Cheating on high stakes tests, or at least evidence of possible cheating, has reared its ugly head once again, this time at Wade Carpenter Middle School in the Nogales Unified School District. And once again, the validity of high stakes test scores as a measure of student achievement and school success has been thrown into question.
An analysis of eraser marks on AIMS tests at Wade Carpenter Middle School showed wrong answers had been corrected three or more times on 23 percent of seventh grade reading evaluations. Eighteen percent of math tests had four or more corrections. By comparison, just .006 percent of children statewide successfully change wrong answers this frequently.
If anyone cheated on the tests, it was teachers and/or administrators who were doing the erase-and-replace, not students. Patterns of wrong-to-right erasures on these tests usually mean someone other than the students went back and changed the answers. And it’s possible this isn’t a one shot deal at the school. It may have been going on since 2010.
Is this a problem at one Nogales school, or is it more widespread? No one knows at this point, and the only way to find out is to conduct a full scale, district-wide inquiry where multiple investigators interview teachers and administrators over and over again to see if they can uncover evidence of cheating. That’s how the widespread Atlanta cheating scandal was uncovered. The staff repeatedly denied cheating until relentless inquiries led someone to admit the truth. The result has been high profile court trials of teachers and administrators. No other school district has been investigated as thoroughly, though based on an extensive study of erasure patterns at schools across the country, it’s probable this kind of thing has happened elsewhere. No telling how hard the Nogales school district will look for more signs of cheating, though the superintendent has promised to have someone outside the district perform an investigation and is asking that people come forward with any information they might have.
Nogales Unified has defied the odds and received B and A grades from the state in spite of its high percentage of poor and ELL students. It has been cited as a model for what schools serving kids from poor families can accomplish, and the district has bragged that WCMS is the top Title 1 school in the country. It looks like we have a case of “cheating repeating itself.” The Atlanta school district was named one of the finest in the country based on its test scores before the cheating scandal broke.
So, one high-ranked Arizona school got caught cheating, or probably cheating—we don’t know for sure. Chances are it’s not alone. A 2011 investigation by the Arizona Republic and USA Today indicated similar problems in other districts, though Tom Horne, who was Superintendent of Public Instruction when the study was conducted, brushed it off, as did John Huppenthal. Neither took a deeper look at the potential problems.
And remember, erase-and-replace cheating is the most blatant way to boost student scores, but there are many others ranging from out-and-out cheating to mildly unethically behavior to perfectly acceptable teaching strategies. Teachers may make direct or indirect suggestions to students while they’re taking the tests. They may leave “helpful hints” posters on the walls or information on the blackboard. And of course, they’re encouraged to teach to the test relentlessly in the hope that their students’ test taking skills will exceed their actual abilities in reading, writing and math. If there’s a way to raise student scores, you can bet it’s been tried repeatedly.
Treatng these tests as accurate and reliable indicators of student achievement is an exercise in naiveté, and the tests are a recipe for corrupting otherwise honest teachers and administrators who manipulate student scores, sometimes out of fear for their reputations and their jobs, sometimes in a misguided attempt to “help” their students.
This article appears in Mar 19-25, 2015.
Thanks for the facts David. I feared that “teaching to the test” would soon become answering it for them, and now it has. If this was Wall St. it would be fraud.
Prosecute the criminals.
All I can say is in TUSD they watch all the time. The tests are locked up after every session. I don’t know how teachers can change answers because we cannot keep them. However I know people can be creative. The teachers are not allowed to even read the test( only the required directions) so it is impossible to teach to the test. I read that here and I thought all schools were told they couldn’t read the test. Of course we know the objectives well before the test and sample tests are posted online but they are very generic.
THere are aides in the room either for special education students or volunteers and if anybody sees anything, they must report it. Last year a teacher had just passed out the tests and it hadn’t started yet and she looked down and read a question out loud I guess( it was very unclear exactly what she did but it was short and fast) without even thinking. The aide saw her and reported her and she was fired. The school went down to a C (which had been an A) because all her tests were counted as invalid.
There are people from the district patrolling schools so you never know who is going to show up in your room. They aren’t even friendly when they come in … don’t smile … walk around and leave and may come back. Many of us felt badly for the teacher who was fired because she did it without even thinking. She is a good teacher too. I am not saying it doesn’t happen but the way they are administered where I have been definitely sends the message that cheating is not tolerated.
