Right now, I feel the need to vent, even though my rant might not move the ball forward. Next week I will pose the important question "Where do we go from here?" regarding the widespread cheating in Atlanta and apparently in a lot of other places as well, but that can wait.
I recall hearing former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright telling an audience of young girls that a special place in Hell was set aside for successful women who refused to help other women succeed.
An even hotter spot should be reserved for those adults who knowingly cheat children out of a decent education and lie to them about their achievements.
The cheaters in Atlanta, D.C., Philadelphia, Houston, Baltimore and elsewhere took advantage of the neediest and most vulnerable children and changed their scores so it would appear they had mastered material, when they in fact had not. They weren't thinking about the kids, of course, but only about themselves and the appearance of success.
Kids were numbers, nothing more, nothing less.
The scale of unethical behavior in Atlanta is staggering: According to the report from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, of the 56 schools investigated, 44 cheated; so did 38 principals and 178 teachers (about 80 of whom have already confessed). But the lack of integrity did not start at the school level, and it appears to the investigators that the rot went all the way to the top, to Superintendent Beverly Hall. The report says that she either knew or should have known, but the culture of the system she created put public praise of her leadership above integrity and ethics. In her regime, the report says, a culture of fear, intimidation and retaliation ruled, and any teacher who tried to blow the whistle was punished.
Dr. Hall, who was the National Superintendent of the Year in 2009 -- the highest honor given by the American Association of School Administrators -- has resigned. She has apologized without admitting any wrongdoing.
Maybe she should do a Reggie Bush and give back that award, just as the former USC running back returned the Heisman Trophy -- a few steps ahead of NCAA investigators.
The investigation focused on one school year, 2008-09, but the cheating must have started years earlier. It simply could not have grown so massive in just one year or two.
The report says that 'thousands' of children were affected but gets no more specific than that. Suppose that only 10% of students were affected; that's about 5,000 kids. But the cheating went on for a few years, perhaps since 2001 or 2002, meaning that the cheaters stole a lot of years of opportunity from a lot of children.
And they are not just cheaters. They are also thieves.
Why did it continue undetected for so long? Probably because everyone wanted to believe in the remarkable success of low-income minority children. Closing the achievement gap has been education's holy grail for many years, and now it's happening right here in Atlanta. Who would want to pour cold water on that?
Any skepticism would likely have been met by skillful playing of the race card: "What, you don't believe that poor African-American children can learn? Would you question the results if the children were white and middle class?" Michelle Rhee used that approach when people questioned the remarkable progress in Washington, D.C. and it worked there.
I told you what I think should happen to the guilty parties, and Georgia law actually provides for penalties of up to 10 years imprisonment for some offenses. But what will happen? The last cheating incident in Atlanta, about 10 years ago, produced two convictions but gentle slaps on the wrist: 40 hours of 'community service' in a soup kitchen, two years of probation and a fine of $1000 -- the total punishment for the two offenders! That was quite a deterrent, wasn't it?
(Ironic, isn't it, that some of these adult thieves were responsible for making sure that students did not cheat.)
Officials from Education Secretary Arne Duncan on down are talking about 'technical fixes' and 'better referees' and closer monitoring to prevent this from happening again, but the horse is out of the barn here. And as long as test scores rule, cheating and other attempts to beat the system will continue.
And cheaters will find a way. Count on it, even if Atlanta's cheaters go to jail, because, if the system is going to punish or even fire teachers and principals and administrators for students' poor test scores, some are going to be tempted to get those scores up, by hook or by crook.
One does not have to be a skeptic or cynic to expect more cheating stories to emerge.
But what about the kids, the real victims? There's no mulligan in life, and those 4th graders who didn't master math or language arts are now 5th graders.
What should be done for them? How do we pay back the debt we owe them? I encourage you to comment here.
As always, remember that John's book The Influence of Teachers is for sale at Amazon.
Follow John Merrow on Twitter: www.twitter.com/john_merrow
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If we want to talk about punishment, what consequence will Arne Duncan and the Department of Education face for implementing flawed policies (see rise of cheating scandals throughout nation) when they were repeatedly warned by educators about the likely results? This is what happens when you try to run schools like corporations. Corruption happened in Wall St. and now our schools are being subjected to cut-throat practices that are bound to fail. God help us.
