Monday, September 29, 2008
Cheating Is Cheating
Posted by Kandace Power Graves on Mon, Sep 29, 2008 at 12:33 AM
It’s hard to understand how Jefferson Parish School Board member Judy Colgan can continue to support a proposal that is so clearly wrong. She initiated a system in which Jefferson Parish reroutes standardized test scores of students in advanced studies schools to conventional schools in their home districts despite the fact that they don’t attend those schools.
Her argument is that the advanced studies schools are draining regular schools of their brightest students and places the home district schools in peril of not meeting state standards of performance. The practice also has been adopted by East Baton Rouge and Iberville parishes. So far the rerouting practice hasn’t helped the overall scores of the home district schools that much, just a point or two here and there, but that’s not the point.
Standardized test scores are meant to pinpoint problems and achievements among schools. Cheating to mask the real scores is not helpful to students, especially those in schools that need to improve. Lower scores signal that more innovative teaching techniques need to be employed, along with programs to fight truancy and drop out rates.
For a school board member to say cheating is OK because it serves a greater purpose is like a student saying he or she cheated on a test because he or she needed a better grade. It sets a bad example and is counter to what the whole school accountability structure is trying to achieve.
For Colgan to say she will continue to support the practice as being more fair to the home district schools is a sham. It appears to be a strategy to hide potential problems in order not to lose funding or to avoid being taken over by the state as opposed to solving academic problems and, in the long run, better prepare students for a successful future.
It also gives the impression that the school board is opposed to advanced studies schools that can give high-performing students a chance to excel in their areas of proficiency. It’s an us-against-them attitude that is not in the best interests of the students of any of those schools.
All of our children deserve access to a good education. Instead of devising plans to doctor the numbers, the school board should be researching how other school districts have met the challenge with educational tools and techniques that cater to the needs of students in particular schools. Parents, and the community as a whole, should demand that.
Comments (2)
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"Lower scores signal that more innovative teaching techniques need to be employed,..." How do you know this? It could mean the scholars are apathetic or uncooperative. It might signal they aren't very bright and are doing their best. To assume there is an innovation somewhere that can change the individual responsibility of learning to a trick that teachers can use to obtain better results is a dangerous and expensive myth. "...the school board should be researching how other school districts have met the challenge with educational tools and techniques that cater to the needs of students in particular schools." Do you have any suggestions on where these other school districts are? If such innovations existed they would logically be widely reported. The school Board is as you claim 'cheating" because responsibility and accountability has been placed on the teachers and administrators and none has been placed on the individual scholars at these failing schools.
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You are correct that students — and their parents — must share some of the responsibility for their academic achievements or failures. It's also true that they should take full advantage of what a school has to offer. If, as you suggest, "they aren't very bright and are doing their best," then the standardized test scores for the school should reflect that, and school officials should not try to mask those results by borrowing scores from another school. It is the job of educators and school officials — not me — to research successful teaching methods and investigate how different approaches could be incorporated into their classrooms. They have connections within the education field and work within the network in which such innovations should be known and shared. It may be logical to assume any successes would be widely reported, but that is not always the case. I appreciate your views and think you make some good points, but the fact remains that the school board's decision to reroute scores is dishonest.
