Tests and Testing
An excerpt from the Los Angeles Times article Cheating on tests found at two Los Angeles schools:
Locally, at six charter schools operated by Crescendo, principals were ordered last year to require teachers to review the state tests in advance and then use that material to prepare students. L.A. Unified recently closed those schools in the aftermath of the scandal.
Such episodes underscore the pressures and pitfalls of testing systems that, nationwide, increasingly affect teacher and principal evaluations and whether schools achieve acclaim or censure and penalties.
This is the product of high stakes testing. It places the pressure on principals, teachers and students to “perform”, whatever that means. In our state, the ed reformers, with the assistance of the state PTA, will try again during the next legislative session to put a greater emphasis on testing as an indicator of the “success” of a school, a principal or a teacher.
Charter schools live or die by test scores. If the test scores of a charter school averages out to a number that is
