Obsession over test scores created culture of corruption in Atlanta schools

Teachers spent nights huddled in a back room, erasing wrong answers on students' test sheets and filling in the correct bubbles. At another school, struggling students were seated next to higher-performing classmates so they could copy answers.

Those and other confessions are contained in a new state report that reveals how far some Atlanta public schools went to raise test scores in the nation's largest-ever cheating scandal. Investigators concluded that nearly half the city's schools allowed the cheating to go unchecked for as long as a decade, beginning in 2001.

Administrators — pressured to maintain high scores under the federal No Child Left Behind law — punished or fired those who reported anything amiss and created a culture of "fear, intimidation and retaliation," according to the report released earlier this month, two years after officials noticed a suspicious spike in some scores.

The report names 178 teachers and principals, and 82 of those confessed. Tens of thousands of children at the 44 schools, most in the city's poorest neighborhoods, were allowed to advance to higher grades, even though they didn't know basic concepts.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=14086928

Tying in funding to how bubbles were filled in causing something like this, who couldn't have seen this coming?

Bunch of backward thinking con artists.

I didn't need that comma.

It's Obama, Duncan, and a whole cottage industry of hedge-fun DEMS.

Teachers have been saying this ( that school 'reform' is actually school *corruption* in drag) here, on DU, every day for the last four years.

All it has accomplished is that a lot of us have been banned and the above mindlessness marches on.

With BIPARTISAN support.

I wish more people would pay attention, though.

Even if the teachers had gotten fired because of accurate test scores, they could have at least had a chance of getting a job someplace else as a teacher. But as a cheater, they won't get hired by anyone for anything.

This wasn't simple civil disobedience, that's something that's done publically in order to state a political opinion. Backroom cheating is just simple fraud, which works in favor of the side that one opposes.

At the same time, something should be done about the things turning our education system into a fill-in-the-bubble system.

Cheating is rampant in schools today, and I've been a part of some interesting conversations about what even constitutes cheating these days (this stuff does, don't get me wrong).

There's no way the principals didn't know, though, or weren't behind it. Funny how only the teachers are blamed.

'Cheating' was overlooked by anyone who wanted to keep their job. There was 'money' at stake, you know.

here on DU anyway.

cheating is apparently okay, as long as you feel cornered with a rigged system. So why not lets all go and rob some banks.

some say that the price of a failing school was that teachers salaries were then cut - I have to wonder where the union was on this matter. some say that there really were not threats of cuts to salary but big bonuses if the school did well.

quite the difference for motive in the two stories. which one is true, both? who knows, but protecting cheaters is disgusting no matter what excuses are given. For all those many who did chose to cheat there are many more that did not - those are the ones I would trust my kids with - the others are frauds and should be treated as so

>>>>For all those many who did chose to cheat there are many more that did not - those are the ones I would trust my kids with - the others are frauds and should be treated as so>>>>


they AREN'T there any more?

They aren't there cause they've been let go. Because: 1. Their scores were *LOW*; and 2. Obama-Duncan education philosophy says their continued employment hinges on *high* test scores.


If "reform" is working the way Obama says he wants it to work... the teachers you are looking for are not there anymore. ( Because of low test scores.)



And...BTW..... OF COURSE it's harmful to children.


..>>>..I have to wonder where the union was on this matter. some say that there really were not threats of cuts to salary but big bonuses if the school did well.>>>

What?!?!?! Link please. I knew some one would try to figure out a way to blame teachers' unions for this.

I have heard both and the two mean two very different things.

If the salaries were to be cut due to performance, wouldn't the union have a say in this? Where is it I am blaming them for anything here?

.."some say?" Who are these "some?" I think the teachers were likely more than aware of what the consequences were for poor scores.

I completely agree with you about the behavior - cheating is unacceptable. I teach, and would never do this, even if my school were under the gun. The point, however, is putting up such ridiculous standards for schools to meet will inevitably result in this kind of behavior. Cheating on behalf of students is just the tip of the iceberg: schools now expel weaker students and use valuable time in class to teach the students mindless test-taking skills. If you give people an unreasonable environment, you will get unethical behavior, whether we're talking about a school, a business or life in general.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2011-07-11-teachers-union-cheating_n.htm

In Atlanta, the union in 2005 "blew the whistle on this, and it was ignored because there was this enormous pressure to meet (testing) targets," she said. "Targets became more important than learning and a climate, as the governor said, that was intimidating and that was fearful and that was retailiating against anyone who came forward."