Nogales USD has some great teachers, wonderful kids and supportive parents. It also has a powerful old boy network that continues to pull strings behind the scenes. Dig and you will find interesting things about board members and administrators. The kids, parents and staff deserve better.
Robin, the Atlanta cheating scandal is by far the most highly studied. It wasn’t individual teachers erasing wrong answers and putting in right ones. It was a group of teachers and sometimes administrators who would get together and do it after the tests were collected and supposedly in a safe place.
Also, when it comes to teaching to the test, it’s not necessary to know the specific test questions. Pretests and drills on how to analyze short reading passages, then answer multiple choice questions, are teaching to the test. It’s like SAT prep classes, where no one knows for sure what will be on the test but scores can increase by 50 to 100 points. The better a teacher is at readying the students, the higher their scores will be relative to students at similar levels who aren’t as well prepped.
The high-stakes nature of the test drives this behavior. It doesn’t excuse it, but it is a direct cause. All one needs to do to understand what drives this phenomenon is to read Dr David Berliner’s The Inevitable Corruption of Indicators and Educators Through High-Stakes Testing. He wrote it back in 2005.
http://greatlakescenter.org/docs/early_res…
David Berliner’s books should be required reading for all legislators and the State Dept. of Education.
I understand what you are saying David S. The fact remains we are a tremendously competitive country… that’s capitalism. Our whole system is set up for standardized tests from the objectives to teacher evaluation and even our president’s race to the top. Rewards are there for being the best. I am not excusing cheating. I just don’t know anybody that has done this on purpose nor has anyone ever approached me about getting together to do it or anything else regarding creating a desired outcome. So it may be widespread, but I haven’t seen it. Yes we are given a curriculum and objectives for grade levels. We must take down all posters related to the subject we are testing… math charts, etc.
So teaching objectives that are clearly defined for let’s say math 4th grade may be considered teaching to the test? If a student understands a concept that he or she is taught and transfers it to a probable different context in the test, he or she knows it. That’s good. I think having a curriculum with defined objectives and students tested on those objectives is the way our whole education system is set up. I do not think guessing which objectives are being tested is a good idea.
I do not believe we have the best system by any means. There is competition for the money to run schools which is ridiculous. I have read about Finland’s system and it sounds wonderful. But we have a hard time accepting children are unique .They process differently . They are different colors and speak differently.
So I accept the system because I can’t change it. Nor can I change the core beliefs in our country, state, school systems around competitiveness. Accepting all that, I think teaching objectives that will be tested is humane and the best way for children to be successful in our culture. There is a lot of information in the world. So our country has decided to pick certain goals as being educated. A good teacher does much more than that but that is something else. Also 1 test a year would take pressure off IMHO… if we continue to have this culture of the best one wins in scores. The stakes are high here. I also think we need to be much kinder to each other. It goes a long way.
Robin just got home from a Kool-Aid cocktail party. Yes, you can change the system. Someone changed it INTO a high-stakes test driven education-industrial complex and you can bet those people didn’t wring their hands and accept the status quo. As for core beliefs, an effective education system is collaborative. It doesn’t create winners and losers. The US once embraced this, so I have no idea why someone would believe that because we embrace competition in the economy, there is no other choice but to embrace the corporate reform movement as a done deal.
Remember the “vision thing”?
Aren’t we talking two different things? I am an interventionist and about a third of what I do is collaboration so I totally agree. Testing is probably political. Whatever it is, we have to do it now which is why I think 1 would be enough. It is not teaching and it can measure growth especially since the student would have a different tester year to year. Accepting we have to test doesn’t mean we can’t teach in productive ways . However, again I am an exception… I work with students who are challenged in reading primarily so I have been able to do a lot of what I know works. And I can use the objectives as my guide to teach in as many creative ways as I come up with for the children I am working with. It works and I love doing it because I am not teaching to a test. I am teaching. Again, I detest the amount of testing we are doing now.
No, Robin, you and Jana are not talking about two different things. Jana is talking about the fact that you express yourself very clearly as being willing and able to accept the toxic changes the reform movement has forced in our public schools. This is what you were also “talking about,” though you may not have recognized it as such.
You wrote: “The fact remains we are a tremendously competitive country… that’s capitalism. Our whole system is set up for standardized tests from the objectives to teacher evaluation and even our president’s race to the top. ..So I accept the system because I can’t change it. Nor can I change the core beliefs in our country, state, school systems around competitiveness.”
