Education Department Seeks Public Input To Prevent Cheating In Schools

WASHINGTON -- The Education Department wants the public's input to develop guidelines to prevent and detect cheating. The effort comes after several cheating scandals involving teachers.

The department is accepting opinions until Feb. 16. It says it will use them to create recommendations to be distributed to states, local school districts and testing organizations.

In December, state investigators in Georgia said dozens of educators in 11 schools in Georgia's Dougherty County either cheated or failed to prevent cheating on 2009 standardized tests. Earlier, they accused nearly 180 educators in almost half of Atlanta's 100 schools of cheating, dating back a decade.

Some experts say pressure to perform on tests created an environment that contributed to the cheating.

Such cheating has also been reported in Philadelphia, Washington, Los Angeles and elsewhere.

Comments

[drudriver]

11:21 AM on 01/24/2012

When the officials in government stop cheating, when corporations stop cheating, when systems that are set up so that there is no way to succeed but cheat, then, cheating on educational tests should be addressed. Cheating in education is the LAST place cheating should be addressed. If you have ever had to administer a state mandated test to a student who wants to pass that test so badly, but you know that they are not going to-not because they haven't been taught the subject matter, but because they don't have the brain power for that particular subject, then YOU KNOW that the high stakes testing is flawed. I had a student who NEVER, not one day, missed a day of school from PK through 12th grade. He was about two questions off from pass his Exit Math Exam. He did not receive a diploma because he could not get over that hump. There is nothing right about the testing in the U.S. that students are having to go through--but at least, the testing companies are making a lot of money. I wonder which politicians own stock in Pearson?

[SoCalifTeacher]

08:05 AM on 01/23/2012

Teachers are threatened with their jobs. Students are NOT held accountable for their education. Tie test scores to grade promotion, welfare, and income tax credits. Deduct points for bad attendance and suspensions. The wrong people are being punished.

[Greg34]

10:59 AM on 01/23/2012

If teachers cheat the right people are being punished. In fact if a teacher is caught cheating they should lose all retirement benefits and terminated immediately. More union BS about it is not our fault we cannot be held accountable, how is it the students fault if the teachers are cheating. Cheating teachers are in breach of their contract with the public (that pays their salary and benefits) and that contract should be null and void.

[MakingASchoolSmile]

06:26 AM on 01/23/2012

Question: How should the government detect and prevent educators from cheating on tests?
A. Continue with the same stupid policies. B. Ask teachers what should be done. C. Ask George W. Bush, D. Throw the tests out.

"Let's see now that's a hard one, #@?//###. Can't be 'D" and certainly not 'B" (who would ever really ask a teacher when there are plenty of pundits to ask), and can't find Bush, so has to be "A."

[Sabrae]

12:28 AM on 01/23/2012

Get rid of No Child Left Behind.

When school funding and wages rely on that test, teachers will alter the scores. Once that's gone, we can go back to an actual education with variety instead of predefined curriculum based solely on the content of that test.

[MrMusicFlood]

11:49 PM on 01/22/2012

teachers shouldn't cheat.

[Tuigim]

10:21 PM on 01/22/2012

Savvy public seeks output (firing from office) of political cheaters who are clueless about education.
Occupy reason. Demand it. Speak it.

[10YearTeacher]

09:35 PM on 01/22/2012

Suggestion #1
Quit making these tests the way teachers and schools are evaluated. They are a flawed measure, their reliability has been debunked numerous times, and they do nothing but narrow the curriculum.

[Kriggens]

08:40 PM on 01/22/2012

Addressing cheating starts with addressing our society's view of education. We give a lot of lip service to the value of a good education, but we don't treat it as if it's actually valuable. Each year of learning should be considered vital to a student's success. If the student hasn't mastered the key concepts of the year, they shouldn't move on to the next. While teachers are responsible for communicating those concepts to students, the students are just as responsible for mastering them. At this point, all responsibility to for a student's learning is placed on the teachers. Our conversation about education needs to shift to holding students accountable for their effort in learning what is being taught. No student will take a test seriously when they know that there aren't personal repercussions for their failure.

[Greenman7]

07:13 PM on 01/22/2012

Solution--quit multiple high stakes testing, especially when such testing is used to evaluate, not student skills and knowledge, but whether a school district is teaching to various mandated state standards. (e.g, PSSAs along with Foresight Tests for practice and Study Island modules for more practice and local county assessments for even more practice -- all intended to force kids to do better on these tests which are poorly constructed). If parents would meet with educators who have seen these tests and know how shot full of holes they are and how horribly unstimulating they can be, there might be some hope for real reform. Parents can opt their child out of these tests, on religious grounds, a stretch to be sure. But worth the challenge to send a signal to the state that people are paying attention to the issue. Parents do have this power.....however, you are likely to have a guilt trip fired back your way -- "your child's failure to participate will count against the school's ability to make Annual Yearly Progress." Sad.

Then we add the Keystones on top of that....

We are not educating students anymore. We are training them to be mindless consumers, fearful of taking creative risks or pursuing independent paths that maximize their strengths.

[Michael Townzen]

06:25 PM on 01/22/2012

Where do we post on the Dept. of Ed. website our input on cheating? I would think HP would provide this link. Did I miss something?

[Michael Townzen]

06:01 PM on 01/22/2012

When NCLB and its high stakes became the law of the land, I mentioned to several colleagues that testing proctors would be needed to provide consistency and security in testing. If we're going to judge student progress and teacher effectiveness via a test we can't let teachers give the test. Alas, no money for proctors and look at the mess we're in. Removing teachers from the test would provide a more accurate measure of the test. Understand, I'm a teacher and NCLB is complete BS, but then again, it worked so well in Houston.

[stratego]

05:52 PM on 01/22/2012

Do you have any idea how much these drone making tests cost to produce? The publishers have the educational system coming and going and Arne wants more of it.

[stratego]

05:49 PM on 01/22/2012

I've got a good suggestion, Arne. Stop your corporate friends from cheating the American public and lying about the effectiveness of their corporate invested charter schools.

[stratego]

05:48 PM on 01/22/2012

I've got a good suggestion, Arne. Get your corporate paid hands off the necks of real educators and stop testing students into little future coporate drones who wouldn't ask questions about control masters Bill Gates and Rupert Murdoch, if it saved their lives.

[cadawa]

04:03 PM on 01/22/2012

Children need better models. When the leaders of our society lie, cheat and steal with impunity, how can you expect our children to behave any differently?