Teachers cheating on standardized tests

[BUandBC82]

<p>Unfortunately, the problem here isn’t just testing, it’s that we do not have equal opportunity for education in this country and, instead of improving our educational system, we try to build curriculum around these standardized tests and hope the money follows. </p>

<p>Has our educational system improved since we started all this nationwide testing? If it has, I haven’t noticed. Rich towns still have good school systems with plenty of resources and poor towns typically don’t. Shouldn’t we be giving more support and guidance for education in impoverished or low scoring areas; helping those schools to find alternate ways that really work, rather than eliminating some of their funding because the students didn’t do well on a test?</p>

<p>This is a great quote from Tango14:

The best tests are written by good teachers as diagnostic tools to see what part(s) of the curriculum their students have mastered. Standardized tests are something entirely different. They serve a purpose but should not be the be all and end all of any evaluation. Teaching to the test when the test is a good one designed to evaluate student learning is not a bad thing. Teaching to the test when the test is poorly designed or doesn’t really measure learning is as bad as the test.

</p>

<p>Let’s get rid of standardized testing in the primary grades where learning and instruction should be developmental. Each school/state has curriculum goals and standards they expect a student to have before that student is promoted. There is more than one type of instruction and more than one speed of instruction that can get students to meet those goals and standards. Teaching to a test encourages our kids to be passive/rote learners; a good learning environment encourages active discovery learning and develops the whole child.</p>

[CTTC]

<p>

One third. She walked through and taped closed the mouths of a third of the children in class in the amount of time it took me to close the cabinet door where I found masking tape for her. Seven children. My back was to the class closing the cabinet. The seven children sat in desk groupings. As I wrote earlier, they weren’t chatting; they were sounding out words silently on their lips and tongues as they’d been taught. The administrator saw this as “talking during a test.” They’re pretty small, too, and didn’t put up a fuss. I turned around and saw 14 EYES staring back at me with tape over their little mouths.

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<p>So now it’s one third. In your original description you wrote one half. </p>

<p>

When I turned around, half the class had masking tape over their mouths.

</p>

<p>No Child Left Behind requires testing (before high school) in grades 3 - 8. Any testing done before grade 3 is not required by the federal government. So this must be state- or district-mandated testing that is done in grade 1 in your state. </p>

<p>I liked Dad<em>of</em>3’s reply(#58):</p>

<p>

if teachers find it’s a good thing and ethical to divulge details of a forthcoming exam to students, these teachers should publish a guide with their names and school districts and be open about exactly what they do so that it can be established as the norm. The testing organization can publish a vocab guide - pig/curb/udder/sidewalk will appear on the next test, and all schools are at liberty to teach their kids about it.

and</p>

<p>

as long as we accept cutting corners for one class of students, what would be different if other high school teachers who administer tests use similar justification and feel ethical and honest about it too? What would be different about another teacher actually doing the test with the class the previous day? If you don’t follow rules, who decides at what point the rule breaking is recommended and at what point it’s improper?

Bingo! Once you’ve headed down the slippery slope, it’s an increasingly perilous slide to the bottom…</p>

<p>Does your state require in its testing guidelines that teachers be given the test the day before? Do they expect the teachers to cover any missing material with their class before the test is given the following day?</p>

[sorghum]

<p>I think an ethical and responsible high schooler, who wants to get into a top college, should gain confidential access to the teacher’s computer. Just to check that they remembered to study all the material that will be on the class test.</p>

[walkinghome]

<p>I believe this is the OP.</p>

<p>

Teachers cheating on standardized tests
"Of all the forms of academic cheating, none may be as startling as when educators tamper with children’s standardized tests. But investigations in Georgia, Indiana, Massachusetts, Nevada, Virginia and elsewhere this year have pointed to cheating by educators. Experts say the phenomenon is increasing as the stakes over standardized testing ratchet higher — including, most recently, taking student progress on tests into consideration in teachers’ performance reviews.</p>

<p>Colorado passed a sweeping law last month making teachers’ tenure dependent on test results, and nearly a dozen other states have introduced plans to evaluate teachers partly on scores. Many school districts already link teachers’ bonuses to student improvement on state assessments. Houston decided this year to use the data to identify experienced teachers for dismissal, and New York City will use it to make tenure decisions on novice teachers…"
NYT: Teachers tamper with test scores - The New York Times- msnbc.com

</p>

<p>Instead of hi-jacking the OP with a a witch hunt of one of our honest, long time members, I think it would be more enjoyable if we focused on the above post.</p>

[BigG]

<p>But witch hunts are so much more fun than reasoned discourse (see US political mileau)</p>