Obama and Duncan Are More Responsible Than This Crooked Administrator

Thanks to NCLB and RTTT, with their demonizing of public education and teach-to-the-test requirements, superintendents like this one felt forced to cheat in order to make himself and his district look good and not failing.

However, he is the one facing a stiff prison term, not those two fake Democrats who helped create the mess in public education with their stupid "reforms":

A federal judge sentenced the former superintendent of El Paso Independent School District to more than three years in prison Friday for his participation in a conspiracy to improve the district’s high-stakes tests scores by removing low-performing students from classrooms.

Lorenzo Garcia’s scheme to prevent hundreds of sophomores from taking the accountability tests fooled authorities into believing that academic standards had improved in his West Texas district — resulting in a boost in federal funds and personal bonuses totaling at least $56,000.

Garcia pleaded guilty to two fraud counts in June; one in the testing scandal and another in which he misled the school board so that his lover would receive a $450,000 no-bid contract to produce school materials.

On Friday, federal judge David Briones sentenced him to 3½ years in prison on each fraud count, to be served at the same time. Garcia also was ordered to pay $180,000 in restitution and fined $56,500 — the amount he received as a bonus from the district for its success on test scores.

If People Only Knew

how terrible teachers really have it in this country, and how risky it is for them to speak out on ANYTHING, let alone about cheating on standardized tests, perhaps all of the "reforms" would be tossed into the garbage can where they belong:

A few teachers such as Cotton are speaking up about this. Fifth-grade teacher Sarah Wysocki did so in my Post colleague Bill Turque’s recent examination of the D.C. teacher evaluation system. If more educators reveal what they know, school district leaders may be shamed into finally launching a deep, aggressive investigation into the corruption that threatens to ruin their heartfelt efforts to save the city’s kids.

Cotton worked hard at Davis. He said his evaluations from classroom observers got better as the year went on. But his students failed to outdo their suspiciously high fourth-grade scores to save his job. Those test results counted 50 percent in Cotton’s final evaluation. He was not allowed to come back this year despite what he said were Riddlesprigger’s efforts to save him. Riddlesprigger did not respond to a request for comment.

Mathews doesn't understand how little power teachers really have to make a difference.

Standardized Testing "Irregularities"

better known as cheating, are widespread around the country, thanks to all of the overemphasis on tests for school district funding and for teachers and administrators to keep their jobs.

That doesn't let Atlanta Public Schools off the hook, but it doesn't surprise me this is going on in school districts all over the country.

The newspaper analyzed test results for 69,000 public schools and found high concentrations of suspect math or reading scores in school systems from coast to coast. The findings represent an unprecedented examination of the integrity of school testing.

The analysis doesn’t prove cheating. But it reveals that test scores in hundreds of cities followed a pattern that, in Atlanta, indicated cheating in multiple schools.

A tainted and largely unpoliced universe of untrustworthy test results underlies bold changes in education policy, the findings show. The tougher teacher evaluations many states are rolling out, for instance, place more weight than ever on tests.

You can't cure poverty by demonizing teachers. Nothing can be done other than to "throw money" to try and alleviate poverty by creating more jobs.

I'm Sorry, But Risking Your Teaching License

in order to prevent a principal or other administrator from bullying you is never right.

If a teacher resists a directive from a principal, he or she risks harassment or even being fired, but cheating on standardized tests risks any chance he or she ever has a career again.

The tests are stupid and not a measure of learning by students. They certainly aren't designed to measure teacher performance. But cheating isn't right in any circumstance.

Underlying it all, the teacher believes, was a mandate to bring test scores up and meet the school’s federal Adequate Yearly Progress performance targets.

“The prevailing message was, ‘We have to make AYP this year, or they’re going to shut our school down and you’re all going to lose your jobs.' At every professional development [session], that’s what we discussed.”

In response, adult cheating was “widespread” and “constant," she claimed:

“Math teachers were sitting down in the seat next to the children, with a pencil, actually working out problems with them. I saw that many times.”

By her account, administrators regularly saw such incidents and said nothing.

Not worth it, I am afraid.

Etcetera and Outrages

The Koch brothers are up to their eyeballs in ALEC.
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What is the real shame in the Atlanta Public Schools cheating scandal?
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Obama thinks he is copying Clinton by shitting on the American people, but he won't get a second term because he isn't doing jack shit about jobs.

Once in a While

school district superintendents become embarrassed enough when scandals are made public to decide to pack it in and quit.

In reality, superintendents have far less job security than senior administrators who are NOT held accountable to the school board or voters. Beginning at the principal level, it is almost impossible to remove them unless they are caught committing crimes.

A snip about Beverly Hall:

Hall is the latest in a string of high-profile urban superintendents to leave their posts.


Earlier this month, New York City schools Chancellor Joel Klein and Chicago schools chief Ron Huberman announced they would step down. The controversial reformer of the Washington, D.C., public school system, Michelle Rhee, resigned in October.


