Atlanta Journal-Constitution Says Suspicious Student Test Scores Found Nationwide
In the latest example of a newspaper challenging the education
establishment on the issue of student achievement, an investigation by
the
Atlanta Journal-Constitution reportedly found suspect
test scores in public school districts across the country.
The AJC used open records requests to seek student test data from
all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The suspicious test
score patterns – which alone is not evidence of cheating –
were found in 196 of the nation’s 3,125 largest school
districts.
The seven-month investigation, by the AJC and affiliated Cox
newspapers, is already getting pushback from some researchers who
question the methodology. But the reporters concluded the huge
shifts in test scores in cities like Houston and Los Angeles
mirror the patterns found in the Atlanta public schools where
cheating was determined to have been widespread.
A Georgia investigation into those rapid gains in scores,
triggered in large part by the AJC’s reporting in 2008 and 2009,
found nearly 200 educators – teachers, principals and
regional superintendents – colluded to falsify student
achievement on statewide tests. The fallout has been significant,
and led to the ouster of Atlanta Superintendent Beverly Hall.
The AJC’s latest findings “are concerning,” U.S. Secretary of
Education Arne Duncan said in an emailed statement to the
newspaper. “States, districts, schools and testing companies
should have sensible safeguards in place to ensure tests
accurately reflect student learning.”
According to the AJC, “Overall, 196 of the nation’s 3,125 largest
school districts had enough suspect tests that the odds of the
results occurring by chance alone were worse than one in 1,000 …
For 33 of those districts, the odds were worse than one in a
million.”
But Gary Miron, an education professor and researcher at Western
Michigan University,
wrote in an opinion piece that the AJC’s methodology was
flawed, and that “the resulting news story appears to be intended
to be alarmist, implying that cheating is rampant in our
schools.”
Among Miron’s concerns, published in the Washington Post’s
Answer Sheet education blog, was that the investigation did not
take into account the impact of high rates of student transiency
on achievement. Charter schools represented a high proportion of
the schools with alleged test anomalies, and they also have a
disproportionate number of students moving in and out over the
course of an academic year, Miron said.
The data used for the AJC analysisis also stops at the school
level, rather than going all the way down to the individual
student level. That makes it impossible to know whether a
suspicious results, such as a sudden increase in performance
followed by a steep drop-off in scores the following year,
actually involved the same group of students, Miron said. (The
AJC has since responded to Miron’s criticism, pointing out that
many urban districts with high transiency rates did not also have
testing anomalies.)
Gary Phillips, a vice president and chief scientist for the
nonprofit American Institutes for Research and the newspaper’s
advisor for its methodology, told the AJC that “extreme” changes
in test scores are like medical tests: “When you find something,
you’re supposed to go to the doctor and follow up with a more
detailed diagnostic process.”
The next question is how individual districts will respond to the
AJC’s investigation, and whether the newspaper’s findings will
trigger closer examinations of potentially suspect test
scores.
Several districts cited in the AJC report for having particularly
high rates of test score anomalies have already spoken up. In the
case of Houston’s public schools, the response included a promise
a closer look at the findings. In Nashville, district
officials said the test score anomalies showed steep declines in
achievement, rather than suspicious gains, and were the result of
the district’s high rate of student transiency, absenteeism and
the large percentage of English language learners,
the Tennessean reported. In a written statement, the
district also challenged the AJC’s methodology, citing concerns
raised by an education researcher at Vanderbilt University.
Los Angeles Unified also made the AJC’s list. That was probably
not a surprise to the nation’s second-largest school district,
where there have been ongoing issues in recent years related to
cheating allegations. A district investigation in 2011 determined
teachers were giving students improper access to test materials
ahead of the exam, coaching them to provide the correct
responses, and even changing answer sheets, according
to the
Los Angeles Times. Additionally, six charters schools
were forced to close in 2010 amid allegations of cheating on
statewide exams.
Educators and researchers have argued that the intense emphasis
on student test scores, a mandate of the federal No Child Left
Behind Law, put pressure on educators to show dramatic (and often
unrealistic) gains in student achievement. As a result, they
argue, cheating is much more likely to occur.
The LA Times had a story with a similar thesis a few
months ago, in which teachers, speaking anonymously, said they
would indeed cheat if their jobs were on the line.
That type of cheating – individual teachers taking
action to save their own jobs — is a far cry from the kind of
high-level, orchestrated malfeasance that reportedly took place
in Atlanta. But there is little doubt that public schools are
facing significant expectations for student gains.
The AJC story “certainly raises red flags that should lead many
individual districts to invest in independent
investigations,” said Robert Schaeffer, public education
director of Fair Test, an
advocacy group that is critical of the overemphasis on
standardized tests.
If nothing else, Schaeffer says, the recent cheating scandals
“have again demonstrated that overreliance on standardized test
scores is a flawed strategy for creating lasting educational
reform.”
Atlanta, for better or for worse, has become the reference point
for stories about widespread cheating and schools, and it is
likely that any gains by its students will be considered suspect
for a long time to come. In addition to thousands of
schoolchildren whose own learning has been potentially hurt in
the process, the loss of the public’s trust in its school system
is perhaps one of the scandal’s more disheartening legacies.
Have a question, comment or concern for the Educated Reporter? Contact Emily Richmond. Follow her on Twitter @EWAEmily.
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