Atlanta, Georgia school teachers and administrators accused of changing standardized test answers or helping students on the aforementioned tests???
Gasp!
And what did the GOVERNOR site as one of the MAIN reasons this occurred?
"Cheating was caused by a number of factors but primarily by the pressure to meet targets in the data-driven environment. "
In the business world they say that for every 25 disappointed customers, only one will ever complain. I have a feeling that for every teacher or school that is actually caught cheating on standardized tests, hundreds go free.
As a teacher, I have been privvy to quiet confessions. They have turned my stomach. Not because they shock me, there is truly desperation in the field of teaching, where test scores are concerened, especially now that the "powers that be" (whoever they are) have started open discussions about attaching these scores to teacher evaluations, which could affect professional profiles and careers;
the reason I get physically ill is due to the fact that there is an under-current of ...hm...not cheating exactly...perhaps, it could be categorized as "less than ethical behavior" by educators NOT in low performing schools, as one might assume, but in the HIGH PERFORMING schools.
And no one knows.
I began my career at a "low performing" program improvement school. Though I was not teaching in the upper grades, where testing takes place each Spring, I was aware of the STRICT testing policies which were in place.
One of the practiced measures, to help prevent cheating, was to have a proctor in each classroom...just incase the teacher decided to do something less than scrupulous.
Year after year, this rural public school, populated with children of immigrants, who grappled year after year with the acquisition of the academic language and the effects of poverty, were told that "once again" they had not met their goal for annual growth on the end-of-the-year standardized state test.
Teachers lived in a pressure cooker. They were scrutinized and analyzed and humiliated, all in the hopes that this would...increase their student scores?
Meanwhile, little did I know, until I was hired at a school "in town" that "high performing schools" had a few test taking strategies to help their students reach their annual growth goals.
One teacher confided in me that before anyone came to class, when they were all alone with the test booklets, they would flip through the pages and make mental notes of what was going to be tested in the days to come.
After the children had finished testing for the day, guess what the afternoon "review" sessions would consist of?
The teacher would "just happen" to go over the standards she had seen in the test booklets.
Why did I get sick when this revelation was made?
Because once again the students from disadvantaged backgrounds got shafted. Their teachers had integrity. They did their best, and still they "failed".
Disgusting.
So, investigators, just so you know, it does not take ANSWER CHANGING and explicit help on tests to cheat.
Secondly, fear most the man/teacher who has nothing to lose.
