Test Tampering - An Ugly Mess

Test tampering is, and has been, a problem for some time. After nearly ten years of the federal No Child Left Behind legislation, the drive to improve math and reading scores has witnessed a fair amount of suspicious changes in tests. Those changes, in a number of cities, almost always reveals much higher scores.

From Connecticut to Washington, DC to Atlanta, GA, the proliferation of reports regarding erasures, cheating, tampering, and the like has grown. The December 30th USA Today reported on a number of investigations in these areas regarding some suspicious test score results in 2011.

Let me be clear, I won't for a minute excuse those who have engaged in any form of test tampering. It's wrong on many levels.

Sadly, this might be expected. Why? Well, on the one hand there is immense pressure to show growth in state reading and math scores so that a school, districts, and the various states meet the targets set by NCLB. A second reason why this behavior exists has to do with tying teacher evaluations/pay to test scores. The scenario goes like this...higher scores mean a higher evaluation and greater pay.

Aside from my obvious disapproval of the conduct of anyone engaged in cheating, I have another perspective about this cheating on state administered tests. Why on earth are we tying test scores to teacher performance?! Will anyone ever get it through their thick skulls that a test result is but a minor part of ones education and has so darn little to do with meaningful student learning and teacher performance.

It is time for those of us in the field who understand education, students, and quality teaching to step up and say ENOUGH!!! Great teachers, who are at the top of the profession perform in this manner not because of the dollars or any other such tangible reward.

Teacher excellence is based on the love of the subject matter, their care for the students, seeing the significance of their endeavor, helping people grow, providing guidance, and the like. Tying state mandated test results to pay is antithetical to such excellence.

Get student test scores results the heck out of teacher evaluations!!!

Thanks,
Dick