Georgia is one of ten states that won big grants in the “Race to the Top” competition last year. “Race to the Top” is an education incentive plan championed by President Obama that awards billions of dollars to states that have the best plans for school reforms. Illinois didn’t make the cut.
But in Atlanta, they figured out a sure-fire way to improve test scores: cheat.
Across Atlanta Public Schools, staff worked feverishly in secret to transform testing failures into successes.
Teachers and principals erased and corrected mistakes on students’ answer sheets.
Area superintendents silenced whistle-blowers and rewarded subordinates who met academic goals by any means possible.
Superintendent Beverly Hall and her top aides ignored, buried, destroyed or altered complaints about misconduct, claimed ignorance of wrongdoing and accused naysayers of failing to believe in poor children’s ability to learn.
For years — as long as a decade — this was how the Atlanta school district produced gains on state curriculum tests. The scores soared so dramatically they brought national acclaim to Hall and the district, according to an investigative report released Tuesday by Gov. Nathan Deal.
In the report, the governor’s special investigators describe an enterprise where unethical — and potentially illegal — behavior pierced every level of the bureaucracy, allowing district staff to reap praise and sometimes bonuses by misleading the children, parents and community they served.
The report accuses top district officials of wrongdoing that could lead to criminal charges in some cases. […]
For teachers, a culture of fear ensured the deception would continue.
“APS is run like the mob,” one teacher told investigators, saying she cheated because she feared retaliation if she didn’t.
The voluminous report names 178 educators, including 38 principals, as participants in cheating. More than 80 confessed. The investigators said they confirmed cheating in 44 of 56 schools they examined.
The scandal has prompted a lot of soul-searching among educators. Many want to blame a system that holds teachers accountable for student performance on tests: “In Atlanta, teachers who confessed to cheating told investigators they felt inordinate pressure to meet targets set by the district and faced severe consequences such as a negative evaluation or termination if they didn’t. The behavior was reinforced by a district culture of fear and intimidation directed at whistle-blowers.” Others say the individuals involved in the cheating have no one to blame but themselves for their moral/ethical lapse.
While this scandal is notable for how widespread and blatant it is, the pressure on the nation’s public schools to improve performance has prompted many less-scandalous, but questionable decisions. For instance, Peoria’s District 150 made a change to its grading policy a couple of years ago. Now, “if a student puts forth the effort and completes an assignment but receives less than 50%, the grade shall be recorded as 50%.” What is this if not institutionalized cheating? It gives credit for work that was not earned, and artificially raises averages for individual students as well as the school itself.
And there are other tricks. Scores are evaluated on a per school basis over time, so one way to reset the clock on under-performing schools and raise test score averages is to close schools that are on the academic watch list and consolidate students into larger schools. Combining low-performing students with high-performing students raises averages for the school without necessarily improving achievement among the individual low-performing students. Plus, the new consolidated school gets to start over on the state’s evaluation process. That’s not the official reason given for consolidation, however. We’re told that consolidation is necessary to save money, yet the supposed monetary benefits never seem to materialize.
Money is a very strong motivator, and that’s why the federal government is increasingly tying its money to performance. But here’s the problem: that only works for teachers and administrators, not students. Teachers and administrators need to be motivated to do their best, but so must students. What systems or incentives are in place to motivate students to learn, or to take responsibility for their own education? And what about parents? Parents, not the state, are ultimately responsible for their children’s education. What systems or incentives are in place to motivate them to take that responsibility seriously? Perhaps there are none, and perhaps there can be none. But if so, we need to find an evaluation mechanism that holds teachers accountable for what they can control and not punish them for what they cannot control.
I don’t excuse or condone the Atlanta teachers and administrators involved in the cheating scandal. What they did was wrong. But let’s not let their moral failings obscure the legitimate problems that exist within our current education system.
I cannot wait until some school district gets on the creative idea bandwagon to provide a public education using ipad apps and online courses while kids stay home rather than operating what amounts to public day care. An infant that goes to a good daycare learns things and partakes in educational activities much like ‘school’. The public school system is so flumoxed I have a hard time seeing a difference between it and a daycare. If technology enables a good public education for most or many courses think about how many obstacles/costs get removed from the equation.
Other states probably shouldn’t gloat just yet. I don’t find it hard to believe that individual schools (maybe not whole districts) have found ways to cheat on NCLB test results. Actually, we’ve had a few rumors of such activity right here in Peoria. I have never believed in the drastic increases in scores reported throughout the country for individual schools–call me a cynic.
Peoria Heights did this for years at Kelly Avenue. One 4th grade teacher was so awesome ALL of her students performed so well on standardized tests. Funny how the kids got dumb again in 5th grade.