Most people I know who are committed to the cause of public education would, like Jana, prefer to see a better vision of what is possible in our schools prevail, rather than the system you accept “because [you] can’t change it.”
(Thanks, though, for being so very clear about what you do and don’t think is possible in our schools; that makes it easier to assess the validity of other statements you have made, like “I think TUSD is doing very well” — something you wrote in introducing a link to a district-produced article about how test scores have increased.)
Robin, My comment was directed to the systemic and political problem that Dave’s post laid bare and your response to that. I am grateful for your service to our children and thankful that you serve them as the professional that you are, as I honor all teachers. Please don’t confuse the efforts that good teachers make to work with the flawed system that they are given with the efforts to change that flawed system.
Dave’s most insightful comment was that “treating these tests as accurate and reliable indicators of student achievement is an exercise in naiveté.” AMEN
Every time I hear about an A or C or B or D school I want to slap someone and channel Cher in “Moonstruck.” GET OVER IT!
This certainly went places I did not expect. Thank you Jana for your kind words. I use the word ‘accept’ vs. ‘denial’. I quit being angry when I accepted. I am able to look at what I can do to help children and make school fun and interesting. I don’t think there is one person who I work with or who knows me that considers me anything but authentic. I have repeatedly said I am for 1 test and abhor what is happening. WHen I accepted that, then I decided to stay instead of leave. I go through the tests and then I do what I do so very well… teach children who have a hard time and I have found ways to do it in the system. Most of my 40 years in education (all but maybe 5) I have given standardized tests… 1 a year except for the last few years which had many more tests. Accept does not necessarily mean like. My vision for a wonderful education system is never absent. I accept our country but I don ‘t always like it, especially right now. SO if I accept that, what can I do to make it better for the kids? I am present for them and make learning fun. They feel successful with me. Some don’t want to leave me when they don’t need me any longer. I walk with them when the legislature is betraying them. That too is acceptance because it is what I can do. I look for what is good in the places I work and there are many good things about TUSD. And I blog here so I can learn what other people think so I can learn what else I can do.
I will agree with Robin’s original comment–that in TUSD in any case, a veil of uber-security descends on the school and believe you me, there is none of that “blackboard hints” or wall posters stuff–at least where I am, all of that stuff comes down. THERE SHALL BE NO JOY!!!!! is the worst of the dreck that the (continuous) testing regime tries to enforce. And yes, teaching to the test, skilling and drilling even without knowing the exact questions, is very much in force and enforced — and it doesn’t require any group of men in green eyeshades to make it happen. The Mob bosses are the relentless “indicators” that are used to grade your school, grade your teachers, determine whether teachers get their annual bonus, etc. Talk of separating the stakes from the testing is welcomed, even from these lunatics we call legislators these days–because the toxicity is overwhelming….and, not as a side exercise by any means, destroying/privatizing our public schools.
It is simply incredible the amount of time and energy, and the oxygen this whole testing business –
and it is a business – is sucking out of learning and teaching. It was a sad day when I asked the great grand kids how school was and they replied with, All we do is take tests. Even they, who are in elementary school, knew that time spent on tests was time away from learning. It should be instructive that other countries who rank higher in education than the US, spend little or no time during the school year on standardize tests.
Conclusion: In the US, corporate test makers win, students lose.
So taking a test causes people to cheat? I think this is a matter of the heart and not the head. We should address the moral concerns separately from whether there should be high stakes testing or not. It’s like Flip Wilson used to say “the devil made me do it”.
If the kids were just allowed to carry guns, this would never have happened. AZ legislature, please get on that right away.
As a 30+ year veteran of public school teaching, let me defend Robin’s way of seeing testing, at the same time I disagree with it. When the high stakes tests began in Oregon, I was teaching sophomores who had to pass the CIM — Oregon’s AIMS — to graduate. I hated the test, hated the idea of the test, detested the idea of teaching to the test. But there I was, with sophomores whose lives would be easier if they passed the test the first time. By saying “Bah! Humbug!” I would make it more probable that some of my students would just miss the cutoff score and have to take the test again next year.
So I devised a way to teach to the test — specifically the writing part — that was enjoyable and educational, but it definitely gamed the system. And I think I helped a number of students who were on the border to clear the hurdle and pass the test — and, I hope, made them better writers at the same time. Instead of spending my energies grumbling, I tried to do the best with the hand I was dealt as a public school teacher.
