable.
Start with the fact that some of the people who will take this broad-brush swipe at educators’ integrity are the same ones now bemoaning an unfair rush to judgment following the state’s CRCT inquiry.
Plenty of teachers and administrators in plenty of school districts faced the pressure to perform without cheating. Of the state’s 188 districts, 175 managed to avoid having a single school on the “severe concern” list that ensnared three-fifths of APS elementary and middle schools. Statewide, 80 percent of the schools under review were deemed in the clear.
So, clearly, cheating is not a reflexive reaction to pressure. We ought to be gravely concerned about any leader who would suggest that it is.
That’s particularly true for anyone who works with children and teenagers. If schools are not equipping students to face this kind of pressure, they will be even worse off as adults than we thought.
We can’t simply trust people to do the right thing, but we can verify it. For too long, we didn’t verify education results.
Now that we’ve begun to verify, the answer isn’t to de-emphasize tests. Baseball didn’t react to steroid use by playing down home runs, and Wall Street still measures earnings.
There’s one last commonality among APS, steroids in baseball and financial fraud.
Baseball players didn’t use steroids to be all-stars; they cheated to achieve the unprecedented: 66, 70, 73 home runs in a season. Enron didn’t cook the books to be merely profitable, but to reach soaring earnings and share prices.
And the scores of APS students didn’t just rise; they skyrocketed. Yet Atlantans didn’t demand that APS double its passing rates within a decade, only that it record steady, sustainable improvement.
Now, like fans and investors, we have to wonder whether we got even that.
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220 comments Add your comment
LA
February 19th, 2010
9:42 am
“abolish the governmet, hates the TARP, hates the irs, rails against taxation without representation……sounds famililar.”
Quotes the communist manifesto, rails on republicans but says nothing about democrats…….
LA
February 19th, 2010
9:43 am
“taxation without representation”
That would be ALL American’s sam. Unless you love tyranny that is…….
sam
February 19th, 2010
9:44 am
i’m not going to spend the morning going back and forth with someone i have no respect for…i know you get off on this stuff, i dont. you arent interesting enough to hold my attention any more…
Horrible Horrace
February 19th, 2010
9:46 am
Abolish some of the govt entitlemint programs…absolutely.
Fire about 10% to 25% of the govt deadwood…absolutely.
Combine some govt depts like DEA/ATF…absolutely.
LA
February 19th, 2010
9:47 am
“i’m not going to spend the morning going back and forth with someone i have no respect for”
LOL!!!! Awe, another liberal blogger who has no respect for me. WAAAAAAAAAAH I’m so hurt!!!
“i know you get off on this stuff, i dont.”
Geez ma’am, do you always talk dirty to people you don’t know?
“you arent interesting enough to hold my attention any more…”
Well of course I’m not. I’m not Barney or Spongebob.
Horrible Horrace
February 19th, 2010
9:47 am
Nor do you have any respect for yourself. You are about as useful of a box of fiddle faddle.
GET OUT!
Horrible Horrace
February 19th, 2010
9:48 am
Another cry-baby goes running home to Mee-Maw.
“Mee-Maw they b smartuh then I iz.”
double roles
February 19th, 2010
10:19 am
I think that we all have missed the mark! We need to get back to the basics and the heart of teaching! We all-parents, teachers, administrators, and the community need to work together. I think that it is a shame that with all of the opportunities we’ve been given yet, GA students are still so far behind. We have gone backwards folks! Let’s stop trying to point the finger and get down to the nitty gritty and take ownership of ALL of our children’s education!
PLEASE STOP BEATING UP THE TEACHERS!! YES, A FEW BAD APPLES SPOIL THE BUNCH!
THERE ARE TOO MANY OF US TRYING TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE IN THE LIVES OF THE STUDENTS WE TOUCH EVERYDAY!
I have had enough of the negative comments already!!!
Horrible Horrace
February 19th, 2010
10:41 am
“Let’s stop trying to point the finger and get down to the nitty gritty and take ownership of ALL of our children’s education!”
Oh here we go with the liberal mumbo-jumbo. “We are all good, we are all victims, lets not point the finger, blah blah blah.” In other words lets not do anything, let bygones be bygones so it can and will happen again and again and again.
The finger should be pointed at those responsible and they should be fired.
dewstarpath
February 19th, 2010
3:34 pm
LA & horrible :
If you two want respect, you should start acting like adults
and stop blaming everything on a political party.
How do I know you’re doing this? After this post, the next thing
either of you will put up will be an insult, and it won’t come
anywhere near reality. Something childish about liberals, etc.
That’s why there’s only two of you bashing everyone else all day –
even your first mention of the topic was used to “bash your enemy”.
