Cheating in School: It's Not Your Child...

Leon Trotsky

A few weeks ago while Mrs. Wolf was out of town I was sitting in a restaurant waiting for my food.  Across the isle from me another waitress was having a conversation with a couple seated at a table:

"Oh, you teach too .... blah blah blah."

"Yes, I sub middle school in district XXX and privately for YYY," said the waitress.

More enthusiastic discussion.

Then I heard "Oh I agree! There really isn't any time to teach reading and arithmetic with all the test preparation..."

"Absolutely!" said the other.

My fork fell to the table, my mind twisting in agony about jut what kind of middle school standardized tests didn't require reading and arithmetic to complete.  Were they just pictures and diagrams like you see on those IQ test things on the web and in Sunday paper magazines? 

Maybe they were science tests (I guess with pictures and diagrams and videos) - but then "preparing for the test" would sort of defeat the purpose of a test designed to measure your knowledge of, say, science.  Sort of like fudging your data to meet a particular conclusion and then writing about it in a prestigious journal....

No, it was far, far worse than I had imagined.

First there was this article from the Pittsburgh Tribune Review.  Basically the issue is the 2002 Federal law that requires school districts test children's progress on a regular basis.  The law, promoted by George W. Bush and Senator Ted Kennedy, is alarming simple:

If a school receives Federal funds than that school must periodically test their students to demonstrate that the students are in fact learning, i.e., the Federal dollars are being used to actively improve the kids education, as opposed to, say, putting a wide screen into the teachers lounge.  If the tests do not show the students knowledge progressing then the school could lose Federal funds.  The basically requires two things from the school districts according to the article: success and accountability.

Now I would imagine that this kind of testing requires that everybody know the same basic skills and facts, i.e., we can all add and subtract correctly, perform story problems, know basic history, multiply, divide, logically work through problems, that sort of thing, and they everybody moves along - gaining in skills and ability over time.

This seems obvious to me.

Secondly, I would imagine that the law demands that the districts be accountable for what's done in the name of testing, i.e., no cheating, no teaching to the test, that sort of thing.

Without this the law is being circumvented as is the child's education.

Seems pretty straight forward to me - our tax dollars at work so we expect no sleeping on the job, doing the job you were hired for, etc. - making sure little Suzy and Johnny get a good education and know how to add, cypher, and read.

But always the "administrators" quoted in these articles talk about how "philosophically" they agree with the law don't like the details of the law - how its onerous and difficult to meet.  Then we start to read about "cheating"... maybe, sort of, not actually, reportedly, criminally... both in small Pennsylvania towns as well as in big school districts like Atlanta (see this).

Then my blood starts to boil...

In my world everyone is accountable for what they do - drive through a stop sign and a cop sees you - instant ticket, that sort of thing.  While you could go to the judge and claim that while you "philosophically" agreed that stop signs are a good idea I think you would be hard pressed to convince her that you needed more to time "to learn how to meet the requirements" of stopping.

Most real grown ups have jobs that require accountability - whether driving a truck or running a business - customers depend on you meeting your mutual goals.

And if you don't meet them you could be fired, lose your job or lose your business.

But I guess teaching is an exception - or at least it was - and I suppose that's why there is such "resistance" to the law.

Just look at the Atlanta story.  A full decade of potential cheating.  Up to 178 teachers and administrators facing potential criminal charges.  But don't worry, parents, the District Administrators attorney claims that she didn't do anything intentionally wrong.

So tell me Ms. School Administrator...

If you are teaching the child to take tests how can you graduate a kid who understand the objectivity required, for, say, something like science? 

It sure seems to me that the real message being demonstrated to the kids in all of this is that its okay to tailor what you do for a needed result.

There is an old quote to that effect: "The ends justifies the means."  A common source for this quote is Leon Trotsky - a Marxist from the early Soviet Union.

Apparently ensuring the administrators and teachers jobs though continued Federal funding justifies cheating on standardized tests.  Of course that's more important than actual education or what the child actually learns.

Not only are you failing to teach but you are also creating in the child a philosophy that its okay to cheat in some circumstances.

So what do these teachers tell the children about cheating when caught in class?

Do yo think the children believe what they hear?

I wonder...

So we should not be surprised at our country's lackluster rating in world education standards.

So we should not be surprised that we are falling behind to foreign powers like China.

So we should not be surprised that little Suzy and Johnny have no moral character (even if you are an atheist, at least an ethical one, this is problematic) and see no issue with cheating to get ahead.

So we should not be surprised that things are going to hell in a hand basket.

I am sure this will not be the end of the problems, that they are not local to Pittsburgh and Atlanta.  That there will be more and more reports of the "ends justifying the means".