by David Safier
The "What will we tell the children?" headline usually signals another standardized test cheating scandal. This is much worse. The El Paso school district got rid of high school freshmen who were likely to fail the all-important sophomore test — as much as half the freshman class — so the schools' scores on the test would rise.
And rise the scores did.
The district's overall rating improved from "academically acceptable" in 2005 to "recognized" in 2010 – the second-highest rating possible.
The result was more federal money flowing to the district and a big bonus for the Superintendent who was behind the scam. The only good news in the story is, the Superintendent has pleaded guilty to fraud and could do jail time. That could scare others out of trying such an obvious ploy to raise test scores.
But less blatant forms of test manipulation has been business as usual in Texas for years. And it's important to remember, our standardized testing mania began in Texas when Bush was governor and was spread like an infectious disease to the rest of the country when he entered the White House and brought Texas' barely competent State Superintendent of Schools, Rod Paige, along with him.
Texas may be the most corrupt state in the country when it comes to the high stakes sophomore standardized test — possibly because it's Texas, possibly because Texas has been at it the longest. Freshmen who are likely to flunk the sophomore test are often "held back" a year, then bumped up to junior status, skipping their sophomore year entirely. Students are suspended or expelled from school around test time, then reinstated later. Absentee rates rise on test days. All these manipulations are the equivalent of taking the tests with the lowest scores and burning them before they make it into the computer. So far as I remember, no principals or superintendents have lost their jobs over this kind of manipulation.
The dreary regimen of testing discourages some of our best potential teachers from joining the profession and encourages many of our best and brightest young teachers to leave. The make-or-break nature of high stakes testing corrupts teachers and adminstrators who are under pressure to raise test scores by any means necessary. And as cheating and other forms of manipulation boost scores at one school or in one classroom, others who are working hard and playing by the rules are made to look like they aren't getting the job done.
Remind me, what are the benefits of high stakes testing that balance out all its destructive elements?
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High-stakes standardized tests should be abolished for many reasons, starting with the fact that they do not tell us whether a student is getting an excellent education, but merely whether the student learned how to do well on the test. I had serious concerns about the quality of my child’s middle school education and she generally exceeded (highest score) on all of the AIMS sections. There was no connection between the two. The test should also be abolished because there can be little love of learning developed during the endless drilling sessions for the tests and because the test punish, rather than reward critical thinking. The tests should be abolished because the enormous amount of time spent teaching to the test, learning how to take the test and taking the test prevents excellent teachers from focusing on teaching excellent things that are not going to be on the test. Did you know that some districts use standardized tests to help prepare for taking the high-stakes test? This also causes excellent teachers to seek out other careers where they can truly excel and stop engaging in the fiction that teaching to the test does no harm to students. And yes, they should be abolished because they establish the perverse kinds of incentives on display in El Paso and in Tucson, too. But if the only thing you got out of David’s post is that tests should be abolished because people cheat on them, then you most likely are be the type of student who would do well on the AIMS test.
Should tests be abolished because some people cheat on them?
Dave, you beat me to it. I was going to write about this. What an abomination.