Texas School With 'Exemplary' Status Only Taught 2 Subjects, Faked Other Grades

A Dallas elementary school that was given "exemplary" status for academic achievement only taught its third graders reading and math last year, and fabricated scores for every student in other subjects like social studies and science.

The Dallas Morning News reports that to propel the school's status, Field Elementary School Principal Roslyn Carter "directed and caused false school records to be created," so that teachers could focus on student excellence in reading in math -- the only subjects third graders are tested on for the state-wide Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills. Student performance on the standardized exam helps determine a school's status.

Carter is on paid administrative leave and has denied many of the allegations, noting that she was unaware of certain rules about grading. According to the investigation by Dallas Independent School District investigators, parents were never informed of the falsified grades, nor were they told that their children had missed nearly a year of instruction in subjects other than reading and math.

Students are receiving remediation as necessary to make up for lost time and education in untaught subjects, and 10 school employees were cited in the investigators' 227-page report for failing to report grade fabrication.

The news of Field Elementary's misconduct comes amid numerous allegations of cheating among the nation's school teachers. A report released in July following a two-year investigation revealed widespread cheating among nearly 180 of Atlanta's educators who corrected student answers on standardized tests.

About a dozen Atlanta educators implicated in that scandal lost their licenses in the first round of sanctions imposed last month, but further investigations have temporarily been halted.

The U.S. Department of Education has also joined the local investigation into allegations that D.C. Public Schools' steep improvements on standardized tests over two years were the result of widespread cheating. Officials called for the probe in March after USA Today reported on excessive erasures on answer sheets from more than 100 schools.

And in Connecticut, 160 students had to re-take their Connecticut Mastery Tests after teachers were found to have tampered with the exams. A dozen of the offending educators are losing 20 days pay and must serve 25 hours of community service by tutoring students after school. Nine of those teachers returned to classrooms last month.

Comments

[Renee Hargrove]

07:54 PM on 01/06/2012

I can't even wrap my mind around this

[Lisa Shields]

03:15 PM on 12/21/2011

Texas is always on the bottom of the education "report cards".
And yet they determine what is put in textbooks for children nationally.
Pitiful.

[PirateJohn]

02:35 AM on 11/28/2011

This is what happens with high-stakes testing. You standardize everything to the point where actual learning flies out the window.

[ifquilt]

06:27 PM on 11/27/2011

But, can they read and do math? This is the problem with NCLB system. The situtation is so much more complicated than "if the teachers would just teach". Public Schools are a reflection of what is going on in society. If the school is failing you need to look no further than the community it serves. We need to have some serious parent accountability. Not just lip service.

There is so much more to education than what a teacher can do in 5 hours of classroom time each day, for only 180 days. Education starts at home.

You can't expect someone to teach a dog circus tricks when they come to training and the poor dog can't even walk on a leash, or sit and stay properly.

But yea, lets blame the kindergarden teacher with 36 students and no aid. She runs a classroom full of tired babies that get no sleep because the parents are up all hours of the night making noise or maybe not even home at all and leave the babies home alone and scared to death until the bars close. That is the reality of low social economic schools. It may not be politcally correct but it is the truth.

[inmyhumbleopinion]

04:50 PM on 11/27/2011

The principal is on paid administrative leave? What more do they need to know before she gets fired?

[Grouchland]

11:08 AM on 11/27/2011

When we blame others for the very nature of life then we get the predictable. Human Nature will never change. We are animals literally. Why are we blaming others for the logical response to this insane system?

[P Alan Greene]

08:38 AM on 11/27/2011

The two-subjects school was doing exactly what the feds are encouraging all schools to do. Their only failure was in not keeping up the appearance that NCLB somehow encourages a real complete education for students.

[jamesjv]

02:54 AM on 01/03/2012

Excellent point!

[luapmi2]

07:15 AM on 11/27/2011

I have only one question on these "test fixing" schemes.

Who is providing the teachers with the corect answers?

[blindjester]

10:03 AM on 11/26/2011

This is an extreme example of what is being forced on schools across the country. Math and reading get the most minutes and the most attention; everything else is getting squeezed out to improve the test scores.

Few schools will make the drastic choice this school did. But all schools are making similar choices, in smaller but still significant ways.

[bessielil]

04:52 PM on 11/27/2011

Absolutely. Do we really have to wonder why we are losing ground in science, do not have students eager to major in engineering? Also, there's the other issue of stressing two subjects, then calling it education. When we have no place in our schools for music, art, photography, music, computers, and trade skills we filter out students with minds that work another way, who need to be active, who are practical problem solvers, and so on. Pushing the focus toward college for all results in failure for many.

[realitytrumpsbull]

10:01 PM on 11/25/2011

More than one public school has been in the news this year, accreditation in dire jeopardy...

[neuromantic]

08:20 PM on 11/24/2011

Didn't any of the parents ever ask their kids what they did in science, or art, or any of the other subjects that were apparently being neglected?

[ifquilt]

06:30 PM on 11/27/2011

No, the parents didn't. That would require time to be spent with the children.

[BarbaraTodish]

02:10 AM on 11/24/2011

As a former whistleblower about cheating in public schools, my whistle blowing was turned against me. I sued under the Conscientious Employee Protection Act and those who cheated lied and said I cheated! At least in the 1980's the CEPA statutes were toothless!

[Grouchland]

11:10 AM on 11/27/2011

This is exactly why those who teach in these situations are fired from the moment that they are told to do this. They will blame each individual teacher. They will rate them poorly if they do not robotically do what they are told. But, the best scores are coming out of those who IGNORE all this BS!

[treemonkey]

10:45 PM on 11/23/2011

I was about to react with shock when I realized the "exemplary school" was in Texas. The state that led the way down the high stakes testing path, its governor turned president using since disproved test scores in his data driven proof that No Child Left Behind would somehow be a good educational policy for the nation. What would shock me would be a Texas exemplary school being found to be honestly exemplary.

[ifquilt]

06:33 PM on 11/27/2011

In addtion they have also discovered Texas standards are ridiculously low as compared to other states. For instance, in California the scores goals are so ridiculously high, all schools are schuduled to be on the fail list by 2014. The whole system is whacked.

[eceresa]

07:51 AM on 11/28/2011

All schools in the country will be on the list by 2014. That's the day that 100% of students need to be proficient. It's not just California; no matter how low you set the bar, some people aren't going to clear it.

[x0staticpulse0x]

10:37 PM on 11/23/2011

And they wonder why the American education system is in the sh*tter.

[shawnravenfire]

07:53 PM on 11/23/2011

I can't say I blame the teachers. The schools' funding is determined by standardized testing in only two subjects. The teachers would have to be crazy not to take advantage by focusing on those subjects. I never understood why reading and math were the only two subjects that the department of education ever seemed interested in.

[Grouchland]

11:12 AM on 11/27/2011

The teachers? Why would it even come into your mind to blame the teachers! They are just doing what they are told to do. Teaching is a job after all. The classroom teacher is the Janitor in Education. Please open your mind and use some logic when you think.

[ifquilt]

06:35 PM on 11/27/2011

I will use that, "the Janitor in Education"

[ifquilt]

06:39 PM on 11/27/2011

I think you misread what shawn meant. I believe this person agrees the system only tests two subjects and thats all that is looked at, so why would they teach Science and Social Studies? I know we are discouraged to focus on those smaller subjects. By law in California you only have to teach Language Arts, Math and PE. The rest is if you have time. So you have to get creative to squeez it all in.