What set Hall apart from most big-city school chiefs was her 11-year tenure — the average urban superintendent lasts less than half that time — and recognition that has made her one of the nation’s most in-demand education speakers.


Atlanta hired Hall in 1999 after she rose through the ranks in the public schools of Newark, N.J., and New York City. When she arrived, 90 percent of the system’s kindergarten teachers said they did not believe their pupils would graduate.

Quite a career obituary, if you ask me.

The Education Wars: The Georgia Cheating Scandal

When there is so much pressure on school districts to teach to the test, when states are being bribed with federal dollars, when there is a movement afloat to tie teachers' evaluations to standardized test scores, when there is utter cluelessness on the part of politicians and "reformers" about how kids learn and what they really need, there is no surprise there would be widespread cheating on standardized testing.

People, especially in education, will resort to unethical and even criminal behavior in order to preserve their jobs.

Susan Ohanian comments on the scandal:

I would suggest that the children in the state of Georgia would be much better off if the state conducted an extensive analysis of lead poisoning instead of putting so much faith in standardized testing. Michael Martin presents solid evidence of the harm that comes from ignoring this threat.

In her blog, Maureen Downey asks, "How can parents know if their kids are learning if test results are not valid?" I'd ask How can parents know if their kids are learning if test results are valid? Has she looked at the test? I am unwilling to cede that kind of confidence to CTB/McGraw-Hill.

Downey also calls this changing answers on tests "educational malpractice of the worst kind." Educational malpractice? Yes. Of the worst kind? Not even close.

Am I condoning cheating? Of course not. "Understanding" and even "sympathizing" is not the same as "condoning. But what I am saying is:

1) CTB/McGraw-Hill tests are never going to tell you what you need to know about children's abilities.

2) The time spent prepping for CTB/McGraw-Hill tests would be much better spent doing other things.

3)The money spent on CTB/McGraw-Hill tests would be much better spent elsewhere.

Fat chance that is going to happen.

Another article today from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

A few dozen of their elementary school students had just finished high-stakes summer retests — exams first taken in spring but not passed. With just a glance at the answer sheets, Atherton Elementary School Principal James Berry and Assistant Principal Doretha Alexander saw they were in trouble.

“We cannot not make AYP,” Alexander said. Not making AYP, or adequate yearly progress, meant not meeting a required federal benchmark. These students, all fifth-graders, also faced being held back if they did not pass.

“OK,” Berry answered. He pulled a pencil from a cup on Alexander’s desk. “I want you to call the answers to me.”

With that, he began to erase the students’ answers.

State officials announced Wednesday that 191 schools — 10 percent of Georgia’s public elementary and middle schools — will be investigated for possible cheating on state tests. It was the second time in as many years that the state’s testing program has come under fire.

Oops:

To help readers understand the scope of the CRCT tampering results, the AJC offered this example in the morning paper: At Atlanta’s Gideons Elementary, an average of 27 of 70 answers on each fourth-grader’s math test were changed from wrong to right in one classroom.

I just went to the state report to look at statewide erasure rates: Georgia fourth graders on average each erased and changed only 1.87 answers from wrong to right. (Please look at the state report before you start suggesting the state targeted Atlanta. Tests from every system, every school and every student were reviewed.)

Administrators are doing the altering, since teachers hardly ever have the test score answers.

The Education Wars: More About Possible Cheating

Atlanta superintendent Beverly Hall is anxious--I'll bet--to authorize an independent review by outside experts regarding the CRTs that are said to be way out of whack and have created suspicions of widespread cheating.

It wouldn't surprise me there is cheating all over the place, not just in Georgia. Hell, I was approached by a principal when I taught life skills at Washoe County School District to cheat by illegally putting my kids on alternate testing so they wouldn't pull down the schoolwide test scores. I refused, and of course my career went to shit eventually.

Snip:

If any teacher, any principal, any administrator cheated, no one will have to ask me to take care of it. I will take care of it. That person will not and should not work for APS or any other system,” she said.

Hall plans to meet with her principals when she returns from a conference in Arizona and a weekend meeting with the Gates Foundation and remind them to continue leading their schools and focusing on achievement. “This is America. You are still innocent until proven guilty, I think,” she said. [Blogger's note: Unless, of course, you are a teacher. Then it's the other way around.]

As the AJC reported today, one in five Georgia public schools faces accusations of tampering with student answers on last spring’s state standardized tests, officials said Wednesday, throwing the state’s main academic measure into turmoil. The state’s report singled out 69 percent of APS elementary and middle schools — far more than any other district — as needing formal probes into possible tampering.

The Education Wars: Things Aren't Peachy in Georgia

as there is an inquiry into widespread cheating on standardized tests, especially in the Atlanta area:

Georgia education officials ordered investigations on Thursday at 191 schools across the state where they had found evidence of tampering on answer sheets for the state’s standardized achievement test.