Now as a retired teacher and regular pontificator, I can shake my fist at the system and hope it will change. But while I was in the classroom, I had to focus on what was best for the students in front of me, working inside the rules and regulations of the system.
I appreciate hearing from current public school teachers and staff like Robin B. and Betts Putnam-Hidalgo and former public school teachers like David Safier. It helps me understand what is going on in my child’s school.
I am a parent in a public school where classroom practices and policy decisions seem in many ways to be driven by the need to produce good “outcome data” rather than by a focus on meeting students’ learning needs, and I’m going to give you an opinion on what is being discussed here from the perspective of a parent whose children are on the receiving end of public school teachers’ instruction delivery:
As a parent, I would appreciate it if our local public school boards and administrators (both central and site-based) would take a more active stance in opposing the dominance of testing outcomes as factors affecting what goes on in our classrooms. It is possible to do it: public school boards and administrators elsewhere are finding ways to do so, and the role leadership plays in enabling this throughout a district is a significant one.
I would also appreciate public districts offering higher quality professional development for teachers. It is not confidence-inspiring when our districts’ professional educators show so little understanding of the “lay of the land” in education policy, and must resort to educating themselves by blogging in the comment streams on education articles and reading the responses to their posts.
People in leadership positions in public education: please LEAD. When long-time, credentialed public school teachers don’t understand the relationship between what is going on in their classrooms and the corporate reform movement, or when they don’t understand that “teaching to the test” includes other practices besides just knowing the specific questions and answers on a given evaluation, what can parents conclude? It seems a clear indication that public school district leadership — both elected and appointed — is not playing the role it should play in ensuring that teachers are equipped to be effective purveyors of meaningful “education” for our children in a context where there are far too many pressures to give “outcomes” more weight than they should ever have.
I am personally acquainted with several families who have transferred kids out of our public district into charters or privates within the last year, and in every case the over-testing of the kids and / or the outcome-driven character of the classroom instruction was a factor.
Just so everyone is clear, stating which standards are being taught is required in TUSD and that is demonstrated by putting the standards on the board. It is to make sure the teachers stay focused and parents by and large like that kind of information. What are you working on? ….There is no confusion as to what is teaching to the test as far as I am concerned and it is very clear in TUSD. I personally do not have to do that because I am an interventionist and not a classroom teacher. However , I am very clear what standards are needed with my students. I do not even test the kids I work with. I test those who need a small group setting who have either a 504 or an IEP.
As much as I am willing to have my voice regularly because I am retired, and can leave whenever i want to, change isn’t going to happen until the people decide what they want in education. We elected a governor who did say more than 1 time that he would not pay the money back that was taken from education( About 1.2 billion) and he got elected. AZ Merit test is mandatory(state). DIBELS testing and progress monitoring is required( state) . TUSD also gives the ATI and I don’t know if it is required but it is a test to ensure that the skills are being taught( teachers get a printout on weak areas for students). The stakes are still very high for schools in public ed. that don’t do well on tests, especially in Arizona. Any small excuse (sometimes not even that) results in penalties for public schools. So overkill happened. Is it right? no… I want public schools and I understand why they do it as much as I don’t like it. Many believe this competition for money for schools is healthy(thus charter schools), I do not. However that is AZ.
I’m tired of hearing our local education professionals and leaders whine about the AZ legislature. If they don’t know how to lead a public school district in a challenging context like this, they shouldn’t have taken a job in TUSD, run for the TUSD board, or applied for its Superintendency. Ultimately, the buck stops with them in terms of what happens to children in their schools.
The majority of voters in this region did not vote for Ducey. Both the constituency in Southern Arizona and the current State Superintendent of Education don’t buy the goods Ducey is selling. Perhaps a little Dupnik-style leadership is what is in order here. Most parents whose kids are being subjected to “the standards are on the board; this test is required; that test is mandatory” education would prefer some judicious “conscientious objections” or refusals to enforce to the capitulation to bad practices and total absence of vision district spokespeople seem to offer up these days.
Plain & simple, it is cheating:
http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.as…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States…
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-10-bigg…
The most condescending comment ANYONE can ever make is; “in my thirty years of this that or the other…..” thereby implying a greater level of knowledge. Not hardly. This is cheating and no matter how “naive” some may think it is still cheating. You accept cheating and you get the mediocrity you deserve. It doesn’t matter WHICH test it is still a test and until someone, especially a blogger hack can come along with a better solution and have it accepted it will remain simply a solution in hand, a sticky mess.