Under the "No Child Left Behind Act," public schools whose
students consistently fail standardized tests can now be shut
down. To protect their jobs, teachers and principals are now
under intense pressure to cheat — to fudge test scores and
report cards to fool parents and school administrators.
How do public schools deceive parents? Joel Turtel, author of
the new book, "Public Schools, Public Menace: How Public Schools
Lie to Parents and Betray Our Children," lists some of the ways
public schools can “cheat”:
1. Poor students are excluded or discouraged from taking the
tests.
2. Teachers assign tests as homework or teach test items in
class.
3. Test security is minimal or even nonexistent.
4. Students are allowed more time than prescribed by test
regulations.
5. Unrealistic, highly improbable improvements from test to test
are not audited or investigated.
6. Teachers and administrators are not punished for flagrant
violations of test procedures.
7. Test results are reported in ways that exaggerate achievement
levels. (from Myron Lieberman's book, "Public Education: An
Autopsy")
In December 1999, a special investigation of New York City
schools revealed that two principals and dozens of teachers and
assistant teachers were helping students cheat on standardized
math and reading tests.
Andrew J. Coulson, in his brilliant book, "Market Education: The
Unknown History," cites an example of how public schools
deliberately lie to parents about their children’s academic
abilities:
“Consistently greeted by A’s and B’s on their children’s report
cards, the parents of Zavala Elementary School had been lulled
into complacency, believing that both the school and its
students were performing well. In fact, Zavala was one of the
worst schools in the district, and its students ranked near the
bottom on statewide standardized tests. When a new principal
took over the helm and requested that the statewide scores be
read out at a PTA meeting, parents were dismayed by their
children’s abysmal showing, and furious with teachers and school
officials for misleading them with inflated grades.”
In 1992, the scholarly journal Educational Measurement: Issues
and Practice published the results of a national survey about
teacher cheating. Janie Hall and Paul Kleine, the authors of the
report, asked 2256 public-school teachers, principals,
superintendents, and testing supervisors if their colleagues
cheated on tests. Forty-four percent of those questioned
answered yes. Also, 55 percent of the teachers surveyed said
they were aware that many of their fellow teachers changed
students' answers, taught specific parts of tests prior to the
tests, and gave students hints during tests. Today, the pressure
for teachers and principals to cheat is even greater because of
the No Child Left Behind Act.
In 1990, three academics, Harold Stevenson, Chuansheng Chen, and
David Uttal did a study of the attitudes and academic
achievement of black, white, and hispanic children in Chicago.
They found a disturbing gap between what parents thought their
children were learning and the children’s actual performance.
Teachers in high-poverty schools had given A’s to students for
work that would have earned them C’s or D’s in affluent suburban
schools.
In the study, black mothers of Chicago elementary school
students rated their child’s skills and abilities quite high and
thought their kids were doing well in reading and math. The
children thought the same thing. Unfortunately, the researchers
found that the parents’ and children’s self-evaluations of their
math and reading skills were way above their actual achievement
levels.
There was a big gap between their optimistic self-evaluations
and their dismal academic performance on independent tests.
Public schools were giving these children a false idea of their
academic skill levels. In other words, these children were
heading towards failure and no one bothered to tell them.
Parents would not be wise to trust any claims by teachers or
school authorities about their children’s alleged academic
abilities, even in so-called “good” schools in suburban
neighborhoods. Parents should have an outside independent
company test their child’s reading and math skills to find out
how their child is really doing. If parents find that their
child’s academic skills are far below what their local public
school led them to believe, they might want to take their child
out of public school and look for better education alternatives.
The Resources section in "Public Schools, Public Menace" shows
parents many excellent, low-cost education options for their
kids, such as the new Internet private schools, learning
computer software just for kids, and home-schooling. Turtel's
book and website, www.mykidsdeservebetter
.com, also list many reading and math-skill testing
companies parents can use to determine their children's true
reading and math abilities.
Article Copyrighted © 2005 by Joel Turtel.
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