Mary Jones is the Principal of Elderberry Elementary school in Dacula, Georgia. She has been the Principal for almost 20 years. In the past five years the testing scores have gone down, and the district has been on her about what she can do to make sure the testing scores get better. When she first noticed the scores had started to drop, she instructed teachers to go over the curriculum with the students again before the testing started. When that did not help, she asked her staff to hold tutoring for the students that they saw were struggling for 2-3 weeks before testing started to see if that would help boost test scores. No matter what Mrs. Jones tried nothing was working to get the test scores to where they needed to be.
In February 2019 Mrs. Jones held a meeting with her teachers to discuss what needed to be done for the upcoming testing next week. In this meeting Mrs. Jones told the teachers that they are to pace the students and keep them on one page or one set of questions until the entire class has caught up. Mrs. Jones also instructed the teachers to have students write the answers in the test booklet and not on the Scantron sheets. Jones told the teachers that they are going to wander through the classroom when the students are testing to check their responses. Alert the child if an answer is wrong so they can try again.
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Jones told the teachers that when they were satisfied that all students had completed that portion of the test correctly that they were to instruct the students to bubble their answers on the Scantron sheet. If the student doesn't know the answers, tell them to leave the Scantron empty for that question. Jones then told the teachers they must then repeat the process with the next set of problems until the whole test is complete. Mrs. Jones gave the teachers instructions on how to help students cheat on tests.
Many of the teachers disagreed with what Jones was asking of them but did not speak up about it in fear of being reprimanded for going against what the Principal asked them to do. The teachers later met and decided that all they would do is pace the students on the testing so that they would have more time to answer. After the testing was done Jones asked for the teachers to bring her the test so that she could look over them.
When Jones realized the teachers did not do as she had asked, she spent the rest of the day fixing the test so that they would have higher grades on them. When a few of the teachers realized what she was doing they decided to report her to the state. The teachers tried to go to Jones first and asked her to change the test back or to have the students retake the test so that there would be no issue of their school cheating. Jones denied the request of the teachers and submitted the altered test.
The teachers went to the School Board and the state less than a week after Mrs. Jones submitted the testing to make them aware of what was going on. The School Board and the State launched an investigation based on the allegations of the teachers. The teachers asked to remain anonymous in fear of backlash from Mrs. Jones. Two weeks after the test results came in Mrs. Jones was asked to come to the School Boards office to talk about the test scores. Mrs. Jones was asked about the allegations made regarding the testing and she denied all of it. The School board told Mrs. Jones about how her teachers had come to them about what she had asked them to do and about the knowledge of her changing the answers when they did not do as she asked. Mrs. Jones was put on a non-paid leave of absence while an investigation could be thoroughly done.
The issue with this case is that school administration or teachers that cheat on standardized testing is unethical and immoral. Unfortunately, it is becoming popular to cheat on standardized examinations. The problem is it may also have long-term consequences on the academic performance of students. Like social promotion, cheating to help students pass a high-stake exam may allow those who fail to resolve technical obstacles, such as progressing to the next school stage, but it can harm them when they later attempt to progress to more challenging content.
Mrs. Jones knew that what she was doing was wrong and that there could be severe implications to her actions, but she was more concerned about getting the scores higher than figuring out what the true problem was. While the teachers told the School Board and the State what happened after the testing was over, they are somewhat at fault as well for going along with part of what Jones had asked them to do. The teachers should have spoken up and refused to alter testing in anyway.
By altering the test results the school has made a bad name for themselves and have hurt the students more than helping them. There is a lot more to school than just test results. Schools need to be able to identify what the problems are in their schools and what the students need to learn and how best they learn. By altering test results the schools are not teaching the students.
The topic of this case is schools, teachers and/or administration altering test results to make it seem that the students are doing better than they are. By altering the test results, it makes it seem that the curriculum that is being taught to the students is the best. This topic gives insight to difficulties schools have when it comes to testing and the extreme measures that school personnel sometimes take to make sure that they look better than what is going on. Schools are graded on how good the test results are and can potentially get more funding when test results are good. By cheating on standardized test this not only causes an ethical issue of honesty, but it is also one of taking money for something that is not true.
There have been many causes of schools altering test results or guiding students to the correct answers to achieve higher test results. Many of the cases that have been seen are of administration telling the teachers to do unethical procedures during testing and the teachers being afraid of the repercussions of what would happen if they refused to do what the administration said to the teachers being involved and ok with what is going on. All teachers and administration should have had to go through ethics classes or seminars so they know when they alter testing results, they are doing something that can cause major issues. In most of the cases they are hoping that they just do not get caught.
