Questions get reused frequently. However, often it is more of a pattern–similar questions with the same reasoning process. This was widespread on the LSAT exam where quite often the highest scorers prepared by studying prior LSAT tests.
Because Johnny’s might not have the ability to. It seems it was through siblings and neighbors. I’ve always complained about the social engineering of a particular group of parents. Now it seems it extends to academics as well.
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I don’t know anything about the LSAT and the type of questions on there. But for a class, depending on the course, this can be pretty tough to avoid.
If I was going to do this with my exam questions, I’d probably go all the way and provide my students with old exams. It would be a feature rather than a bug, since reasoning is part of what we’re trying to assess.
That was my motivation in giving my students a list of possible essay questions in advance. The act of studying for the test by going through the old ones makes them reason through the material rather than just memorizing.
There’s lots of things people get in life that others can’t.
Maybe my parents are all academically focused and Johnny’s aren’t. Not all parents are equal in their concern for academics.
The theme was implied from OP that there’s cheating or unethical behavior.
I disagree - and with you too - in this instance.
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True, but my parents were academically focused but they wouldn’t have done something like this. Studying for tests and keeping my grades up was my responsibility. Sure, my parents encouraged me to do well and wanted me to go to college and reminded me to do my homework and expected me to do well, but they wouldn’t have gotten involved to this extent.
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Nor would I. But no one cheated - but that’s not the question - or accusation that initially came.
I totally agree. It seems that HS education is more focused on adavantage vs disadvantages or “cheating”, when schools have to focus on students mastering material.
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My parents also had the good sense to know that it was about learning the material and not just a test score. And that a successful high school student’s parents shouldn’t even need to know when their test are. That was on me. But then again, that was pre “T20 or bust”. When parents could look at failing a test as a lesson and not get the administration involved.
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I spent about 15 years in the classroom, and there were times that I reused tests from previous years, though I did not reuse my lesson plans and did incorporate new things learned from professional development and my own research.
When I taught at an alternative school with small classes (i.e. about 15 kids/class) and only needed to prep for two subjects (taught multiple times a day), I’m 99% sure that I never reused anything.
When I taught at a “regular” school with six classes of 30-33 kids with three or four different classes to prep, I definitely reused some tests. When one is teaching 180 kids and needed to review all of their exit slips to see what needs to be covered the next day, grade and give feedback on their work (God bless all teachers, but especially English teachers), do all the lesson planning, etc, with only a 45-minute planning period to do all of the above, and everything else on one’s own time, I’m not going to take issue with a teacher reusing a test. And these are in locations where veteran teachers with graduate degrees are earning less than the average new college graduate.
So although I hear CCers talk about places where they live where teachers are earning 6-figures and have lots of resources available to them, that is definitely the exception rather than the rule base upon my experience in public education.
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Teachers should assume that test questions get leaked, even between morning and afternoon sections of the same class.
I had a teacher in middle school who had a test with some true/false questions on it. But the morning sections got a version where all were true, and the afternoon sections got a version where all were false (or maybe the other way around). Some marginal students in the afternoon sections apparently did get all of that section incorrect by trusting the lunchtime chatter about the test.
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Johny’s parents may also not be able to hire Jonny a tutor or buy him a workbook or simply sit down with him and explain the material. It does not make the behavior of other parents unfair.
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Yours would not, somebody’s would… It does not make them cheaters. Some parents are more involved than others.
It does happen. There is no way the teacher does not see that the second period class does better than first one. Often, they just don’t care. They could change the questions, but many choose not to. This has nothing to do with parents though, because parents are not in school and are for sure not part of this particular process.
Do I need to know? No. Do I know? Often yes. My kids share a lot with me, and I often end up knowing about upcoming tests. Sometimes I help them to plan out their preparation (more like time management advice). Sometimes I help them review. Sometimes I ask if outside help (like tutors or extended family members that know the subject) is needed. Sometimes I do nothing. It depends on what my kid communicates with me. I never step over them. Does my help ever make a difference in the grade they get? I want to believe that sometimes it does 
. Grades are as important as the knowledge received. This has nothing to do with academic dishonesty though - even if other kids’ parents are less involved or have less recourses/desire to help.
I teach high school in Texas. I strongly disagree with this concept in the article:
“the school’s principal says the vast majority of students work extremely hard at their academics and says providing advantages to some skews the efforts of others.”
Learning and growth are individual. People are different. Everyone has some kind of advantage as well as disadvantage to the others. Being taller or shorter both can be advantageous at different times.
Unless the school has specific rules against sharing tests from previous years, I don’t see anything wrong with parents and older siblings providing materials to younger siblings. If the school has such a rule in place, the admins need to think again. As a teacher, I would not assume that the majority of the students would abide by such rule.
Since I really don’t have the time to rewrite all the unit tests, I reuse them with modifications. I have three courses, two periods each every day. The school runs a progress report every three weeks and asks us to add one summative (test) grade each run. So on average I need a new unit test every week. I teach computer programming. Composing a new unit test takes me 60-90 minutes. However, I don’t have this time within my contracted hours. In the one conference period I have each day, the high priority tasks are grading, debugging, giving feedbacks, and contacting parents. The best I can do is to modify my old tests, at least change all the variable values, sometimes rewrite 3-5 questions. After the tests I ask the students to go over the questions, add to their notebooks the ones they made mistakes on, and use these notes as study guide for semester exams. We learn from our mistakes, literally.
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It is not cheating, and perhaps it isn’t even wrong, but it is certainly unfair (just like so many things in life).
I guess I can see where it’s not cheating, but really? You’re getting old tests for your kid to study? Are you going to do that when they’re in college? They have to keep up the GPA to get a good job, after all.
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I’m not defending this behavior, I think it is terrible. I just don’t think it meets a definition of academic dishonesty, unless there was some written policy addressing a scenario like this.
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As I said in my first response, yes.
STEM departments routinely offer up old exams. My brother’s frat (and probably most frats) are a repository of old exams and papers.
To quote Faye Dunaway in Mommie Dearest: “Ah, but nobody ever said life was fair, Tina.”
I’m not talking about the STUDENT getting old exams - we were allowed to do that in college. I’m talking about PARENTS getting them for their kids. That seems excessive, whether in high school or college.
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