One in five of Georgia’s elementary and middle schools has been red flagged on suspicion of cheating on standardized tests. Lots of erased wrong answers were changed to correct ones, which regulators say points to teachers or administrators tampering with answer sheets. Out of the 27 schools flagged, 21 are in the Atlanta district where they say more than half of the classes were involved?! The director of the Center for an Educated Georgia, Ben Scafidi, told the New York Times, “The amount of cheating is staggering…when you get even 5% of the classrooms that have cheating, you get the sense that there was orchestration from above.” No Child Left Behind ties school funding to test scores.
MOMism: ”Hold yourself to a higher standard.” Cheating is a big deal. We warn our kids against cheating because we want them to have integrity, a good work ethic and a strong sense of morality. MAMAs teach our KID-Os that cheating in any form – in school, on a lover, on their taxes, etc. – only cheats them out of self-respect and, in this case, an education. If teachers and administrators become the cheaters, then we have all failed our kids.
As moms, we implore our educators to hold themselves, and our children, to a higher standard, regardless if the system requires standardized testing or not. If the system is the problem, do not cheat the system, change it. Teach by example.
MAMAs, is the pressure of funding corrupting our education system? Have we set public schools up to for failure? Have teachers lost sight of the goal to educate our children? How do we ensure all of our schools make the grade?
This story is MIND-BLOWING! My mouth is agape and I'm so sorry for my MAMA friends with kids in the ATL public school district. We need a better way to measure school/teacher performance….any ideas ?
Standardized tests don't work. Kids are not the same. They don't have the same life circumstances, the same resources, the same caliber of teachers or the the same opportunities. There is nothing "standard" about it. We have to give under resourced schools more money and better teachers, not desperate people who cheat the system. It cheats our kids and the future of our country.
Test scores and funding should NOT be linked! Of course broke schools will cheat. Almost all schools are going broke now, it will probably get worse. There are other solutions out there. Blind tests that do not put so much pressure on administrators to perform or lose funding. It sounded like a good idea, but it has not worked. It's redirected our educational system to a point of no longer heeding what we know as educators to be developmentally appropriate. Scrap it and move on.
Why don't TEACHERS put forward a plan to solve our education crisis? They are the ones that understand the problems first hand – so, what do teachers think are the solutions? Is there a published perspective somewhere?