The article speaks for itself
Roddy Stinson: How to raise test scores and other lessons out of Houston
Web Posted: 02/22/2005 12:00 AM CST
San Antonio Express-News
There must be 50 ways to cheat on standardized tests and turn untaught students into blue-ribbon geniuses.
Houston School District officials found five ways while investigating allegations of cheating at just one school.
After interviewing 17 students who took the 2004 fifth-grade Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills math test at Sanderson Elementary School, district investigators reported that most of the students said they had received improper assistance.
Specifically (as reported by the Dallas Morning News, whose recent investigation of TAKS scores found evidence of cheating at hundreds of schools):
Fourteen students said at least one teacher helped them solve test problems by giving them examples of practice problems.
Thirteen said at least one teacher told them to raise their hands during TAKS testing if they needed help.
Three students said at least one teacher pointed to an answer if students weren't able to solve a problem on their own.
Fourteen students said at least one teacher reviewed their math problems and marked some to be rechecked. (All 14 said they changed their answers on the marked problems.)
Five students said at least one teacher told them the right answer to a question after they changed it to a wrong answer.
As a result of these findings, Houston school officials fired two Sanderson Elementary math teachers and demoted the school's principal to assistant principal.
Think of the trio as sacrificial lambs.
In the wake of the Dallas Morning News' convincing evidential report of TAKS cheating, the Texas educational establishment had to spill some blood to maintain an image of honesty and trustworthiness. Without such, it would be hard to wring billions of new dollars out of state taxpayers, the establishment's eternal biennial goal.
Of course, that little-bloodletting tactic will work. (It always does.)
So don't waste any time, energy or taxpayer teeth-grinding wondering ...
How did fifth-grade students in a school in a low-income Houston neighborhood produce the highest scale math scores in Texas without triggering a single question in the bowels of the state's multilayered, zillion-dollar educational bureaucracy?
How did fifth-grade math students do so extraordinarily well in a school whose fourth-grade math students scored in the bottom 2 percent of the state without eliciting a "maybe we should look into this" from one of the mul ude of high-dollar educators and testing consultants who annually suck wads of cash out of Texas taxpayers' pockets?
How did Sanderson Elementary, which was once featured on the state's list of "clearly unacceptable" schools, reach the prestigious status of "Blue Ribbon School" without alerting any of the brainy holders of graduate degrees at the Texas Education Agency to a possible test-tampering problem?
Is the Sanderson Elementary case (a) a Houston aberration or (b) the tip of a widespread-cheating iceberg whose exposure would undo the politicians and bureaucrats who designed and funded the current public-school "accountability" system and who continue to stake their reputations on it?
If you believe the Dallas Morning News' findings (and I do), the answer is "b."
And that's why the first three questions were not — and never will be — asked by the Texas educational establishment.
What ever happened to "homework, quizes, tests and final exams" being graded and being the basis for a passing or failing grade?
I also think all HS kids should be required to take 4 years of Math, English, Science and Social Studies with at least 1 year of government taken in your Junior or Senior year.
I don't believe in the Standardized test. What good is a student striving for straight A's if they still have to pass the Standardized test?
Schools should be in the business of teaching children the building blocks of their future: how to think and to solve problems. Standardized testing does nothing to measure thinking. Formulaic regurgitation of testing strategies isn't thinking. But since teaching those things is hard, we've just given up on doing it, in favor of some system by which many children cannot find ways to solve problems that weren't on a practice test.
It's ridiculous. The school sytem has a really horrible way of measuring accountability with these tests. It's so damn shortsighted.
I thought the purpose of the Standardized Test is so that No Child Gets Left Behind?
what is wrong with testing? you never get out of tests in your life... these kids should take the ing test and shut up... you have driver's license tests, they will be tested in college, many jobs require tests... tests are a fact of life..they need to learn to face that fact now!
Fourteen students said at least one teacher helped them solve test problems by giving them examples of practice problems. giving examples doesn't seem like cheating to me.
Thirteen said at least one teacher told them to raise their hands during TAKS testing if they needed help.doesn't mean she gave them the answer
Three students said at least one teacher pointed to an answer if students weren't able to solve a problem on their own. now, this is cheating
Fourteen students said at least one teacher reviewed their math problems and marked some to be rechecked. (All 14 said they changed their answers on the marked problems.) also wrong
Five students said at least one teacher told them the right answer to a question after they changed it to a wrong answer. wrong
I wonder at times why I bother to answer you when you have so little grasp on the situation.
No one here is arguing against tests. Standardized testing is the focus of our educational system. Teachers dont teach subjects, they teach how to pass tests.
You know what, forget it. I'll save it for when it matters.
