The Dallas Morning News has another story related to the TAKS cheating scandal, this time going through the ways cheating can occur and the ways officials can detect or prevent cheating, which obviously isn’t being done. (The Chronicle is still running its AP-inspired story.)
Here’s an example of the official leadership thinking at the Texas Education Agency:
“Typically, school districts police themselves,” said Lisa Chandler, the TEA’s director of assessment. “We trust educators to educate our kids.”
[snip]
Ms. Chandler said she refuses to react cynically when TAKS scores improve by leaps and bounds.
“It may be an optimistic viewpoint, but it’s also a necessary viewpoint,” she said. “We can’t afford to lose five years in a child’s educational career. They have to have improvement. Can we expect quick turnarounds? We have to. We can’t let those kids not be successful.”
The Texas accountability system rewards schools and districts for high test scores. Principals and teachers often see their careers advance if their students score well. That can leave few incentives for educators to be vigorous about pursuing cheaters.
So, for the TEA, even if test scores improve so dramatically as to defy logic, it’s okay, because improving test scores is everything. Students actually learning is not.
Boy that makes me mad. I am not against testing at all. I think testing is necessary, but it should be done honestly so we can see if students really are learning. Wildly improving scores should be a huge red flag, and if administrators and officials are unwilling to notice those scores and check them out, then what good are they? They certainly aren’t earning their big, fat paychecks.
But Ms. Chandler isn’t done with her inspiring words:
Ms. Chandler said the agency is willing to consider toughening its stance. It is considering setting erasure thresholds for schools that, if exceeded, would trigger investigations.
TEA officials also said that the agency is considering adding a check similar to The News’ analysis: searching for schools with wide swings in average scale scores.
Considering? Considering? Don’t strain yourself with all the considering, Ms. Chandler. After all, it’s only about the education of Texas’ children. This is why parents are getting fed up with public schools. The people in charge are mainly interested in protecting their own jobs, not in actually educating our children.
And here’s a well-earned dig at the TEA and (in my opinion) the Chronicle:
The newspaper’s [DMN] analysis was performed entirely with publicly available test scores obtained from the TEA, using basic statistical techniques. The agency could perform a similar analysis on its own, but its leaders choose not to.
If the scores are improving, then the TEA is happy. Why, that must mean Texas public education is in good shape! So, no. The agency would not be interested in investigating red flags.
And shame on the Chronicle for not digging this up. But as we know, the Chronicle does its best reporting when a press release comes out to alert the editors that some news is happening. Since the TEA didn’t helpfully send out a press release about the cheating, the Chronicle couldn’t write a story on it.
