Mary Levy is a veteran civil rights lawyer and budget analyst in Washington, D.C., who has reviewed developments in the D.C. Public schools for more than 30 years. She wrote the following description of the D.C. cheating scandal, which was revealed by USA Today in March 2011 but never subject to a full and independent investigation:
Re: the U.S. Department of Education Inspector General’s “investigation” of cheating in the DC Public Schools on D.C. standardized tests
It is always interesting to watch power and ideology corrupting people’s judgment, in this case the belief that Michelle Rhee’s approach to education reform must be shown to be effective. There have been no meaningful investigations of the evidence of widespread cheating on DC’s state tests between 2008 and 2010. The ED IG’s statement implies that he relied on the DC IG, who only investigated one school. How could either know about the 102 other DCPS schools flagged for possible cheating? And why is the Department of Education so casual about test integrity? Why did Arne Duncan not ask his IG for a broader investigation?
I’ve studied DCPS data, policies, budget, and history for over 30 years. People with personal knowledge of what occurred during the testing aren’t talking to me any more than to anyone else, but my own data analysis supports the need for a real investigation. Among the top 10 DCPS erasure schools (over one-third of their classrooms flagged over a three year period), scores plummeted at all but one by 2010. At four-fifths of the top 20 erasure schools, scores fell by ten percentage points or more. These are schools with one quarter or more of their classrooms flagged. The bottom dropped out by chance at all those schools?
Contrary to Michelle Rhee’s assertion of “dozens and dozens of schools [with] “very steady gains” or even “some dramatic gains that were maintained,” DC CAS test scores rose significantly after 2008 at only a small number of schools (I counted). Ironically, several of those have been closed or are on the current closing list. Security was only tightened gradually, and is still vulnerable to exploitation, so we’re not at the end of the possibilities even now.
Over the months of preparing the Frontline documentary broadcast on Tuesday, January 7, John Merrow tried very hard to break through on investigating the evidence of cheating. He asked me and my colleagues for contacts and data often, and he actively and persistently sought out witnesses. But witnesses aren’t talking. They’re afraid. People in authority tend to dislike and distrust not only whistleblowers, but critics, even the friendly ones. Principals in DCPS serve at will, and the IMPACT evaluation system makes it easy to terminate teachers who displease their superiors. And after all, since cheating is so unimportant to the Department of Education and the leadership in DC, those who could bear witness can expect no result but retaliation.
Mary Levy
January 9, 2013
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Excellent.
Hope people realize that the basis for most of the scandals are the erasure analysis type. However, that tool can only flag ONE type of cheating! Cheating has MANY, MANY forms and is widespread, indirectly encouraged, and purposefully overlooked.
“Testing” is to crucial to the reformers to worry about validity, reliability or INTEGRITY.
Off the top of my head, there was the cheating scandal in Atalanta Georgia where the teachers were told to monitor their students during the test, supposedly to keep them on track, but where giving them the answers. This was part of the administrative policy for test monitors.
When the push for school reform via standardized testing gained national bipartisan favor, it was largely based on the so called “Texas Miracle” for which Geo W Bush was given credit. Later, the “miracle” was called into question as there were numerous examples of principals inflating their scores by not testing “lower achieving students” via deceptive practices. But NCLB is still here, and now we have the Common Core coming down the pike. I am not against reform, maybe this batch of tests will be better, but I am skeptical when politicians and faux reformers like Rhee make the rules.
This is no different than the “investigation” of mortgage fraud. Thank goodness for the few investigative reporters left… and ESPECIALLY thank goodness for bloggers who will not let stories like this die. Too bad both parties seem to be on the de-regulation kick… it contributes to the inability of independent monitoring of chicanery in business and now (since schools are modeling themselves after business) in education.
Where there is a will, there is a way. We have all the tools, to date, to secure tests, monitor security, observe testing administrations, evaluating patterns of erasures, investigate and interview personnel, etc. It appears that there are no witnesses or true investigations for a reason. They are all ‘in it’ and no one is talking. One principal talked about reporting an ‘erasure party’ at her school, but nothing! Political and professional suicide.
Atlanta Public Schools has been meeting on and referring 180 educators, cheating scandal, to the Professional Practices Commission (Licensure) and many were found guilty, lost jobs and teaching licenses. However, Dr. Beverly Hall, Outstanding Superintendent of the Year, ran off and got off Scott-free. Maybe she can join Rhee in her financially lucrative edreform. Has all the Ethical makings!?
Sociopaths always land on their feet. Very few are caught, because it is too tedious, too costly and too much personal cost to those who are trying to bring them to justice.
Great world we live in.
While people are always capable of change, I have my doubts about how eager John Merrow was to expose cheating under Rhee, especially given his cheerleading for so-called education reform over the years, and given the funding sources for PBS’s coverage of education.