NCLB is a horribly flawed program, placing additional burdens on districts that are serving underperforming students. The reasons the students underperform are mostly out-of-school reasons, but the government ignores that, and implements "reforms" that harm the kids, discouraging teaching and learning in favor of more test prep. When schools are labeled "failing," the changes the government requires don't help students.
Is it impossible that some of the people who are behind this cheating scandal were thinking, at least partially, of sparing the students in their charge from more destructive interference in their education? I'm sure they were thinking, also, of their own livelihoods, which are held hostage to test scores that are more dependent on student ability and parental factors than they are on anything that happens in the school, but they could have done this, at least partially, in an attempt to help their students.
That doesn't excuse it. What they did was wrong. But what was done to them, and what has been done to every teacher, every student, in every public school in this country, that's wrong, too.
When our students enter school at kindergarten there is already easily a 5 year gap between the most advanced and the least. This gap is the result of factors that are present in the home and community. These factors do not vanish because a student started school, indeed researchers have determined that the teacher has influence upon about 13-17% of a child's achievement. So, 85% of achievement is determined by factors outside the control of the teacher.
As time marches on we are increasing the stakes and inflicting draconian consequences on teachers who do not show adequate yearly progress for students, regardless of their circumstances. We do not fire doctors for failing to cure a specified percentage of cancer patients.
Now, I do not cheat, and my students do not make AYP. I teach special ed. In another state I might fear for my job, for we still have LIFO where I work, but that could change. I see it this way, under unreasonable circumstances where the effects are far reaching (Nazi Germany would be an extreme example), would you cheat? I would.
The teachers taught their own sons and daughters the answers before the test was given. That's how my wife found out about it. She had one of the teachers' kids in her class and she had a top score on the standardized test even though she was a C student. Didn't make sense, so my wife checked it out and found out that the teacher had a copy of the test ahead of time and taught her students and shared the test with some of her friends (fellow teachers).
My wife told the principal. Nothing happened.
What a lesson for the teachers to be teaching the kids. How to cheat.
The school was supposedly a "school of excellence". Excellent cheaters.
I'm glad to see you writing on the subject of school cheating.
As you know, Michelle Rhee was lying about student test scores while she was chancellor in DC. She, or someone on her staff, lied to you about Shaw Middle School's scores in 2009. She told you the scores stayed about the same, when actually they declined.
You had the integrity to immediately correct your mistake in the PBS transcript (but the misinformation had already aired across the country on the News Hour).
http://learningmatters.tv/blog/on-pbs-newshour/michelle-rhee-in-washington-episode-10-testing-michelle-rhee/2476/
She continued to lie about Shaw, her model school, to the Washington Post, but that finally stopped after I badgered them about it.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/class-struggle/2009/10/one_of_the_struggles_most.html
I sincerely hope that the cheating scandal in Atlanta will have the positive effect of opening the eyes of the media, so they will thoroughly investigate information received from school officials and then report only the facts.
Why are you pointing your finger at parents?
Something touch a button with you?
It's easy to judge teachers for doing wrong (and they did do wrong), but when a job is on the line and there is no union support (not all states have unions), and a family needs to be housed and fed--it's easy to see why people in desperate situations would do unethical things. History is replete with examples of people doing what they never thought they would do in situations in which they could never have imagined themselves to be.
There may be a place in hell for people who don't help others and who cheat. But there is definitely judgment waiting for those who use their power to oppress others--that is in the scriptures several times. Whether that is a teacher oppressing a student, a principal oppressing a teacher, a politician oppressing employees, or any other situation, it's a sure thing each will be called to account for every word and action, and especially those with any power over others.
We need to change high stakes testing. It obviously isn't working. But America's answer is to double down and do more of what isn't working. We are headed very quickly in the wrong direction.
Take away their certifications and ban them from the sector.
Make all involved pay restitution to the children they cheated out of thousands of dollars worth of education.
If poor women can be prosecuted and jailed for grand larceny because, they enrolled thier kids in schools outside oftheir zone, then educators and administrators should be helf to the same standard.
Dissolve teacher's union.
Whether it exists or not people will do this to up the money they receive through pressures from the Principal.
If you want to take such simple-minded results, replace the administration from the principals up. I think that this rot came from the top down.