That article could have easily been written about District 150 during the Hinton Administration. We can only hope that shenanigans like that are the exception now rather than the rule.
I have always found the high number of perfect scores suspect.
I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if District 150 got caught. Cheating on ISAT has been going on since the beginning of NCLB. I have seen teachers BLATANTLY cheating, told on them, nothing happened to them, but a bulleye was put on MY back. It was amazing how this grade level of students fell into the toilet (score wise) the following year. No one ever questioned this teacher and she has gone on to become an administrator…..in D150, no less! What kind of example are adults in D150 setting for students when they help them CHEAT?
To see scores for this year! heard one middle school had a grade level that had 100 percent meeting or exceeding in math. It was not Washington Middle School. hmmmmmmm…..”..
http://www.pjstar.com/news/x1498055157/Army-vet-wife-angered-by-attack-lack-of-arrests
Pam Schau is suing District 150. Boy, Lathan is rack’n ’em up when it comes to firing people…wonder how much this is gonna cost us taxpayers…
Word has it that school is Lindbergh and that the former terminated principal threatened to spill the beans…Doesn’t mean it couldn’t still happen!
The former terminated principal is going to spill the beans on the present principal where the perfect score occurred?
Peo Proud, according to a commenter on my blog, District 150 has insurance for law suits and it doesn’t cost us a thing. FEH
It saddens me to know that schools would rather report false details and hide errors just to achieve high status and receive higher grants. As a mom, I would rather have an honest evaluation of my child’s performance rather than be given a false claims and believe it. It just wouldn’t help my child. This will also lower the standard of education in our country. I hope the “Race to the top” campaign be an encouragement than an avenue to cheat. We teach our students not just academic things but also moral values.
Elizabeth – agreed! One of our children was constantly bringing home straight “A”s on her report card but I knew she was not doing straight A work. There was no question that the teacher was trying to improve scores in her classroom.
I’ll bet this kind of thing is going on at school districts all over the country, and it’s only going to get worse. This “school reform” they passed in Illinois will guarantee it. What are these clowns thinking? Holding teacher’s jobs hostage to test scores? Whatever happened to holding students responsible? And I better not hear that crap about holding the parents responsible. Sure, the teachers are important, the parents are important, lots of things are important, but, in the end, it’s the student who is responsible for what he or she does or doesn’t do. plain and simple. Nobody else.
The Mouse: That’s probably true at the high school level–students are responsible for themselves. However, that just can’t be the case for younger children–and they are the ones who aren’t responsible if their parents weren’t responsible earlier. Yes, this cheating is undoubtedly happening all over the country–and one probably could guess right here in Peoria.
As a teacher for 23 years, I cannot imagine cheating on these tests. That thought never even crossed my mind, I am stunned by this conversation and the fact that people assume thay won’t get caught. Isn’t that what we complain about in today’s youth?? Testing, to me, has always just one aspect of a child’s abilities, not an assumption of the whole child. That is very sad if we assume a child is only as good as a test score!
notthere–Agreed. It is NCLB that has changed everyone’s idea of not only a student’s worth but the worth of a school and its teachers. Everyone and everything (math and reading) is judged by one set of tests. Because math and reading has become the “everything,” kids are being shortchanged and they will be bored to death by the constant drilling for tests in just these two subjects. Even at the high school level, the teaching of literature has taken a back seat to grammatical and writing skills. I believe that has backfired big time because we learn to write by reading, not be drilling and testing.
…and then you have the administrators/teachers in Atlanta changing answers on their students’ testing to satisfy NCLB. When a high price tag comes with the testing, the government who demands it should not make the funds competitive. Race to the Top? Should be called Race to the Money, because until NCLB is properly funded, we will always get what we always got. Sure, teachers and staffs are working harder, but unless the funds are evenly distributed, you will have educators feeling the pressure and become desperate, as in Atlanta. It is blatantly wrong to change answers on tests…lets hope this is not a trend.
Sharon, I very well know that children, particularly young children, need good parents, good teachers, etc., but kids need to be told at an early age that they can’t blame their problems on somebody else. They have to learn responsibility early.
The Mouse: I agree wholeheartedly. The problem is that the parents about whom we speak weren’t taught that lesson and/or they had experiences that were always beyond their control. That is why I keep harping that District 150 needs to find a way to convince parents of their responsibility to teach their children this important lesson about life. I am not asking for a punitive system, but I am asking for the district to stop making excuses for student behaviors. I firmly believe that District 150 has set the tone gradually over the last 20 years–and now students of all ages have become convinced that they are not responsibility for their actions–because nobody has made them or their parents to suffer any meaningful consequences. District 150 (in fact, it was Dr. Lathan’s answer to me at the last board meeting) looks only for positive reinforcement for good behavior. That does not solve the problem for those who act inappropriately. Y