Widespread Schoolteacher Cheating

This is one of the most alarming problems facing the country.

It's widespread in many big cities and is not simply isolated to a few people.

Teachers are actually changing wrong answers on tests to right answers.

Teachers are actually showing students the correct answers on tests while they are taking the tests.

Apparently we are seeing a wild out of control competition between teachers to achieve higher performance ratings for themselves.

Something is wrong here.

Is it the teachers themselves that are so incompetent? Are they themselves the products of similar tactics?

Is it the curriculum?

Is it the students?

Is it pressure from higher administrators?

Is it a plot to get more kids on student loans?

Is it a plot to advance kids into an impossible dilemma?

And now what should we do?

Philadelphia's public school system has joined several other big-city school systems, such as those in Atlanta, Detroit and Washington, D.C., in widespread teacher-led cheating on standardized academic achievement tests. So far, the city has fired three school principals, and The Wall Street Journal reports, "Nearly 140 teachers and administrators in Philadelphia public schools have been implicated in one of the nation's largest cheating scandals." (1/23/14) (/q5makm3). Investigators found that teachers got together after tests to erase the students' incorrect answers and replace them with correct answers. In some cases, they went as far as to give or show students answers during the test.

Jerry Jordan, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, identifies the problem as district officials focusing too heavily on test scores to judge teacher performance, and they've converted low-performing schools to charters run by independent groups that typically hire nonunion teachers. But William Hite, superintendent of the School District of Philadelphia, said cheating by adults harms students because schools use test scores to determine which students need remedial help, saying, "There is no circumstance, no matter how pressured the cooker, that adults should be cheating students."

Schoolteacher Cheating

"Educated" Arrogance?

If this is true, I can simply state that as a teacher, I'm glad I don't work in the U.S.

Our education system in Australia seems vastly different to the U.S one, and the idea of quantifying student results against teacher's performance is a hugely divisive issue that has failed to gain a lot of traction here. I won't go into any specifics as I don't want to derail this thread, but teachers are already treated as something of an ideological punching bag down under.

Glad we don't have to deal with this sort of crap as well.

This is the outcome of all the federal mandated tests. honestly, what did they expect to happen when teachers have to deal with all the bs with low pay?

EyesOpenMouthShut
This is the outcome of all the federal mandated tests. honestly, what did they expect to happen when teachers have to deal with all the bs with low pay?

Perhaps they expected the teachers to act professionally.

If the entire system was working, students would not be getting low scores.

If the government was doing the right thing.

If the schools were concerned with education rather than pizza guns

If the teachers acted within professional ethical standards

If the parents gave a crap

If the students wanted to learn

If society gave a crap

Maybe things would change

P

Common Core is here. Everyone gets a trophy, even if you fail miserably. The future looks bleak, friends. I work in a Headstart preschool, awesome program. But I can't help but think, "okay, I'm teaching these kids individuality and how to be good humans, but once they hit kindergarten, they are screwed?" Hard not to be apathetic.

We have a system that produces functioning illiterates.

In any budget shortfall Education is cut first.

Yet we continue to expend on foreign aid, ridiculous military budgets, all while our children end up cannon fodder for either the military or cogs for minimum wage corporations.

How long will we as Americans Allow our Children to be last in the western world in every measurable category?

When you base somebody's pay or job on the results of a standardized test your bound to get cheating. My daughter is in fifth grade and I can tell you she's surrounded by morons. These kids don't have a chance to learn because of their home life. I know for a fact that more than half the kids in her school are on the free lunch program. I talk to a lot of parents at school events and hope that the kids end up with more smarts than their parents. Teaching these kids has got to be a nightmare.

benrl
We have a system that produces functioning illiterates.

In any budget shortfall Education is cut first.

Yet we continue to expend on foreign aid, ridiculous military budgets, all while our children end up cannon fodder for either the military or cogs for minimum wage corporations.

How long will we as Americans Allow our Children to be last in the western world in every measurable category?

That's not really true, the us spends more than most countries on education.

www.cbsnews.com...

reply to post by xuenchen


Public school is a joke.

When I have children I am going to home school.

Growing up I was home schooled and there were no grades. I either finished the material sooner rather than later in the day. If I got wrong answers I had to go back and do it again.

I don't even understand what the purpose of grades for lower level students is. The emphasis for first few years should be primarily on reading, writing, and grammar.

They should just have tests that you take at your own pace to get credit for courses then just have the kids take SATs or whatever when college time comes.

reply to post by pheonix358


In a perfect world, yes, all that would be ideal. I wasn't in any way defending the teachers doing this merely pointing out our broken education system.

Hoosierdaddy71

benrl
We have a system that produces functioning illiterates.

In any budget shortfall Education is cut first.

Yet we continue to expend on foreign aid, ridiculous military budgets, all while our children end up cannon fodder for either the military or cogs for minimum wage corporations.

How long will we as Americans Allow our Children to be last in the western world in every measurable category?

That's not really true, the us spends more than most countries on education.

www.cbsnews.com...

Education budgets fall upon municipality lines, and are far more complex than a straight comparison in the article.

