At a time when China and other countries that educate their children in successfully regimented and rigorous ways are looking to add a little American-style creativity to the mix, the United States finds itself chalking up another standardized-test cheating scandal, the specifics of which are not creative at all. (Erasing the wrong answer and filling in the right one.)
A state of Georgia investigation found that teachers and principals in dozens of Atlanta public schools doctored students’ test papers, USA Today reported.
Early alarms were ignored. The American Federation of Teachers said the union complained about cheating in Atlanta in 2005, but the complaint was ignored, USA Today reported. Three years ago, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution first raised suspicions about rising scores.
Finally, last August, then-Gov. Sonny Perdue initiated the state probe, finding that the district’s investigation of suspicious erasures in 58 schools “woefully inadequate.”
USA Today cites other examples:
•The newspaper examined standardized test scores at District of Columbia schools and found 103 with high erasure rates on penciled-in answer sheets. An investigation is underway.
The newspaper found evidence of test tampering in six states besides Georgia and Maryland, including California, Florida and Ohio.
The Dallas Morning News in 2007 found more than 50,000 cases of student cheating on high-stakes state tests, with 90 percent of students in some cases showing suspicious answer patterns.
With teachers and students both cheating, it’s time to go back to the drawing board. As former President George W. Bush famously said, “Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?”
And as many universities, community colleges and employers can attest: No, they ain’t.
Nationally, about a third of first-year students in 2007-08 had taken at least one remedial course, according to the U.S. Department of Education, Huffingtonpost reported. At public two-year colleges, it’s about 42 percent. The Alliance for Excellent Education estimates the nation loses $3.7 billion a year because students are not learning basic skills, including $1.4 billion to provide remedial education for recent high school graduates. The U.S. Education Department in October reported that many states declare students to have grade-level mastery of reading and math when they do not.
“From taxpayers’ standpoint, remediation is paying for the same education twice,” said Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education.
Remedial education will always be needed, like for those making a career change. But our focus, if we are ever to change the system, all research shows, has to be on early education, meaning preschool.
Otherwise, we will simply continue to waste money while cheating students out of a real education.
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