Newspaper's Analysis Finds Evidence of Widespread Cheating by Texas Schools

[NNN0LHI]

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBSJ81NX2E.html

DALLAS (AP) - Dozens of Texas schools appear to have cheated on the state's redesigned academic achievement test, casting doubt on whether the accountability system can reliably measure how schools are performing, a newspaper found.

An analysis uncovered strong evidence of organized, educator-led cheating on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills at schools in Houston and Dallas, along with suspicious scores in hundreds of other schools, The Dallas Morning News reported.

Texas education policies on student accountability became the model for the federal No Child Left Behind law enacted after President Bush's election in 2000.

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[tmooses]

1. It's the "Texas Miracle"...

"Texas education policies on student accountability became the model for the federal No Child Left Behind law enacted after President Bush's election in 2000."


Somehow there seems to be not so subtle thread linking Bush policies,
education, elections and cheating.

[GCP]

2. Gee, why am I not surprised

Coming from a governor who cheated in business and cheated his way into the presidency. It must be in the polluted water down there.

[enough]

3. Them good ol' red-state values. (nt)

[cleofus1]

4. hurrmmm

probably cheating of desperation...poor kids are under lots of pressure...

[rainbow4321]

26. Actually it is pressure on the schools from higher ups

http://www.fairtest.org/examarts/Fall%202002/Texas.html


Referring to the impact of the TAAS on teaching, teacher Becky Mcadoo said, “It became like an assembly-line education. Nothing mattered but the TAAS.” The Observer reported federal data showing the teacher resignation rate climbed from 8.6% to 11.3% from 1997 to 2001.

“Under pressure from politicians, businessmen and administrators, school districts consistently inflate scores,” the article concludes. “There are various ways to game the system.” These include placing children in special education, keeping children home on test days, and focusing teaching on kids with close-to-passing scores while ignoring those far from passing or sure to pass.
Former teacher Deborah Diffley said, “I’ve seen whole classes sent down the hall to watch videos while others were drilled.” Several cheating scandals also have erupted in Texas.

Fear of repression keeps Texas teachers from denouncing the system. The article used the names of retired teachers, but current teachers were anonymous. “Teachers who speak out can be charged with insubordination and fired,” the article explains.

[tx_dem41]

34. Why are you attempting to justify cheating? n/t

[Trillo]

5. I wonder what the mechanism of 'educator-led' cheating might be?

Teachers doing rote drilling with actual test questions?
Or is the cheating occurring at higher 'educator' levels, such as test administrators changing reported test results?

Does 'educator-led' imply the students are participants in the cheating? Or victims of it?

[rainbow4321]

25. If it is now like it was w/ previous test cheating issues...

then what they probably mean is teachers changing kids answers, etc...that is what happened with the previous TX state test <TAAS>.

http://web.reporter-news.com/1998/2001/texas/cheat0601.html

[MisterP]

33. Edison Schools: the ones that got all the district $$$, promised infinite

efficiency, and went bankrupt to the extent that there was a soccer-mom riot outside the president's office and he fled in a car

[Niche]

6. Figures! Cheaters, liars and theives...

[Supersedeas]

32. leaders inculcating a culture of fraud and deception...TX style

non-cheaters in TX, don't frett...it is likely to spread first through FLA, OH, and throughout the rest of the nation...you are not alone.

[Tace]

7. Just Showing The Kids How To Get Ahead In The World

[AmerDem]

8. stick a fork in our country

we are done.

[NVMojo]

9. they are following in the President's footsteps!!

[elehhhhna]

10. Rumor:Houston keeps poor-testers in 2nd grade (holds them back a year...)

then, after that all-important 3rd grade testing is done, they socially promote them to 4th. VOILA! Poor testers stay in second grade twice, then go to 4th, thus skipping the TASS test altogether.

Anybody else see this in the news several months ago?

[melnjones]

16. Can you find a source for that?

I'd love to bookmark it. Wow.

[genieroze]

11. They learned from the master cheat *.

[slor]

12. The chimp is a great...

role model for this kind of activity.

