Newspapers across the country were abuzz this week with reports of teachers cheating on behalf of their students. The Dallas Morning News conducted a review of student TAKS (Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills) test score data that "uncovered strong evidence of organized, educator-led cheating on the TAKS test in dozens of Texas schools - and suspicions in scores of others." According to the review, more than 200 schools had large, unexplained score gaps between grades or between the TAKS and other standardized tests. At one school - Sanderson Elementary - the Dallas News found that "fourth-graders scored extremely poorly on the math TAKS test," but fifth graders "had astonishing success on the math test. They had the highest scale scores of any school in Texas, beating every magnet school, every wealthy suburban school, and every high-performing school in the state." Of course, some testing critics are taking the opportunity to make excuses for these teachers' unethical behavior. "Teachers are the most respected, most admired profession," Tom Haladyn, Professor at Arizona State University explained. "But we badger them to get high test scores. And some feel pressure to get test scores at any expense." The Texas Education Agency seems to agree, having done little over the last few years to police teacher manipulation of test scores. In fact, while the TEA has access to results from an "erasure analysis" - a system that uses specialized equipment to identify student answer sheets that have unusually large numbers of answers erased and replaced - they have yet to do anything with those results. What's worse, there does not seem to be an urgency at TEA to reestablish confidence in a system that appears to be badly broken.
"Exclusive: Poor schools' TAKS surges raise cheating questions," by Joshua Benton and Holly K. Hacker, Dallas Morning News, December 19, 2004 (registration required)
"Tools may stem cheating on test," by Joshua Benton, Dallas Morning News, December 19, 2004 (registration required)
"Report: Texas schools cheat on tests," Chicago Sun-Times, December 20, 2004