She said the national discussion on education has been "hijacked by a group of self-styled 'reformers' who believe that public education in America should consist of islands of excellence staffed by passers-through, instead of dynamic school systems staffed by professionals."






http://thinkprogress.org/education/2011/07/07/262184/atlanta-cheating-scandal-union/


Interestingly, one aspect of the scandal that has not been covered by the major media is the role of the local teacher unions. While Atlanta’s teacher unions are largely powerless when it comes to actual bargaining and strike powers — unlike many of their northern counterparts, they currently have no collective bargaining rights enshrined into law — one local chapter of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) was the very first body to internally report cheating to the district superintendent, Dr. Beverly Hall. The report notes this:

ALLEGATIONS OF COVER-UP: Dr. Hall and her senior cabinet received numerous reports of cheating. We found cheating allegations being made to top leadership in the district beginning as early as 2005, and continuing through this investigation. ln many instances, those reports were ignored, superticially investigated, or hidden from view. Parks Middle School APS received three complaints of cheating and other improprieties concerning Parks Middle School and Principal Christopher Waller at the end of 2005 and the beginning of 2006. Dr. Hall personally received the first complaint on December 22, 2005 from the Atlanta Federation of Teachers, and forwarded this complaint to Dr. Augustine <...>

now exists in most public schools. Fear of losing job, fear of losing funds, fear of low test scores. In addition, high-stakes testing continues to narrow the school curriculum and to fragment subjects while stressing out our children.


There is no evidence that the new tests will help children. If they fail, students and teachers will suffer, but testing companies will keep their profits and will get to try again.




http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2011/07/please-sir-more-tests-feds-now-want-to.html

Incredible...

Rules of the (Gates) Game: "follow lockstep" or be Punished

http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2010/06/rules-of-gates-game-follow-lockstep-or.html


In the U.S., where the foundation concentrates mostly on efforts to reform education, the Gates Foundation, over the years, has given money to almost every major education think tank, leaving few to criticize its power, asserts former assistant secretary of Education Diane Ravitch in her new book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System.

Those who do not "follow lockstep" with the foundation can get punished, says David Shreve, federal affairs counsel at the National Conference of State Legislatures. He says his group failed to get a Gates Foundation grant renewed after its policy positions did not adhere closely enough with the foundation's education-reform strategies. "They made it clear we weren't toeing the line," Shreve says.

Will those funds be rescinded?

and, in reality, requires corruption to survive? That Duncan apparently eats up this modus operandi is astonishing. :patriot:

The education reform superstar presided over substantial test score irregularities during her term as D.C. schools chancellor, an investigation has found


http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/03/29/michelle-rhees-cheating-scandal-school-test-score-irregularities.html


But the sad truth is that we shouldn’t be surprised by USA Today’s disheartening findings on test score irregularities in the Washington, D.C., public schools during the reign of Michelle Rhee, the firebrand former chancellor best known for firing teachers, closing underperforming schools, and linking teacher and principal pay to student test scores. Such irregularities are, in part, the unintended consequence of a spate of popular education reform policies that over-rationalize teaching and learning—both of which are creative processes—by measuring them almost exclusively through the results of multiple-choice standardized tests.

Simultaneously, instances of outright cheating were rising nationwide. The USA Today investigation on the probable cheating in Washington, D.C. is just one article in a must-read series based on student achievement data culled from 24,000 public schools across the country. The paper found 1,610 instances in which test score gains from year to year exceeded three standard deviations—a jump greater than that of 99.7 percent of all test-takers annually in any given state, the threshold at which statisticians agree that test results may be suspect.

I wish it were astonishing. Sigh.

just snake oil salesmen.

in the past, the tests were used as a measure of how the STUDENT was doing to focus on the children that needed help. now is it is a measure of the TEACHER and the SCHOOL and completely ignores the student.

Painful...stupid...worshiping numbers instead of paying attention to them.

sP

>>>Tying in funding to how bubbles were filled in causing something like this, who couldn't have seen this coming?>>>>


Obama, that's who.

www.wsbtv.com/news/28565957/detail.html

http://www.examiner.com/political-buzz-in-atlanta/if-johnny-does-not-know-how-to-read-he-had-better-know-how-on-test-day


Waller used intimidation and threats to bring compliance from the teachers as well as rewarding those who showed a willingness to cheat:


-Several teachers reported Waller’s misconduct in 2005 and 2006 but APS did not discipline Waller- quite the opposite. Dr. Hall held Waller out to the public and other principals as a "model principal".


-Crystal Draper received $1,000 in cash from Waller because her homeroom had the highest percentage of students passing the CRCT. He gave her the money in front of the faculty;

-Tameka Grant knew of cheating and reported it to her superiors. Her contract was not renewed for the 2011-2012 school year.

-Fabiola Aurelien was aware of cheating but did not participate. Waller threatened Aurelien that if she was not going to be on his "team" it would hurt her. She did not receive a promotion she was due later in the year.

-Stacey Johnson would not take part and was belittled in front of faculty and ostracized by Waller.

-Dr. Hall fired Principal Cornelius Watts due to low test scores and replaced him with Karen Barlow-Brown in 2003-204. As with many of the schools with new principals, the test scores turned around dramatically and quickly.

-Cynthia James (teacher) did not cheat and went to the principal and questioned how a student of hers with learning disabilities scored so well on the CRCT the previous year. Her contract was not renewed after the 2008-2009 school year.