[OutsourceBush]

13. they qualify to be Republicans when they grow up

No Cheater Left Behind

[Maestro]

14. Well I am teacher in Texas

and we do not cheat. But as a result our school is running the risk of the * admin, which doesn't know the first thing about educating kids, telling us we are an at risk school. Let's see, we have many kids who are learning English as their second language, many kids in special ed who are taking tests at their skill level, which according to the * admin, this is bad and a strike against us plus we are in a very poor area. No wonder there is pressure to cheat. The *ucking * admin is setting everyone up to fail!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[rainbow4321]

27. Dallas Observer: A teacher's letter to editor on TAKS cheating

http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:2Rp3vdxvDyUJ:www.dallasobserver.com/issues/2003-10-30/news/letters.html+cheating+%22TAKS%22&hl=en

These kids come to me in August unable to spell the word "and," incapable of writing a complete sentence, much less a solid paragraph. In a period of about six months, I am supposed to teach these same children how to write an essay that will receive a passing score on the seventh-grade TAKS writing test in February. I consider myself lucky to have students who read on the fourth-grade level and speak fluent English. Usually, I am not that blessed

You may wonder how students with such poor skills reach the seventh grade. So do I--every day. Every year, students disclose secrets of former teachers who, inside the privacy of their classrooms, gave students answers on TAAS and TAKS. The cheating naturally resulted in higher student test scores and an effective disguise for the ineffective teacher. I have witnessed the mysterious social promotion of students who failed their classes, failed TAAS and didn't attend a single day of summer school. What's a lowly teacher to do about the political agendas of administrators who refuse to remove serious discipline problems from the classroom? Don't these indicators, which are beyond the teacher's control, impede a teacher's ability to teach? If teachers are judged on the basis of their students' test scores, what will become of honest, passionate, competent teachers who hang in there, desperately hoping for a change?

[TahitiNut]

30. Schools should give Entry Exams, not Final Exams.

Every grade should have entry requirements and test students against those requirements. (Students who successfully pass the Entry Exam for an advanced grade should be permitted to skip grades.) In doing so and accepting students into that grade, the teachers (and administration) accept the challenge/job of successfully teaching the student at the entered grade level.

Virtually nothing in life has a "final exam," only admission and entry requirements.

[Spacemom]

15. I have no faith in public schools anymore

That's why we homeschool.

The NCLB act has put too much pressure on teachers and students. Too much importance is placed on test scores. It's never acceptable to cheat, but the teachers have really had their backs put to the wall. What's better? To cheat at the test and try to spend your time actually teaching your students. Or you can "teach to the test" and still have your school labled as failing because ESL and special ed students are expected to take the same test as everyone else.

It's a mess, and I don't know if it's possible to fix. Could it be possible that * wants an uneducated populace? Hmmmmmmm? :eyes:

[w4rma]

18. If you have the time and the knowledge of Algebra/Trig/Sciences/English

Social Studies/History/Music/photography/ROTC/Sports/excersises/etc etc. AND the money to provide the matierals to teach with for labs and music and maps and books upon books upon books (including the teacher's versions of those books). Then maybe homeschooling is good for you and your kids, or maybe you should be a teacher in the public school system INSTEAD since you have all this knowledge.

Personally, I'm skeptical of homeschooling. I cannot see how anyone can do their normal job at 40+ hours a week AND keep up with the multitude of subjects that all the high school teachers put together keep up with and work on every day and who also know the details of their subject at least because they have the time they can devote to ONE subject as opposed to 7 or more subjects.

And in addition to the academic subjects, there is NO way homeschooled kids can make up for the loss of time with their peers. You gotta learn how get along with other people, and not just take orders, also.

[tsuki]

20. Down here, parents who homeschool do not work outside.

And they are organized into Associations. They participate in soccer, bowling leagues, field trips, and many graduate from high school with an AA thanks to dual enrollment.

They must pass local school testing, taking the FCAT, and standardize tests yearly.

I was skeptical also until some of my friends started home schooling. The children love it, and so do the parents. And most of the parents I have met are progressives, not refundies.

The fundies do a different thing. They give a "Xian School" the money for enrollment, then they don't have to do any testing.

[melnjones]

17. I work

in a school that will be shut down or completely restructured the year after next. The amount of stress every person in that building is in is absolutely ridiculous. This story, however, takes the cake and royally pisses me off.

[Benhurst]

19. As the late, great Bette Davis would have said ...

What a dump!

[Algorem]

21. Trickle-down cheating from the cheater-in-chief

[flordehinojos]

22. they probably have a book in their library stacks called,

The Art of Cheating, by George W. Bush and Tom Delay".
'Nuff said.

