Cheating in Atlanta

For those of you who haven't heard the news yet, you can read about it and download all of the GBI's investigative documents here.  From the NY Times piece:

At the center of the cheating scandal is former Superintendent Beverly L. Hall, who was named the 2009 National Superintendent of the Year and has been considered one of the nation’s best at running large, urban districts.

Dr. Hall, who announced in November that she would be leaving the job at the end of June, left Tuesday for a Hawaiian vacation.

Dr. Hall is a veteran administrator of the New York and Newark public schools. She took over the Atlanta district in 1999 and enjoyed broad support. Under her administration, Atlanta schools had shown marked improvement in several areas.

Still, the investigation shows that cheating on the state-mandated Criterion-Referenced Competency Test began as early as 2001, and that “clear and significant” warnings were raised as early as December 2005. Dr. Hall’s administration punished whistle-blowers, hid or manipulated information and illegally altered documents related to the tests, the investigation found. The superintendent and her administration “emphasized test results and public praise to the exclusion of integrity and ethics,” the investigators wrote.

So what do you get when you combine pressure to goose the numbers at all costs with a culture of fear and intimidation?  Apparently, you get the Atlanta Public School system.

This cheating scandal cut several ways.

1. Tests were manipulated to show improvement where the was none, allowing teachers and administrators to collect accolades and, in some cases, cash bonuses they hadn't earned.
2. Parents were given a false impression of the schools to which they sent their children.
3. Teachers who didn't play along or tried to blow the whistle were penalized with a variety of reprimands that could have significant negative consequences on their careers.
4. Students who noticed that their tests had been altered were brushed off or told they were mistaken.
5. I'm sure there's something I'm leaving out... oh, right.  THE KIDS GOT SCREWED.

The most egregious examples were of children with special needs who didn't get the help they desperately needed because their test scores showed that they were doing well.  In one instance, a child hid under a desk and flatly refused to take the test.  Miraculously, he passed.

Imagine that.

This scandal will reverberate in Atlanta for years to come.  Other urban districts will take note and, in all likelihood, ramp up their anti-cheating measures.  The burden, of course, will be at the school level because, in the wake of this, I suspect every teacher will now be suspected of cheating when his or her kids' test scores are high.

These idiots in Atlanta make us, the teachers, look bad.  But that's nothing compared to the damage they've done to the kids themselves.  I am no fan of high-stakes testing - this blog will repeatedly demonstrate my antipathy - but such tests can be a useful diagnostic tool.  In Atlanta, the tests were treated as little more than a game, a system to be manipulated in any number of ways for the benefit of the adults.

Perhaps teachers and administrators contemplating gaming the system wherever they may be will take this lesson to heart. Simply put, when it comes standardized tests, you are not allowed to grease the knob before bending over.

Then there's the other side of this scandal, the side that's gotten little press: how a high-stakes testing system incentivizes precisely this sort of cheating.  I'll get into that in my next post.