Monday, June 25, 2012

Children Become Risky Assets as Business Practices Come to Education - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher

Children Become Risky Assets as Business Practices Come to Education - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher:


Children Become Risky Assets as Business Practices Come to Education

report from the El Paso Times revealed last week that school administrators in that city may have engaged in some questionable practices to make their all-important data appear better than it ought to have been. The key element in the District's data portfolio is the 10th grade standardized test. Administrators apparently went to great lengths to prevent students likely to score poorly from taking this test. These steps included:
  • Placing students entering the country into the 9th grade, regardless of where their transcripts indicated they should be.
  • Allowing schools to reclassify students to a higher grade, without requiring they take the test - essentially skipping them over the test.

Former El Paso schools superintendent Lorenzo Garcia recently pled guilty to cheating federal accountability