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<p>There is nothing to think about, it is cheating, plain and simple. Maybe the kids at the poor rural school can’t afford SAT tutoring - why not level the playing field and fill in a few answers for them too.</p>
<p>I taught in a low income, urban school that showed a picture of bleachers, the type of bench you’d usually find in a school’s gym. But this school not only didn’t have bleachers, it didn’t even have a gym. How were those kids expected to circle “b-l-e-a-c-h-e-r-s” if they’ve never seen them before? In another part of the test, this time for reading comprehension, kids read a story about a man in a kayak. They didn’t have a clue what a kayak was or looked like and there wasn’t even enough explanation to understand the man was out in the water. I knew it was totally unfair to see them struggle.</p>
<p>The next year, I made sure I brought in books that exposed my students to all sorts of things they’d see if the lived a different life. In their real life, most lived like the child in Fly Away Home by Eve Bunting.</p>
<p>There is a form of cheating that has run rampant in some states for decades; allowing “their” students extra time on standardized tests. An extra 5 minutes on a 25 minute section can easily move the school/state norms up a few percent relative to honest states. Local parent proctors are not likely to report or even notice this.</p>
<p>sorghum you have two different points -
First, it’s not cheating to teach to the test, p3t did not fill in the answers for the kids; once she knew what was on the test, she made sure to include it in her curriculum next time. She didn’t stop the test in the middle and explain what these terms meant. Isn’t that sort of what the tests are designed to do - have everyone know the same things, whether it’s relevant to their lives or not?</p>
<p>Yes, SATs are ridiculous because of the overwhelming frequency of tutoring. Those with money have better, private tutors, those with less money have group classes, those with little money usually have no tutor and maybe can afford some review books. Of course there’s also the student factor - does the privileged child actually do the homework and vocabulary cards recommended by the tutor or class teacher? Even without doing any work outside of the tutor or class, those with assistance will “perform” better on the SATs.</p>
<p>National testing is a farce.</p>
<p>But how else can a B+ in Arkansas be compared to a B+ in rural Alaska?</p>
<p>Yes, BigG, I agree, that is cheating. </p>
<p>A B+ in Arkansas cannot be compared to a B+ in rural Alaska, why does it need to be? If you mean for the SATs and college admittance, then my understanding is that most colleges know about the high schools and receive info from the schools as to what is offered, what grades mean, etc. They also look at essays, short answers, etc. and that has to help a lot.</p>
<p>In our high school you can’t even fairly compare the grades kids get in Chemistry depending on which teacher they had. Our French program is so much more stringent than our Spanish program that the guidance counselors put a note in college applications explaining that. </p>
<p>Humans are involved in all of this testing and grading and that means comparisons are extremely difficult and unfair. Welcome to life!</p>
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<p>Incredible the justifications and defenses. P3t did NOT ‘teach to the test’, but found out what specifically was on that particular test for that day, and prepped the students. To write down all the unfamiliar words from all the previous tests, and teach them over a year, would be teaching to the test.</p>
<p>NO teacher EVER has the right to secretly ‘adjust’ for their own perception of unfairness in a test by snooping at the questions, giving extra time, or erasing wrong answers and filling in the right ones.</p>
<p>I stand corrected but I still think she just taught to the test, albiet at the last minute but nonetheless, she didn’t say, “These words are on the test, so you need to know them.” She did some last minute teaching involving the students who learned what these new words meant and, hopefully, remembered it when they saw it on the test.</p>
<p>Clearly, you have a very narrow and strict viewpoint. Since I have never given these tests any value, I do not.</p>
<p>I would assume that the introduction (here in VA at least) of completely computerized standardized tests has something to do with this. Your teacher never sees your answers, you sit down, take it, hit submit and get your results back almost immediately. That would eliminate everything one poster talked about–being alone in a school, erasing extraneous marks with all the temptation.</p>
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<p>Excuse me, sorghum. Before you continue to smear my reputation to kingdom come for distorting my post and extracting one thing from it and twisting it beyond recognition, please know that all teachers were given the test the day before (as I wrote). </p>
<p>I had a normal “Morning Meeting” circle on the floor, regular to our daily curriculum. In the spot where we always learn 5 new vocab words, I was sure to put in “sidewalk” and “curb.” Some learned it, some spaced out. Typical day. I didn’t tell them why I was teaching it, as other astute CC readers recognized from my earlier post. I didn’t say “here, it’s on the test, so learn it.” I didn’t stop the test. I didn’t recircle their answers or send them back to desks after they handed in papers. </p>
<p>The five words I chose were always relevant to the season or day of the school. If it was near St. Patrick’s Day I taught them “gold, rainbow, leprechaun (only aural recognition not spelling), clover and Ireland” even though they were rural Black and Spanish kids whose parents worked in local industries or were unemployed. That’s what they needed to know that day. If the principal came through and asked them all what they know about St. Patrick’s Day, they’d better know something or I get a scowl. There are all kinds of “tests” we teach to, constantly. </p>
<p>Did you know that the difference in vocabulary between poor and wealthy students entering Kindergarten is around 3 thousand words, and it departs exponentially from there forward? Is it any wonder there are disparities in reading comprehension?</p>
<p>Therefore diligent teachers of poor students work hard to arm them with new vocabulary on a daily basis, to augment what is called by educators their “common knowledge base.” </p>
<p>Would you rather I have not taught them their 5 new words that day? I didn’t say they were on a test. It is my prerogative as their teacher to choose 5 relevant words daily. I didn’t even vary my curriculum to teach them “curb” and “sidewalk.” In June, I taught “beach” and “ocean.” I hope they got to a “beach” that summer. Some did, some didn’t.</p>
<p>In larger measure, I’m proud that in one decade I taught 200 abysmally poor children to read, write and compute in their early lifetime. Statewide testing was a tremendous intrusion that distracted from the teaching process for a week. I put up with it because I had to. It taught me NOTHING about my students I didn’t already know by working with them daily, but it gave the schools the data they needed for the alleged improvement I never saw come to pass.</p>
