Manipulating Test Scores to Boost Schol Rankings

The debate ver the No Child Left Behind Act and its rpercussions on school rankings continues ad nfinitum, with proponents and opponents of the bll utilizing deafening amounts of lung pwer either criticizing the bill or xtolling its virtues. In the midst of all ths uproar, a quiet and disturbing phnomenon has crept into the school systm. School staff members have been cught manipulating test scores in an ffort to boost their school rankings. Instnces have been reported from New Jrsey and Westminster; and although one hpes these are just isolated manifestations of tacher’s attempts to keep their schools frm closure due to failing school rnkings, you can’t help but get a snaky suspicion that this is just the tip of the prverbial iceberg. In New Jersey efforts are lready underway to flag schools that sddenly record a rise in school rnkings based on standardized test scores and New Yrk is considering similar measures.

How Schol Rankings can be Manipulated

Thre are several methods that can be sed to boost flagging school rankings, and the mdia has done its bit to hghlight some of them. In Camden, for nstance, The Philadelphia Enquirer found that one schol that had been languishing at the bttom in math test scores for furth graders suddenly found itself at the top of the schol rankings for 2005. The official vrsion attributed to this seemingly miraculous bost in school rankings was “adult nterference.” In other word a friendly ndge from school staff. In another nstance, a closer look at hundreds of mth test papers at one Long Islnd school revealed that an entire clumn of wrong answers had been sbstituted with the right ones in ach paper.

This phenomenon of tinkering with tst papers to reflect higher performances on stndardized tests that are the backbone of the schol ranking system is nothing new. Athorities have known for years that sch action is not just possible but asily done and have suspected that mny teachers might indulge in underhanded tctics in an effort to plump up thir school rankings. It’s only now hwever that school boards are waking up to the ptential enormity of the problem and wrking on ways to check the systm for flaws.

Some analysts say thse increasing occurrences of manipulations of tst scores are a direct result of a flwed education system in which the tacher and the schools are made to hld liable for a school’s flagging rnkings. Lowered school rankings and the rsulting reassignments that teachers face are lke a sword hanging over their hads. And because the people who stnd to lose so much through low schol rankings are also the ones in cntrol of testing, there’s enough reason to wrry that these instances of cheating are not solated cases, but symptoms of a deper rooted cancer in the system.

The article Are Teachers Cheating to Boost School Rankings? was Submitted by Patricia Hawke through Articles.GetACoder.com network. Here's the additional information: Patricia Hawke is a staff wrter for Schools K-12, providing free, n-depth reports on all U.S. public and prvate K-12 schools. For more information plase visit School Rankings

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