Tampering with Test Scores

[chanel]

Of all the forms of academic cheating, none may be as startling as educators tampering with children’s standardized tests. But investigations in Georgia, Indiana, Massachusetts, Nevada, Virginia and elsewhere this year have pointed to cheating by educators. Experts say the phenomenon is increasing as the stakes over standardized testing ratchet higher — including, most recently, taking student progress on tests into consideration in teachers’ performance reviews.

Colorado passed a sweeping law last month making teachers’ tenure dependent on test results, and nearly a dozen other states have introduced plans to evaluate teachers partly on scores. Many school districts already link teachers’ bonuses to student improvement on state assessments. Houston decided this year to use the data to identify experienced teachers for dismissal, and New York City will use it to make tenure decisions on novice teachers.

Cheat Sheet - Under Pressure, Educators Tamper With Test Scores - NYTimes.com

 

[Nate]

The education system has become a joke for the U.S. The teachers have changed from teaching our children about the world to teaching them how to take tests;

Cheat Sheet - Under Pressure, Educators Tamper With Test Scores - NYTimes.com

Colorado passed a sweeping law last month making teachers’ tenure dependent on test results, and nearly a dozen other states have introduced plans to evaluate teachers partly on scores. Many school districts already link teachers’ bonuses to student improvement on state assessments. Houston decided this year to use the data to identify experienced teachers for dismissal, and New York City will use it to make tenure decisions on novice teachers.

A part of me wants to condemn and string these teachers up for dumbing down our youth but another part of me sees their side. Imagine having your livelihood hanging in the balance of students who are more concerned with video games and friends than learning...

 

[chanel]

Exactly. My brother teaches IB History in a very affluent school district. His students are headed for the Ivy League. Last month he had to proctor the 9th grade Biology test. He said that some kids did not pick up a pencil and some slept. He said for the first time in his career, he realized how hard other teachers have it. If his salary was dependent on those kids test scores, he would have smacked them upside the head to wake them up.

In NJ, special education students do not have to pass the state test to graduate and they know it. Why would they give a damn when there is absolutely nothing at stake? The teacher's job is no concern of theirs.

 

[random3434]

Our school is on "probation" (From NCLB Laws) because of our special ed students not passing the Statewide Standarized Test.

I have a boy with a 53 IQ who has to take it ( he has the lowest IQ of my students) to students on up to 75.

Don't get me started..................................................

 

[IanC]

two things.

teachers will be like politicians if we treat them in the same fashion. if we demand that they lie and cheat to keep their job, then we shouldn't be suprised to find that they lie and cheat.

progress for students shouuld be tied to their overall aptitude tests. getting marginal competency out of an IQ75 student is much better than getting average performance out of an IQ125 individual. the same goes for schools with average IQ scores of 90 or 105. we need to consider the potential of the students as well as the performance of the teacher.

 

[chanel]

I like that idea Ian, but that would be far too difficult to monitor. The only reason they want to use test scores and not more comprehensive and (valid) teacher evaluation criteria is simplicity and expedience. No thought or even ethical considerations need be made. Just look at the numbers. Does any other employer in any other profession do this?

Children are not widgets. And year to year teachers are faced with a different group with a different set of skills. The numbers compare apples to oranges.

I teach the same lesson twice a day. My first class has mostly A's and B's. My second class - mostly D's and F's. Exact same material Exact same methods. Just different kids with different values and issues.

And how will PE and Art teachers be evaluated? There are no tests.

 

[bodecea]

If you hang everything on tests you will have students who learn that if you can't count it, it doesn't count.

 

[geauxtohell]

Our school is on "probation" (From NCLB Laws) because of our special ed students not passing the Statewide Standarized Test.

I have a boy with a 53 IQ who has to take it ( he has the lowest IQ of my students) to students on up to 75.

Don't get me started..................................................

That's frigging terrible. So sorry.

I think standardized tests have a place, just not before the ACT.

 

[random3434]

Our school is on "probation" (From NCLB Laws) because of our special ed students not passing the Statewide Standarized Test.

I have a boy with a 53 IQ who has to take it ( he has the lowest IQ of my students) to students on up to 75.

Don't get me started..................................................

That's frigging terrible. So sorry.