One case that happened in the state that I live in made national news. In 2009 around 150 teachers and administration from 44 different schools in Atlanta were accused of cheating on standardized test that were used to assess student performance and to grade schools on how well they are doing. They adjusted answers to meet raised demands and got bonuses and promotions based on false scores along the way. Eighty-two teachers admitted to the cheating right away. An 800-page study said there was almost a decade of deception. This first surfaced when the state found on the response sheets an unprecedented amount of erasure points. Teachers and administrators deleted the incorrect answers and filled in the correct ones. The staff also organized weekend dinner parties at one school to correct the answers before handing them in. Scores at school soared 45 per cent over the course of a single year.
Beverly Hall, the former Superintendent, was charged with motivating the cheating. In incentives related to better performance results, she won hundreds of thousands of dollars, gains that now appear to be fake. Out of the 178 teachers and administrators that were accused 35 were indicted and all but 12 took plea deals. Twelve also went to court. Hall never made it to court because she passed away before the court hearing. The jury opened on 29 September 2014, presided over by Judge Jerry Baxter of the Fulton County Superior Court. It was Georgia 's longest criminal trial and lasted for eight months. On the first of April 2015, 11 of the 12 defendants were convicted on charges of racketeering. Dessa Curb was the only professor not found guilty on any and all charges.
Another case that is similar to my case study is one that happened in Illinois. This case is of only one teacher instead of multiple teachers though. In this case Jennifer Longanecker, a tenured fifth grade instructor was suspected of intentionally cracking the seals on standardized exam booklets in order to help students manipulate the study. It was found that Longanecker had opened a sealed ISAT test booklet with the express intention of improperly assisting some students on the test despite knowing that such conduct was prohibited. Not only had she opened the test with the intent to teach the students straight off the test she also helped students answer test questions and tried to blame a student for the open test booklet.
Longanecker had a student teacher in her room at the time that she cracked the seals on the exams. Angela Michell was in the classroom the day that the exams were dropped off by Gaye Dunn, a school counselor. Mitchell said that Longanecker dismissed her students to the gym and then closed the door and opened one of the packets. Mitchell stated that Longanecker read through the booklet and started telling Mitchell what they needed to start teaching the students and key words that they were going to need to know. The day after the incident Mitchell went and spoke to her college advisor about what Longanecker had done. Kim Moreno, Mitchells advisor, called the University curriculum supervisor, Ann Gregory, who then called Ronald Harris, the principal of Jennifer Longanecker. Harris immediately called the Superintendent who advised him to have his assistant principal and East Moline Education Association Co-President go and check the booklets.
Harris checked the seals on the reading portion of the test booklets and found that the seals of all three parts of the reading sections had been broken on one child’s booklet. Harris question the student and asked if he had broken the seals. The student said that he had only broken the math section seals. The School board went to a dismissal hearing about what Longanecker was accused of. During the hearing the hearing officer recommended that Longanecker be reinstated but the School Board dismissed the recommendation and let Longanecker go.
Longanecker appealed the decision to the to the Third District Appellate Court. The Third District Appellate Court disagreed with Longaneckers claim. They cited the 2016 decision of the Illinois Supreme Court in Beggs v. Board of Education of the Murphysboro Community Unit School District No. 186, the court explained that, when reviewing a decision to terminate a tenured teacher, courts are required to defer the findings and determinations of the school board, not the hearing officer.
In conclusion, the fact is, the higher the demands put on standardized test results, the higher the burden on educators to do whatever it takes to juice the ratings, even though they undermine the standards of education. The importance of standardized test outcomes keeps on increasing, with state and federal policymakers using these test scores to grant school districts either bonuses or penalties. Many schools, particularly those in low-income communities who are still stretched their money too thin, face increased pressure to 'teach the exams' to ensure that all of their much-needed funding continues. Apparently, the pressure has led some teachers and administrators to 'edit' test scores so that schools are given a better overall performance.
While the debate about standardized testing is raging, school districts will continue to individually investigate and manage cheating teachers and administrators. When we consider the implications these controversies bring to both the schools and the children entering them, citizens may continue to doubt the appropriate approaches to measure student and school success, without the increased burden for the schools to succeed given the educational difficulties they might face.
Improved monitoring controls should potentially discourage unscrupulous instructors from changing student responses. However, only when the complexity of what leads to annual test score increases and decreases is recognized, the hard truth is that even our finest educators , administrators and school districts will decide to spend time on standardized test pep rallies and shaving time from science and civic lessons to drill children on bubble sheet testing tricks.
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