[WCGreen]

23. A Fine Moral Example once again set by the conseratives......

[rainbow4321]

24. Long history of it...student payoffs, teacher-assisted cheating..

http://web.reporter-news.com/1998/2001/texas/cheat0601.html

Webster said the district would check reports that students at Hernandez were paid cash for passing the TAAS. Students at another Dallas school, Bryan Adams High School, said they were paid for passing the state test.

Cynthia Romero, the mother of a Hernandez student, told WFAA-TV that the day the TAAS was given, her daughter's teacher marked wrong answers with question marks and kept sixth-grader Nicole Vargas after school to correct her answers.

When the school received word this month that students had improved the school's rating from low-performing to acceptable, Nicole and her classmates who passed the TAAS each received $20, Romero said.

Webster called the practice of paying students for passing the test “unsavory,” but he said district policy does not prohibit monetary rewards.

-------------------------

Which is why so many TX college students are in remedial classes

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/education/stories/092704dntexremedial.cbe30.html

September 26, 2004

HOUSTON – Nearly two-thirds of high school graduates enrolled at Houston-area community colleges aren't prepared for college and are taking remedial classes.

The problems in Houston are not much worse than they are statewide, where a report found that half the state's 2001 high school graduates needed remedial help in college. The problem is not limited to school districts with high poverty levels, such as Houston and Aldine. Students from wealthier districts such as Spring Branch and Katy are also taking remedial classes.

The report that showed that half the 2001 high school graduates needed remedial help in college was released this spring by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. Percentages ranged from 62 percent in the Houston Independent School District to about 25 percent in the Katy Independent School District.


State education officials and local school districts say they are toughening graduation requirements to make sure students are ready for post-secondary schooling. This year's freshman class of Texas high school students is the first that must take Algebra II to graduate, which typically is a third-year math class.

[tedzbear]

28. While our kids get dumber, Asia's kids get smarter and smarter...

Asia's education system is not cheating and it's cranking out engineers by the thousands...

I read somewhere that the Chinese universities will
graduate 700,000 engineers each year
while the USA will graduate about
65,000 engineers.

[stackhouse]

29. is anyone surprised???

what does anyone expect from the state that the son of a bush come from

[lastliberalintexas]

36. I didn't see that the article said anything

about Connecticut. :shrug:


You might want to become a little more informed about this issue before just jumping on the bashing bandwagon.

[rainbow4321]

31. State waits for district to TELL ON THEMSELVES...

One more reason why cheating won't surface..who in the district is going to raise their hand and say "Pick us to investigate!!".


http://www.mysanantonio.com/sharedcontent/APStories/stories/D873BPRG0.html


State regulators who are investigating allegations of cheating on academic achievement tests in three Texas school districts following a newspaper's investigation say they do not usually initiate such inquiries.

Typically, school districts police themselves," Lisa Chandler, TEA director of assessment, said in the newspaper's Monday editions. "We trust educators to educate our kids."

The state performs an erasure analysis on every TAKS answer sheet but, under TEA policy, nothing is done with the information produced.

Chandler said erasure information is only used if the agency receives a separate complaint alleging cheating. The agency may then check results of the erasure analysis to see if they support the allegations.

[lastliberalintexas]

35. For those who are making the typical comments

about Texas and red staters, please learn about this issue. Thanks to NCLB, it will be in your state before long (unless of course you live in a state like Vermont which opted out).

Is there cheating? Of course- always has been , always will be, on any test, in any school, in any state. Even when the child is homeschooled. But the Texas Miracle puts even more pressure on the schools to perform like private schools with less money and more problem, poor or ESL students. Most of the "cheating" isn't what you and I usually think of when we hear that term- it's actually the administration officials who work the system to create passing schools. MOST of our students and teachers are doing their best to succeed in a system which is designed to make them fail.


This is simply another step in their plan to discredit our teachers and public schools. And you're buying the RW propaganda, just because it involves a red state.

[Blue_Tires]

37. i wonder where Rod Paige is hiding now

isn't the current model of TX schools his brainchild?

[Rambis]

38. NCS Pearson

had to throw out a bunch of Texas data a couple years ago because they found out that a janitor was changing scores on the tests so that his school could get raises. It is all about performance on tests not learning. Republicans privatizing education since 2000.