Slashdot Mirror
Prosecutors Get an 'A' On Convictions of Atlanta Ed-Reform-Gone-Bad Test Cheats
theodp writes Just weeks after an L.A. Times op-ed called on public schools to emulate high-tech companies by paying high salaries to driven, talented employees whose productivity more than compensates for their high pay, the New York Times reported on the dramatic conclusion to perhaps the largest cheating scandal in the nation's history, which saw a Judge order handcuffed Atlanta educators led off to jail immediately for their roles in a standardized test cheating scandal that raised broader questions about the role of high-stakes testing in American schools. Jurors convicted 11 of the 12 defendants — a mix of Atlanta public school teachers, testing coordinators and administrators — of racketeering, a felony that carries up to 20 years in prison. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution sowed suspicion about the veracity of the test scores in 2009, and while investigators found that cheating was particularly ingrained in individual schools, they also said that the district's top officials, including Superintendent Beverly L. Hall, bore some responsibility for creating "a culture of fear, intimidation and retaliation" that had permitted "cheating — at all levels — to go unchecked for years." (More below.)
Officials said the cheating allowed employees to collect bonuses and helped improve the reputations of both Dr. Hall and the perpetually troubled school district. Dr. Hall, who died on March 2, insisted that she had done nothing wrong and that her approach to education, which emphasized data, was not to blame. But a Fulton County grand jury later accused her and 34 other district employees of being complicit in the cheating. Twenty-one reached plea agreements, and two defendants died before they could stand trial. Interestingly, in early 2010, the Atlanta Business Chronicle reported on how Hall and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation were bringing a "fair and transparent evaluation and support mechanism" to the Atlanta Public Schools. "We are excited to continue our [$23.6 million] partnership with APS and Dr. Hall," said Gates Foundation director of education Vicki L. Phillips. Five years earlier, in a 2005 Gates Foundation press release, Hall said, "We look forward to partnering with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to take our reform efforts to the next level."
Well, they obviously chose the wrong profession. Had they been Wall Street hedge fund bankers, they would have got an invite to the next country estate deer hunt.
46137
They got em.
Private sector too whenever the sole and only focus is on metrics. Like how Pepsi loaded all their inventory on a truck moved it 1 foot then did an inventory count each quarter is a classic example.
People will find a way a number is met
http://saveie6.com/
That is the fault of the No Child Left Behind Act. The act that tied teacher / administrator salaries to the test results. Public schools across the nation stopped worrying about a kids learning and worried about their bottom line. That leads to doing whatever it takes to make sure the test results are positive.
This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
RICO was intended to be used against violent mobsters. It has been used against political protestors, and now against people that cheat on tests. It was written far too broadly, and should be rewritten, or, even better, repealed entirely.
I think the problem is that measurements are hard to get right. Engineers learn this. There is an old German engineering saying: "Wer mist mist Mist." ("Those who measure measure crap.") Any good engineering curriculum does not only teach this, but demonstrates it to students time and again. In the end, the students learn that metrics are useful hints but can never replace actual understanding and at that time they are qualified to use metrics.
These pedagogics people have zero clue about all the problems with metrics and how to do them right and what they can and cannot deliver. Hence they are making all the really bad beginners mistakes.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
... that the school district in question is largely black and relatively poorer than most. The convicted school administrators and teachers were also black.
I doubt the same verdict and punishments would have occurred had the defendants been whiter and more affluent. Our society's conscience has a much easier time jailing black Americans than any other, and race factors into even white collar crimes.
There is no solution to the problem. Especially as long as everyone working for a corporation doesn't give a rat's behind about it. CEOs have no connection whatsoever to the company they run anymore, and neither do workers care about it in a hire and fire world where any kind of "loyalty" is simply not rewarded at all. There is no reason to do any work past the bare minimum to not get fired. So of course when some bonus system was invented as an "incentive" to do more work, what happened is what would logically happen: People started to game the system. The "goals" they get set are supposedly improving the company's state, but in the end all they accomplish is that people try to find out how they can accomplish as many of them while at the same time spending as little time and effort doing so as possible.
And exactly the same happens in our schools. Teachers know what the tests will be like, so what is taught is exactly and only what will make the pupil pass that test. There is not only no incentive to teach beyond that, it's actually discouraged because it bear the threat that something you show to your pupils that's not going to be in the test is more interesting to them and they will "waste" their time doing this instead of learning what will make you hit your mark on their test scores.
And that, people, is pretty much the worst kind of bullshit.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.