The brouhaha in Atlanta doesn't surprise me a bit. The "erasuregate" scandal in DC was pretty much forgotten, swept under the rug, I suspect in part as a response to pressure from those monied individuals who still hold hope for the future political aspirations of Michelle Rhee, under whose leadership erasuregate occurred.
Remember the Texas miracle schools? High poverty schools in which a vast percentage of high schoolers passed the rigorous graduation exams? Only later did we discover the freshman bulge. And that went under the rug. See, school administrators can decide which students actually sit down and TAKE the test by finagling who enters the grade level in which the test is administered. So if Johnny can't read, and we know Johnny can't read because we've tried all kinds of interventions and spent a gazillion dollars on the program du jour, and you better believe it's scientifically based and there are lots of pretty graphs that prove it works, then just make sure Johnny flunks 9th grade again and again and his scores won't jeopardize the school's Federal funding. Sooner or later, Johnny gets the hint and drops out.
We are doing this to help the KIDS, after all.
Meanwhile, down in elementary school, high stakes doesn't really begin until third grade. Besides about a dozen pages of legalese penalties for anyone who discusses the test, cheats on the test, communicates by pointing, gesturing, making faces, etc. up to and including imprisonment, right there at the bottom it says if a child vomits on a test booklet, that booklet is to be sealed in a ziploc bag and submitted with the rest of the school's test booklets. I think they need to revise that to explain the proper procedure for what to do if a teacher defecates on the test administration booklet.
Remember, this is done to comply with NCLB and HELP KIDS.
Is teaching to the test cheating? If so, I have cheated. In fact, every one of my peers has cheated as well, from kindergarten on up. Just Google "nonsense word generator". Now when I was learning to read, way back in the 60s, we didn't have nonsense words. I was never asked to read as many words as I could in one minute. And there I was, on the mustard yellow SRA level by December and reading everything I could get my hands on, from the school library and the public library, plus devouring Troll books with all the money I could beg from my parents, this by grade 4. Reading was not something my teachers drilled. We took the Iowa tests once a year for a few days, and I actually enjoyed them like some people enjoy crossword puzzles or sudoku. Even the less academically apt pupils enjoyed them, since we always got to color and have extra recess when we were all finished. To be continued....