There's nothing wrong with testing. Tests should be given in schools to reinforce what students are learning. But standardized testing is an entirely different animal; it doesn't measure a student's ability to think -- it measures the ability to capitalize on short-term memory by regurgitating unconnected facts and principles. If you want to test students, ask them to solve problems that require the implementation of several different principles at once; ask them to read a passage and write an essay about some issue related to that passage; ask them to write an essay about the historical significance of some movement or person. Answering those types of questions requires learning and thinking; it requires absorption and application.
It's a much harder on teachers and doesn't lend itself to standardized results, but it is such a better way to actually educate.
well, i guess you guys haven't been in college lately.. the majority of tests are questions taken straight from test banks.. all regurgitated info... only in the honors classes have i actually had to write essays on tests and write papers
We have a winner.Teachers dont teach subjects, they teach how to pass tests.
Lazy profs, or slipping standards.... only in the honors classes have i actually had to write essays on tests and write papers
And that's the problem. There's very little real "learning" involved in that process. That standardized testing is used more frequently does not mean that standardized tests are even remotely close to essay examinations or paper-writing as a means to teach critical thinking.
You'll never convince me that standardized tests are anything other than an easy grading method for teachers. In humanities classes, papers permit students to apply a basic knowledge of some facts to particular issues and show that they've understood the entire subject. In math and sciences, non-multiple choice testing permits teachers to evaluate the processes by which students get to particular answers and see what students are or are not learning. In either event, the use of papers or essay examinations is a far superior testing methodology.
Most collegiate programs aren't about teaching students how to think critically -- they're about milling tuition payments and pushing students through the system.
That is what final exams and tests are for!
Does one need to pass a standardized test to earn a college degree?
Sadly, anymore, at many colleges, that's about all it takes.
. . . . that and the regular payment of tuition.
You could, of course, choose a quality program at a quality college. It's not always like that.
what college do you/did you attend? maybe there's some regurgitation in freshman level classes, but after that there should be none. i'm finishing my junior year at the moment and i can't think of any class where tests were taken from "test banks" aside from maybe 100 level economics, psychology, and sociology.
you only write papers in honors classes? did you not have to take western civ, engilish comp, or any lit classes?
like manny stated, teachers teach students to pass tests. at local high schools in alabama, they are merely concerned with student's grades on standardized tests since that's how the school gains more money from the state.
Sounds like you go to a ty college.
It may not seem wrong to you, but those that came up with the tests believe so as it's very specific in their rules about the type of assistance teachers and procters can give to students. Essentially, none.
I know that because I was a procter for one standardized exam and my mom has done it multiple times in her job at a NISD elementary school.
WTF? Yeah, maybe in Freshman level classes. , maybe even a few Sophmore level classes.
Ha, I think the posts above already covered it. I'll let it stand.
in my senior year at utsa...and most of my tests have been all scantron tests... even my lit classes were scantron... history were scantron..the english weren't though...
i go to utsa..i have friends who go to st marys, incarnate word, san marcos, etc....same
I completely agree, this is the way teaching should be done.
Unfortunately, it's not only hard...today's climate makes it impossible.
Asking someone to "read a passage and write an essay about some issue..." seems easy enough to do. But on what criteria do you grade that essay?
More to the point...let's say the teacher is someone who's political and life outlooks were formed in the 1960s, and maintains a very "left-leaning" viewpoint. Let's say the student is a member of the school's Young Republicans club. The reading and essay have to do with economic policy.
Do you see where I'm going with this?
And before you say "teachers are more objective than that", do some homework concerning the treatment of "conservative" students in todays universities.
I'm not taking shots at you and I don't think it shouldn't be done...I'm just trying to point out that the problem is even harder than you think.
exactly, everyone has biases and they truly can't be taken out when grading. imagine getting that wackjob from colorado as a professor!
High stakes standardized testing stinks, but what is the alternative? How would you determine whether schools are teaching what they are supposed to be teaching? And how would you make them accountable? Unfortunately, instead of coming up with a plan and funding for a plan to help poor performing schools, students, etc., the pressure often ends up on teachers in poor schools without giving them any support. Our Lege is currently working on keeping this tradition.
As for essays, the TAKS test in which students write an essay was just administered.
As for standardized tests being unfair or inappropriate, it depends on how well the questions are written. It is sometimes easier to BS through an essay rather than coming up with the one right answer to a multiple choice. Honestly, my high school Physics teacher would give us take-home multiple choice tests, which we would work on in groups, and we were lucky to get better than 50%.
, i still remember my first standardized test in 83' i believe...good ol 3rd grade.
the problem in schools is lazy, undisciplined kids. who cracks the whip? the school will get sued? this is an easy out for the lazy teachers, and lights the fuse of exasperation for the good teachers.....standardized tests bring all this to the forefront. everyone that's been dragging ass all year has to be compared to everyone that hasn't. the assdraggers cry foul...or they cheat. simple solution, have monitors like JB present that have no stakes in the the students scores. no more cheating.
there's alot of crap broken with our education system, but it's not the testing.
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