Stop being “virtual wannabe patriots” and say something intelligent
for a change.
LA
February 19th, 2010
4:20 pm
“If you two want respect, you should start acting like adults
and stop blaming everything on a political party. ”
I could care less if you respect me dewstar. You’re the one who comes in here and starts name calling me.
“After this post, the next thing
either of you will put up will be an insult, and it won’t come
anywhere near reality.”
LOL!!!! You fired the first shot by calling me and Horrace gay the other afternoon.
Talk about childish. Take your own advice and grow up.
“Stop being “virtual wannabe patriots” and say something intelligent
for a change.”
Stupid meet dewstar, dewstar meet stupid.
Bottom line: If you’re going to hurl the first insult, be prepared to be bombarded with insults.
LA
February 19th, 2010
4:21 pm
Kyle, are you even around? Just wondering because this topic is now two days old and you’ve yet to make a peep. You usually chime in and tell me to stop bickering with others.
dewstarpath
February 19th, 2010
5:43 pm
LA – You need to stop talking like a fool.
You’ve been doing nothing but throwing insults to everyone else
since you’ve been on this blog. The only reason you and Horrible
hooked up in the first place is the commonality of your insults.
And I don’t take orders from you. I’ll say what I want when I feel
like it, even when you go whimpering to Kyle and admit to him
what you CLEARLY tell me you don’t do.
“Kyle, are you even around? … You usually chime in and tell me
to stop bickering with others.”
I wouldn’t be suprised if he banned your stupid child-personality
from his blog the way Jay Bookman did.
LA
February 19th, 2010
6:11 pm
“You’ve been doing nothing but throwing insults to everyone else
since you’ve been on this blog. The only reason you and Horrible
hooked up in the first place is the commonality of your insults. ”
LOL!!!! You’re the one who started this whole mess. Hypocrite much?
“And I don’t take orders from you.”
Never said you did, ma’am.
“I wouldn’t be suprised if he banned your stupid child-personality
from his blog the way Jay Bookman did.”
Well, if I get banned then you’d have to get banned as well for calling me gay etc…
You also threw out more insults at other people as well.
Jay never said why he banned me.
LA
February 19th, 2010
6:18 pm
“You need to stop talking like a fool. ”
Oh, how many comments could I copy and paste from you……… Too many to choose from.
Misspelled words, poor grammar, insults etc…………
By the way, this is a blog and no one can talk here.
English fail?
dewstarpath
February 19th, 2010
6:29 pm
“Oh, how many comments can I copy and paste”
What a stupid thing to brag about. I’m not suprised a dumb
statement like that came from you.
dewstarpath
February 19th, 2010
6:35 pm
“Misspelled words, poor grammar….”
Liar. I mistyped one word and you get your thong in a bunch.
Show me one example of poor grammar in any of my posts. Fool.
“BTW, this is a blog and no one can talk here.”
Speech generation is not a feature of most blogs. Quit smoking meth.
“English fail?” And you talk about MY grammar. Ingrate.
Linda Haren
March 2nd, 2010
4:09 pm
Behavioral research is clear: people, including professionals, cheat when the stakes are high or the measure is considered unfair. After putting in “report cards” on hospitals, surgeons began to game the system by turning away sicker cardiac patients to raise their scores. They admitted this is anonymous surveys. The most egregious was St. Vincent’s Hospital. If surgeons are willing to turn away the sickest patients because of a “report card” then I am not surprised school officials cheat. I am not excusing the behavior, but look what happened at Enron and the financiers whose only concern was short term profit. This overemphasis on tests is distorting the system and it is hurting students and their families far more than those who end up in AJC stories for tampering with tests. The most effective school system in the world (Finland) does not use these tests and its results are far better as a country, its teachers far more effective because they don’t “teach to a test” and its students far better educated.
The Truth
March 8th, 2010
11:10 pm
By now, we know that APS cheats…a LOT. I’ve seen it, and so have most APS teachers. Many of us have tried to report it to the professional standards commission, and NOTHING was done -no call back, follow-up, nothing. So…do they really want to know? Or, is this just for show -to help someone’s image? What is the real purpose of this investigation. The truth is right in their faces, and they keep acting like they are still unsure.
Pat
March 12th, 2010
7:38 pm
Oldtimer, have you been back to school or are you still teaching?
You have NO CLUE what teachers and students today are facing? This is my 31st year. I love STUDENTS! The math they are doing today in the sixth grade are concepts I didn’t see until a freshman in college.
I am truly amazed! The CRCT is not a pencil and paper test. I would NOT take the test and put my name on it! It is really difficult for our lower income students to understand ALL THE CONCEPTS.