<p>Anything else you want to know that’s real about life in a classroom? Can I tell you how the administrators rewarded parents by packing certain classrooms with all the better kids, making it unfair to teachers being measured as teachers according to their students’ progress? How teachers submitted index cards with fair distributions by race and gender for next year’s classroom in June, only to return in September to find students rearranged by an unknown force? How about 6 principals in 7 years until the students thought the custodian was a principal.</p>
<p>I did not cheat, ever. I taught, always. </p>
<p>If I weren’t so daggone honest I would not have bothered to post an honest review of what happened on test day or my thoughts on it. I also reported in the Math PhD for taping my students’ mouths shut, and took a lot of heat for that schoolwide, too. She was required by the principal to phone each parent that night, take responsibility and apologize. For the rest of that year, I had parents coming to me at conferences and ask “why did you tape my kid’s mouth shut?” You have no idea, sorghum, no idea.</p>
<p>I vehemently disagree that p3t’s actions could in any way be described as cheating. This is cheating: changing the student’s answers after the test booklets are passed in. Walking amongst the children during the test and pausing to tell them what a correct answer is, or what a word means. Interrupting the test to make a general announcement about a word’s meaning, or the correct way to regroup, or what the capital of Arkansas is.</p>
<p>If a teacher knows that something is going to be on the test and prepares her students for that ahead of time, it’s not cheating, it’s being a good teacher.</p>
<p>Also - have you read any of p3t’s posts, sorghum? Might give you a little perspective here. She’s an ethical and responsible member of the CC community. You’re entitled to create a broad, even all-encompassing definition of cheating, if you’d like. But you’re not going to me that it’s the correct one.</p>
<p>P3T - I am with you and I applaud you, doing one of the most difficult, thankless and one of the most important jobs in this country. You should not have to defend yourself.</p>
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<p>This isn’t cheating? Doesn’t sound any different from a student who steals an exam and then prepares for it “ahead of time”. Teachers caught doing this should have their license suspended. The only thing a teacher should prepare her students is something that is public knowledge.</p>
<p>It seems that there is no check and balance to prevent cheating because the taker, the proctor, and the administrator all have a shared vested interest. If someone conducting the test disagrees with it, they should try to influence the content of the test and not just violate the rules.</p>
<p>It’s time that standardized tests are conducted by organizations where no one there gains or loses anything based on the outcome of the test, and the teachers and school staff are cut out of this process.</p>
<p>If the teacher knows that subtraction is going to be on the test, she teaches her students subtraction. If she knows that the test is going to cover the geography of Europe, she teaches them where the Netherlands are. And if she knows that vocabulary her students have never seen or heard is on the test and she doesn’t teach them those words - well, how are they supposed to know them?</p>
<p>What are we trying to measure - how well a teacher can guess what her students are going to be tested on?</p>
<p>The way it works on those tests is that if the kids know the subject area well, can read books at a certain level, then they will do all right on the test. I’m not saying that they should be just practicing test taking, though a few run throughs may not hurt.</p>
<p>Some kids who have had to take those fill in the dots tests for the first time will not do as well on them. So test procedures are important too. </p>
<p>Don’t they teach teachers how to teach kids the subjects well enough to do well on those tests without just teaching the tests? Sheesh. That’s why I thought they have the certification.</p>
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She should have covered the Netherlands, and every other country in the year leading to the exam. She has every right to use any publicly available information to prepare the students, but training the student based on the specific exam that is to be administered is reason enough for not giving teachers access to or letting them administer exams. </p>
<p>What exactly does it mean if the student does well in the exam? It certainly doesn’t mean the student has any command of the subject in general. The only ones come out ahead are the teachers and the school district during review time.</p>
<p>“Additionally, we saw the tests the day before and anyone who wished to could do a last-minute lesson in new, unfamiliar vocabulary if they wanted to enhance the class’s ability to do better on a reading comprehension test. If you knew the question had the word “elevator” in it and you were looking out at 6-year-olds who all lived in wooden houses in upstate New York, guess what – you taught them all what an “elevator” was before the test because you knew that downstate First Graders from NYC all knew that term.”</p>
<p>Sorry, I agree with the other people who see this as cheating. The test never should have been viewed by the teachers ahead of time. They should have been stored in a locked area until the morning of the test. They should be hand delivered in a sealed box or file to the teacher by the administrator on the morning of the test. The time of delivery to the teacher should be recorded as well as the teacher’s signature. This is the way it’s done here.</p>
<p>No matter how you spin it, teachers seeing the test ahead of time is cheating. There’s nothing wrong with using old tests for review and practice with students. Using the info seen by reviewing the actual test beforehand is nothing short of cheating.</p>
<p>Teaching to the test is really, really old news.</p>
<p>Most schools do it now, but the wealthier school districts have been teaching to the tests for decades. </p>
<p>Heck the entire AP curriculum is just “teaching to the test,” frankly.</p>
<p>The wealthier school districts don’t just teach to the test. Some (our neighboring one) don’t even bother to take the tests. Those kids are well taught even if they are also taught to the test as their subsequent academic success shows. I wish all schools could teach to the test like the wealthier school districts do. Then kids would know much more of what they should and need to learn from school.</p>
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<p>I agree with NY - I don’t object to teaching to the test from what’s been published before. It’s teaching to the test that’s going to be given tomorrow. Once you’ve decided to go this route, why do the hard task of teaching the material in the course if you can just focus on specific questions on hand.</p>