I think standardized tests have a place, just not before the ACT.

They have us teaching these kids to the test, instead of teaching them how to read and write and add and subtract.........so a third or fourth grader still has to take a test in what grade they are in, even though they can't read past a first or second grade level. If we had the time to teach them the basics at this early age, then maybe some of them (not all, some will never be on grade level) could have a chance to catch up to their peers.

 

[geauxtohell]

Our school is on "probation" (From NCLB Laws) because of our special ed students not passing the Statewide Standarized Test.

I have a boy with a 53 IQ who has to take it ( he has the lowest IQ of my students) to students on up to 75.

Don't get me started..................................................

That's frigging terrible. So sorry.

I think standardized tests have a place, just not before the ACT.

They have us teaching these kids to the test, instead of teaching them how to read and write and add and subtract.........so a third or fourth grader still has to take a test in what grade they are in, even though they can't read past a first or second grade level. If we had the time to teach them the basics at this early age, then maybe some of them (not all, some will never be on grade level) could have a chance to catch up to their peers.

That's the tragedy of the matter. I am glad I missed this phenomenon when I was a youngster. I had a wonderful public school education. When I learned algebra it was from the Saxon books and we learned by doing problems out the wazoo and taking hard tests. When I went back to college after being away from algebra for about eight years and started physics I was really surprised at the degree of algebra I retained.

I wrote my high school teacher a thank you note.

 

[random3434]

That's frigging terrible. So sorry.

I think standardized tests have a place, just not before the ACT.

They have us teaching these kids to the test, instead of teaching them how to read and write and add and subtract.........so a third or fourth grader still has to take a test in what grade they are in, even though they can't read past a first or second grade level. If we had the time to teach them the basics at this early age, then maybe some of them (not all, some will never be on grade level) could have a chance to catch up to their peers.

That's the tragedy of the matter. I am glad I missed this phenomenon when I was a youngster. I had a wonderful public school education. When I learned algebra it was from the Saxon books and we learned by doing problems out the wazoo and taking hard tests. When I went back to college after being away from algebra for about eight years and started physics I was really surprised at the degree of algebra I retained.

I wrote my high school teacher a thank you note.

Saxon! We still have that method here, but you have to take a workshop to be trained in, which I'm trying to get into this summer! Good to hear you liked it!

 

[IanC]

for chanel...

We are constantly, shrilly condemning "failing schools" when we should be condemning "failing students." But no, that’s not quite right either. We should not condemn the students since they are in most cases doing their best with the intellectual talent that they were born with. No, condemnation is not justified, either of a school or its students, when both are giving all they have to give. And as I have seen, that is generally the case.

Four years ago, I gave a short presentation in Montgomery, Alabama to a conservative group formed under the aegis of Grover Norquist. My subject was "Notes on School Ability and Achievement". I sounded one of the same subversive ideas that Steve puts forth - namely that a student’s ability largely determines his achievement despite any innovations his school may invoke, and that the aggregate ability of a school’s students all but dictates that school’s performance (at least as measured by standardized test scores).

A colleague and I downloaded from the Alabama State Department of Education test scores (actually test rankings expressed in percentiles relative to a normalized national sample) for the 25 elementary schools in Huntsville, Alabama. Then we performed an analysis of how each school fared compared to the ability of its students. [See Table—the table also includes the percentage of black students in each school.]

Alabama gives both the Stanford Achievement Test (SAT), which measures student achievement, and the Otis-Lennon School Ability Test (OLSAT), which measures a student’s aptitude - in other words, his IQ.

We developed a measure we called "Teaching Effectiveness", which is the quotient of achievement divided by ability (multiplied by 100 to give it a convenient scale).

If a school has a Teaching Effectiveness of 100, then that school can be said to be performing "at par," since the ranking of its students’ achievement on the percentile scale matches that of their ability. Any school with a TE below 100 is performing below par. And, of course a TE above 100 means that that school is performing above par. That school is exceeding what would be expected, given the ability of the students enrolled there.

VDARE.com: 07/03/08 - Sailer Is Right: Measure School Achievement Relative To IQ!

the most amazing part of this article is how it shows that that IQ and achievement are nearly coincident. IQ is not the ONLY factor in education but it is a hugely important factor that should be taken into account.