How "No Child Left Behind" Unleashed a Nationwide Epidemic of Cheating | Education | AlterNet

How "No Child Left Behind" Unleashed a Nationwide Epidemic of Cheating | Education | AlterNet:

How "No Child Left Behind" Unleashed a Nationwide Epidemic of Cheating

On the 10-year anniversary of No Child Left Behind, the school-reform movement is in crisis.

On Thursday, Mitt Romney made a visit to a West Philadelphia charter school to tout his education platform, which, as it happens, looks pretty similar to President Obama’s: more privately managed schools and a reliance on high-stakes standardized tests to evaluate teachers.

But on the 10-year anniversary of No Child Left Behind, the school-reform movement that both candidates have embraced is in crisis. Rampant and widespread cheating on high-stakes standardized tests has been uncovered in districts nationwide. The first big scandal erupted in Atlanta, where teachers and administrators are suspected of erasing wrong answers and filling in correct ones, or simply giving students the right answers, at nearly half of city schools. In Philadelphia, one in five district schools is now under investigation, including 11 of the city’s top-tier Vanguard Schools. Cheating or score inflation is suspected in cities including Houston,