‘Frontline’ raises questions about test-score tampering under Rhee

[proud2BlibKansan]

Student standardized-test scores at an award-winning D.C. school dropped dramatically in 2011 after the principal tightened security out of concern about possible cheating, according to a new “Frontline” television documentary to be broadcast Tuesday.

The hour-long program raises questions about whether District officials have adequately investigated persistent suspicions that public school employees may have tampered with tests during the tenure of former Chancellor Michelle Rhee.

Adell Cothorne was principal of the District’s Noyes Education Campus for one year, in 2010-11. She told “Frontline” that just after students took a midyear practice version of the city’s annual standardized test, she stumbled upon three staff members sitting late at night in a room strewn with more than 200 test booklets.

One of the adults was at a desk, holding an eraser. The other two sat at a table, booklets open before them.

more ... http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/documentary-examines-michelle-rhees-legacy-in-dc/2013/01/04/ae86e8a6-55f7-11e2-8b9e-dd8773594efc_story.html?hpid=z2

[duffyduff]

1. Since pro-reform whatever-he-is John Merrow is reporting the story,

we will see just how good it is.

[proud2BlibKansan]

2. I'm just glad to see some coverage.

This story died too quickly. And Rhee has gone on to do significant damage to schools all across the country. Her lobbying efforts in state legislatures have been effective, thanks to her bottomless pot of cash. Maybe this will keep a few donors away.

[duffyduff]

4. Let's hope. I plan to watch it. n/t

[alp227]

3. not surprising, hasn't score-cooking been epidemic under NCLB?

[proud2BlibKansan]

5. I don't know that it has been epidemic

but there have been a few high profile cases.

[Igel]

6. Probably more than has been reported.

And less than you'd think.

It's hard to tamper with a lot of the scores. You don't get that much time with the answer sheets, if the school has its testing system set up according to the rules. Most of the time the teachers aren't even supposed to see the test questions.

What you *do* get is a lot of funny test prepping just before the tests. You highlight what you know from previous released tests and cram that into a 1-3 week review session. It doesn't show what they've learned. It shows what you shoved into their minds short-term and they haven't managed to forget yet. This isn't learning. This is futzing with short-term memory. It happens mostly with low-achieving schools, and in high achieving schools it happens with low-achieving students.

A key to this is that you use as many of the released test questions as possible. Since they recycle or minimally alter quite a few test questions from year to year, you basically don't teach to the test--you actually teach the test.

A test is supposed to sample the curriculum, not *be* the curriculum.

[proud2BlibKansan]

8. In DC, they played the eraser game.

Changing answers.

[Smarmie Doofus]

7. Kick this thread in GD please:

Tonite's the nite.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022154277#post1

She's likely to have a TAMPER-tantrum when she sees this.

[sulphurdunn]

9. Preppy opportunist

rich kid graduate of private Ivy League Prep Academy goes to Harvard and Cornell to earn degrees in government and public policy. She graduates in 1992 and is inspired to go join Teach For America and work in a poor urban elementary school, where she works miracles for all of three years before leaving teaching to become an expert on teaching, school administration and education reform. Miraculous as her teaching career, it pales in comparison to the massive infusion of private manna from heaven that allows her to found The New Teacher Project in 1997 and bankrolls her into the front desk as Chancellor of the DC public schools system in 2007, before being run out of town on a rail three years later. Undeterred she rises phoenix like on gilded foundation wings to found Students First, her second billionaire foundation funded front group while she still has time to join the transition team of Florida Governor Rick Scott and lay waste public K-12 spending in that state. Those primarily responsible for the millions and millions of dollars that have greased the skids of her ascent are the very top of the Illuminate billionaire pyramid: The Gates, DeVos, Walton and Broad foundations plus a glittering whos who of corporations and hedge funds, prominent among which is Bain Capital. The attached link is a donor list for TFA, Michele's first gig. TFA is the flag ship of the billionaires know best privatization movement with a funding stream of $244 million in 2012. This tip of the privatization spear was founded by another reptilian, Ivy League opportunists.

http://www.teachforamerica.org/support-us/donors