Kathleen B. Mathers's agency conducted the statewide inquiry.

The order came after an inquiry on cheating by the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement raised red flags regarding one in five of Georgia’s 1,857 public elementary and middle schools. A large proportion of the schools were in Atlanta.

The inquiry flagged any school that had an abnormal number of erasures on answer sheets where the answers were changed from wrong to right, suggesting deliberate interference by teachers, principals or other administrators.

Experts said it could become one of the largest cheating scandals in the era of widespread standardized testing.

From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

An Atlanta Journal-Constitution investigation found 19 public elementary schools statewide with extraordinary gains or drops in scores between spring last year and this year. A dozen were in Atlanta.

In West Manor and Peyton Forest elementary schools, for instance, students went from among the bottom performers statewide to among the best over the course of one year. The odds of making such a leap were less than 1 in a billion.

This summer, state officials found strong evidence of cheating at four schools statewide in an investigation that followed a December AJC story about improbable gains on state tests.

In the most recent analysis, the AJC again used statistics to look for schools with test score changes far outside the normal range. The newspaper compared students’ scores in one grade versus their scores in the next. Some improved astronomically, but others deteriorated sharply.

“Changes of that magnitude are just extremely suspicious,” said Walt Haney, a testing expert and professor at Boston College.

The Education Wars IV: Those Cheating Charters

Just because public school districts can be corrupt doesn't mean charters can't be, either:

A state investigation has concluded that staff engaged in "pervasive, systemic cheating" on MCAS tests at a Springfield charter school where scores skyrocketed last spring, the state's commissioner of elementary and secondary education said yesterday.

Commissioner Mitchell Chester said that he will ask his agency’s board today to revoke the charter for the Robert M. Hughes Academy and that teachers and administrators could lose their state professional licenses. He declined to specify the acts of cheating because of investigations continue, but said it was orchestrated by the principal and carried out by several staff members.

The state action was announced as charter schools are under intense scrutiny, with the Legislature engaged in a high-stakes debate over whether to double the number of charter school seats in many cities, including Springfield and Boston.

"It's very disturbing," Chester said yesterday. "In my own experience working in four different states, I have never encountered an incident of cheating that was as highly orchestrated as I’ve seen in this case."

Well, that's progress.

The Education Wars

What with the push for raising standardized test scores and the push to tie those scores into teachers' salaries, it should be no surprise there would be cheating going on.

And since it is D.C., one of the very worst, most corrupt districts in the country, it REALLY shouldn't be a shock.

The probe, an analysis of incorrect student answers that were erased and changed to correct answers, found "anomalies" at some of the schools. But the investigation, conducted by the test's manufacturer, CTB McGraw-Hill, recommended that officials "should not draw conclusions about cheating behavior" on the basis of the findings, according to a memo from the company released by the District.

Of course administrators cheated; they want their jobs. They in turn pressure their teachers to cheat, despite the fact principals and teachers both can have their licenses suspended or even revoked.

Nobody should be surprised at all.

The Education Wars

At bottom Proposition 13 is responsible for the dismal state of California's public schools; the current budget mess just exacerbates it.
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Not all administrators get away with committing felonies such as altering public documents.

They did in my case when one of two people altered a copy of a letter I received in the mail concerning the FMLA forms in order to deceive the hearing officer, but so far the culprit has gotten away with it.

School districts will stick up for these crooks for the most part. The Atlanta case is very rare in that arrests have been made, not that such flagrant cheating happens, despite the union's contention:

Former Dekalb County principal James Berry was arrested at his home on
charges of altering public documents, a felony. His assistant principal
Dorothea Alexander faces the same charges.

Berry, the former principal of Atherton Elementary, left the county jail
Friday evening without commenting to reporters gathered outside. A jail
official said his bond was $15,000. Alexander was released earlier
Friday on $1,500 bond.

A state investigation released last week found that student scores on
state math tests were altered at four schools in the state, including
Atherton, in an effort to boost those schools' performance. Officials do
not believe students were involved.

Jeff Hubbard, president of the Georgia Association of Educators, said
this is the first time he's heard of teachers or administrators being
arrested for such offenses.

"This is one of the worst academic offenses an educator can do or be
accused of because it messes with a child's future," Hubbard said.

It's done all over the country, though, and there are principals who try to pressure teachers into cheating as well. It happened to me, and I ended up with a destroyed career because the asshole retaliated.

Here is the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's article:

Dr. Gary Walker, director of educator ethics for the Georgia Professional Standards Commission, agreed that this case could be a first.

“I’m not saying there hasn’t been one, but I don’t know of it,” Walker said.

His agency, which oversees teacher certification, routinely receives complaints related to testing. “We’ll see them every month,” Walker said.

Of course it goes on, and all over the country. It is extremely rare crooked administrators get caught; teachers very seldom say anything for fear of being blacklisted for future jobs. In this case, an audit caught the cheating.
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Arne Duncan is at it again.
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