FairTest: Standardized Test Cheating Will Continue

Until the system that mandates widespread testing to make high-stakes determinations continues, so will the cheating, says the advocacy group FairTest.

FairTest.org’s fact sheet on the impact widespread standardized tests has on students and their schools begins by quoting the Donald T. Campbell’s Law of undesirable consequences:

“The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor. . . when test scores become the goal of the teaching process, they both lose their value as indicators of educational status and distort the educational process in undesirable ways.”

In the past decade, standardized testing has played an increasing role in evaluations of schools, teachers and other education staff. The results of these examinations also frequently underline the formulas by which school funding is allocated. It is almost an inevitable consequence that, subsequently, the rates of cheating on these tests will also skyrocket, as teachers, principals and even district officials will feel increased pressure to improve the ratings of their schools, suggests FairTest. Since NCLB’s wide adoption, FairTest has cataloged confirmed cases of cheating in 33 states and the District of Columbia — the latest of which was the recently published investigation by The Atlanta Journal Constitution.

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.

Although FairTest.org believes that increased security during the administration of the tests will decrease the instances of cheating, this will only further delay the implementation of the real solution to the current mess of an evaluation system. Until politicians, including current U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, are willing to dismantle the NCLB and its attendant testing mania, say critics, children will continue to be ill-served by the institutions that are supposed to educate them.

Comments

Joe

March 27, 2012 at 1:29 pm

How about we try the increased security first before we scrap the entire system and start fresh. After all, even though some cheat, most don’t. And if nothing else, it does help to weed out those who definitely shouldn’t be in front of the classroom or running a school (or a district.)

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- tired teacher
  
  March 27, 2012 at 5:55 pm
  
  show me peer reviewed researched data that demonstrates that test scores show whether or not someone is an effective teachers.
  
  don’t hide behind your talking points or your hyperbole, show the evidence, or just give up.
  
  Reply
  - Joe
    
    March 28, 2012 at 1:53 pm
    
    If you want to trash the system in place now, show an alternative way that actually works. Don’t hide behind YOUR talking points, show the evidence or just give up.
    
    Reply
    - MattW
      
      March 28, 2012 at 4:07 pm
      
      OK how about we evaluate teacher by how they teach? If they are using best practices or do they show leadership in their classrooms? Evaluating teacher ONLY by looking at test scores a) puts emphisis on a flawed evaluation tool b) is unfair. We don’t blame roadbuilders for drunken drivers, why should teachers be judged totally on the test that another person takes.
      
      Reply
Linda Brees

March 27, 2012 at 2:08 pm

FairTest is saying that improving the security will just be applying a bandaid on a gaping wound. It will fix the symptom (and maybe even not) but it won’t fix the underlying problem which is that the system is completely broken and is useless for evaluating academic outcomes.

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Tim

March 28, 2012 at 4:09 pm

Does no one else seem to think that teachers and school administrators who allowed teachers to cheat should be immediately fired? This should be a CRIME. What has happened to academics? 20 years ago even, if you were caught cheating on a test, you were subject to expulsion and a big black mark on your scholastic career, and a teacher cheating 20 years ago? I could only imagine what their career would be like after wards.

The problem here is not with testing. The problem is with people who are failures and liars who don’t believe they have any personal accountability. THEN we have a media and government and union representing these teachers like they are the VICTIMS? Are you kidding me? I’m beyond outraged at this and if I had children (thank god I don’t in this f’d up culture and country we’re living in today), I would pull my children out of the school system, demand a voucher and/or testing materials and teach my kids myself or find an affordable tutor who I can trust to not cheat my children out of an education.

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