Thursday, July 21, 2011

Schools Matter: Cheating? How about the Cheated

Schools Matter: Cheating? How about the Cheated

Cheating? How about the Cheated

The drum beat for more challenging national standards, increased teacher quality, and greater accountability for U.S. public schools has one element running through every aspect of education reform—testing. For months and months, reform turned the debate to teacher accountability that includes some element of standardized and high-stakes tests. But more recently, the national discourse about schools has been consumed by cheating on those sacred tests, data often used to claim "turn around," "miracle," and "no excuses"—claims that nearly always are revealed to be misleading at best and false at worst.

Cheating on tests is the topic of the day, now, including powerful arguments against the value of standardized tests and disturbing unwavering support for continuing our faith in and use of standardized tests.

When we were mired in arguments about and policies addressing teacher accountability linked to testing, we
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