What you will find when budgets are looked at more closely that Facilitate cost (land, building, maintenance) are exceptionally high outputs in the US education budget VS other western countries.

WHERE the shortfall really shows is in the direct pay rates of Teachers, where as say a country as Iceland has pay rates in the plus 100k range for avg teachers.

So perhaps I did misspoke, where Technically untrue, closer scrutiny will show the reality of the problems with budget.

WHICH includes things like Administration, Bureaucracy, Unions, etc.

IT is a complex issue, SO perhaps a better way to put it is this,

THE US WASTE more money inapropriately spent on the wrong things in education.

reply to post by Hoosierdaddy71

That's not really true, the us spends more than most countries on education. www.cbsnews.com...

Perhaps you need to look at how those figures came to be and where the money is spent.

Just as one tiny example, did they include the provision of lunches that does not happen in other countries.

If they spent so much per student, why are the teachers so poorly paid?

$11,000 per student per year at 30 to a class is $330,000 per class. How much of that does teacher get and what happens to the other almost $300,000?

Question these sort of figures!

P

I worked as a teacher in the Philadelphia school district so I can speak with some authority on the subject.

First off, its not really the teachers that are cheating. Its the administrators (Principals, Vice Principals, Assistant superintendents). They know that their funding gets tied to how well the students in certain grades do on the PSSA (Pennsylvania System of School Assessment).

This is all tied to No Child Left Behind, which is in my opinion the worst thing to EVER happen to the public school system.

Basically, in order to keep your current funding or gain more funding you must make AYP, adequate yearly progress. Which is a completely arbitrary system of rating the schools.

The PSSA test lasts for an entire month... yes that's right a Month of time is wasted on this. The worst part is that this usually happens in april, so the rest of the school year is seen as a joke by the students.

In Philadelphia, teachers are given a planning and scheduling time line. it basically outlines every day and what lessons you need to teach that day while giving absolutely no consideration to the level the students actually understand the subject matter. If you start to fall behind this time line, you get in trouble and could lose your job.

Mind you, the scheduling time line is essentially your entire year of lesson plans already done for you, yet the Principals make you hand in a copy that you MUST make yourself, a complete waste of time since you cannot deviate from the PST.

Back to the PSSA and the "cheating teachers"... its the administrators who encourage and facilitate the cheating. This is done during department meetings usually and then the admins hide so they don't see it go down, even though this is done by their orders.

I've been saying it from the first day as a teacher and I'll continue to scream it for the rest of my life.... the administrators are the problem... No child left behind is a problem, teaching to a test is not teaching.

The administrators are the problem

The administrators are the problem

The administrators are the problem

Now anyone who blames a teacher please go write the above phrase 100 times

reply to post by OrphanApology


I could write a book on all the things that are wrong with public schools. I have three teachers in my immediate family and I have heard some crazy stories. The biggest problem is that about 2% of the kids are only a distraction to the other kids. Unfortunately the school just has to deal with them instead of booting them out. And the other big problem is that parents blame the teacher for billy failing instead of kicking billy in the butt.

reply to post by EyesOpenMouthShut


No probs. I know we will never get to ideal, but do we have to be so far from the goal posts. Hell, we're not even in the ball park or the parking lot.

P

pheonix358
reply to post by Hoosierdaddy71

 

That's not really true, the us spends more than most countries on education. www.cbsnews.com...

Perhaps you need to look at how those figures came to be and where the money is spent.

Just as one tiny example, did they include the provision of lunches that does not happen in other countries.

If they spent so much per student, why are the teachers so poorly paid?

$11,000 per student per year at 30 to a class is $330,000 per class. How much of that does teacher get and what happens to the other almost $300,000?

Question these sort of figures!

P

Teachers in my area average around 47k according to the local paper. Now add that up for 700 kids and its a lot of money. Throwing more money at schools will not help the children learn. We just opened a new high school last year but the kids test results didn't jump up. There are more important thing to work on in our schools.

reply to post by pheonix358


from some of the things i've seen, not even in the same city.

reply to post by Whatsreal


I can't even begin to remember how many times I've heard that exact thing from the teachers in my family. You are exactly right.

reply to post by Whatsreal


I agree. The system is set up so that all the blame for the failure falls on the shoulders of the woefully underpaid teachers. Yes, there are many incompetent teachers (the competent ones figure out the game early on and bail) - another part of the problem - and I in no way condone the cheating, but, sooooo many kids today can't learn because of the insane "dictated" teaching methods and ridiculous curriculum, as well as other handicaps, such as, their badly educated parents and sometimes, just low IQs.

Plus, the test questions are so poorly written, ill-conceived and downright confusing that I doubt many well-educared people would pass.

And, yes, the administrators, in order to keep their funding, put the screws to the teachers for results. It's a system set up for failure.

And the kids - the reason for the education system - are completely lost sight of in the process.

reply to post by Hoosierdaddy71

Throwing more money at schools will not help the children learn.

Yes it can.

At the rates quoted that school gets 7.7 million

At 30 to a class you need 24 teachers, costing 1.128 million. What the hell is the other 6.5 million spent on!

Halve the class sizes / double the number of teachers and watch the results.

Apparently you are spending enough on the education system, you are just not spending it on education.

P