Negro Cheating Scandal in Atlanta Reignites Debate Over Tests' Role

[Leroy N. Soetoro]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/03/education/atlanta-cheating-scandal-
reignites-testing-debate.html

By MOTOKO RICH

There are few more contentious issues in public education than the
increased reliance on standardized testing.

In the context of a fiery debate, the Atlanta school cheating scandal, the
largest in recent history, detonates like a bomb, fueling critics who say
that standardized testing as a way to measure student achievement should
be scaled back.

Evidence of systemic cheating has emerged in as many as a dozen places
across the country, and protests in Chicago, New York City, Seattle,
across Texas and elsewhere represent a growing backlash among educators
and parents against high-stakes testing.

�The widespread cheating and test score manipulation problem,� said Robert
Schaeffer, the public education director of FairTest, the National Center
for Fair and Open Testing, �is one more example of the ways politicians�
fixation on high-stakes testing is damaging education quality and equity.�

But those who say that testing helps improve the accountability of schools
and teachers argue that focusing on the cheating scandals ignores the
larger picture.

Abandoning testing would �be equivalent to saying �O.K., because there are
some players that cheated in Major League Baseball, we should stop keeping
score, because that only encourages people to take steroids,� � said
Thomas J. Kane, director of the Center for Education Policy Research at
Harvard University, who has received funding from the Gates Foundation.

In Atlanta, where some critics say the rampant cheating on state tests
invalidates the district�s accomplishments over the past decade, students
there showed more growth between 2003 and 2011, as measured by federal
education exams, than any other district that participated in the tests,
including Chicago, Los Angeles and New York.

Education experts on both sides of the standardized testing debate
generally accept these federal exams, known as the National Assessment of
Educational Progress, as the gold standard in measuring genuine student
achievement. The federal tests were not implicated in the Atlanta
investigation.

No one is defending the cheating in Atlanta, which resulted in the
indictments of 35 educators, including the district superintendent. But
some education advocates say the scandal, in a district of mostly black
and poor children, could detract from a genuine effort to raise the
quality of education for some of the neediest students.

�The idea that a superintendent who says, �We�ve got to have our kids
learning more and I don�t want to hear excuses about your lack of
progress� is somehow a bad thing is, I think, unfortunate,� said Kati
Haycock, president of the Education Trust, a nonprofit group that works to
close achievement gaps for racial minorities and low-income children. She
added that the tests generally evaluated fundamental literacy and math
skills. �We do know that kids who don�t know what�s on these very basic
tests will not be able to succeed,� Ms. Haycock said.

Much of the objection to standardized testing is related to the use of
student scores in evaluating teachers. But many states are adopting
systems where test scores are just a part of an educator�s performance
review. They are also judged on classroom observations and, in some cases,
student surveys.

Still, critics argue that because the tests provide administrators and
state education departments with the most convenient way to provide a
quick performance snapshot, the tests have warped classrooms by forcing
teachers to narrow their focus.

�The curriculum is focused on test drill,� said Melissa McCann Cooper, a
seventh-grade English teacher at Murchison Middle School in Austin, Tex.,
where she said the district dictated a writing program that targeted
expository and persuasive essays, because that was what was tested. �I
have some very gifted writers who are being shoved into a very narrow kind
of writing,� Ms. Cooper said.

There is evidence that teachers who consistently help improve students�
standardized test scores can affect more than immediate academic
performance, with students in those classes being likelier to attend
college and earn more as adults. Teachers and parents argue, though, that
the tests often do not accommodate students who learn differently, or let
them demonstrate their knowledge creatively.

What�s more, testing opponents complain that standardized tests do not
measure all the skills that students need to succeed in college or in
jobs, and can force schools to disregard nontested subjects like art and
music.

Such criticism is often loudest in more affluent, high-achieving
communities. �If you�re an upper-middle-class parent in Scarscale and you
hate standardized testing, you have some reason to hate it,� said Michael
J. Petrilli, executive vice president at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute,
an education policy group. �It�s probably not doing your kid and your
schools a whole lot of good, because these tests are mainly about raising
the floor and putting pressure on the lowest-performing schools to do
better.�

As for cheating, education advocates say states and districts clearly need
to increase security procedures. Matthew M. Chingos, a researcher in the
Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution, points out
that states spend about $1.7 billion a year on testing administration,
which represents less than half 1 percent of total federal, state and
local education spending. He said that states could spend a bit more to
hire independent proctors and to make the tests a better measure of
learning.

�If we�re worried about teaching to the test and cheating,� Mr. Chingos
said, �maybe we want to invest in more high-quality assessments that are
worthy of these things that we�re asking of them.�

--

Barack Obama, reelected by the dumbest voters in the history of the United
States of America.

Eric Holder, racist black murdering United States Attorney General, still
has his job.

Nancy Pelosi, Democrat criminal, accessory before and after the fact to
improper vetting of Barry Soetoro aka Barack Hussein Obama, a confirmed
felon using SSAN 042-68-4425, belonging to a dead man.

Obama ignored the brutal killing of an American diplomat in Benghazi, then
relieved American military officers who attempted to prevent said murder
in order to cover up his own ineptness.

Obama continues his goal of disarming America while ObamaCare increases
insurance premiums 200% and leaves millions without health care.

Obama helped bankrupt Illinois. Democrat run Chicago closes 54 public
schools.

--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ne...@netfront.net ---