Yes. At the very least, he had access to emails that were published (USA Today, I believe?) indicating that Rhee had stonewalled investigations. He could have confronted her with those.
Civil rights lawyers and all people of integrity must continue to increase their bold stand for public education and truth. Every day, let your voice be heard, and each day make it louder and stronger. The sixties definitely need to keep being discussed, as I think we have forgotten rights in this country are a result of hardwork, protest, and action. They have never come easily from those in power.
Was Mary Levy part of that broadcast? If so. I don’t recall. Nor were the reporters from Newsday. IMHO, I don’t believe Merrow really intended this to be about the investigation because the real story would have been about who he tried to contact and who wouldn’t talk. Instead we got a 45-minute tribute until the real Michelle emerged. The narrative seemed to be controlled by the author of her autobiography and Rhee herself. It was how Rhee controlled the media, not the other way around.
And what about the teachers in the story? Within 15 minutes of the show it was nothing but teacher bashing. And to show Parker who eventually joined Rhee made no sense at all.
Frontline has lost all integrity in this. A show trying to get to the bottom of the scandal and all the doors shut in your face would have been a fascinating hour. Instead the only person interviewed was the principal, yet the show did not delve into how she was being characterized by Washington expect to write about it on their website after the airing. Yet according to that article, she had documentation that she did indeed report her allegations. Why wasn’t those attacks on her character and documents made part of the show? Something is not right here and Merrow did not do right by this story.
Levy was interviewed but not included in the show.
I agree with Michael. Look at where PBS gets its funding and you will realize why it is no longer really “public” broadcasting. Can’t disrespect your funding sources. Follow the money!
I never forgot the NBC Education Nation show–maybe 2011–when Brian Williams opened the program by saying “Bill Gates funded this show, and we are working with his facts.”
A truthful statement.
Gotta Brian, another Jersey guy who doesn’t mince words.
Make that: Gotta love Brian, another Jersey guy who doesn’t mince words.
Not gonna love Brian…he gave a free pass to the Harlem Village savior, Deborah Kenny (sp?) and never reported her high attrition rate among students and staff. We had to wait for Gary Rubenstein to report the facts. Many of these reporters send their kids to private school, so all of the “reform” will not affect them or their grandchildren.
Can you imagine what the teachers unions would do if it ever came out they were cheating and cheating and cheating like you suggest?? WOW. And the administrators you suggest were complicit in the cheating. WOW. And you want to continue business as usual. Sighhh
Pardon? You appear to be asserting that teachers unions were cheating. Further, the administrators who were cheating are not members of teachers unions, though they may have their own union.
But regardless, there is ample evidence that when one creates a system in which you use arbitrary measures whose actual construction and content and/or scoring changes to make political hay (and it isn’t teachers OR administrators, but rather state and/or federal officials, doing the adjusting and setting benchmarks) to evaluate people and determine whether they will be rewarded, promoted, or fired, you guarantee that the “product” will suffer, be it a tangible one made by a corporation or a more ethereal one like “learning” in any meaningful way, will be kicked to the curb in order to save one’s job/career.
That sounds just awful until you recognize yourself in a similar position. I don’t condone the cheating, of course, but it’s not surprising and in fact is utterly predictable under the circumstances. And such a system is NOT the way the countries we claim to be competing with conduct their educational affairs. We appear to be one of the few industrial nations on earth obsessed with testing, rank-ordering, rewarding, and particularly punishing. We DO love our punishments in this most Christian of nations. 🙂
That’s a new one. Never heard that before. Did you hear it on Fox. news?
Well, I’m pretty much convinced. RTTT is a full-fledged disaster.
Galton is right. These scandals have been primarily come to light and then restricted to the wrong-to-right erasures. That was pretty much the case in Atlanta. Even restricted to the erasures, there was much more in the Atlanta scandal than the media reported. I read the 4 volume “Investigation Report.” Of Atlanta’s 84 elementary and middle schools, 178 staff were cited by name for cheating violations in 44. In 38 of the 44, the principal was cited. 91 of the 108 teachers cited were in those 38 schools.
What about the remaining 40 schools?
In 34, there was at least one classroom that was flagged for statistically improbable wrong to right erasures. The investigators concluded that they did not have sufficient evidence to name individuals in those schools. The same is true of many of the schools where staff members were named. So, the Atlanta “iceberg” is really the tip of a much larger one.
Perhaps the characterization of the scandal is the way the investigators characterized the management of the Atlanta Public Schools: “A Culture of Fear, Intimidation and Retaliation”: A school by school breakdown by number of flagged classes and number and category of staff cited is in an embedded spreadsheet (also: links to the the 4-volume Investigation Report):
http://npe.educationnews.org/Review/Essays/v7n7.htm
Atlanta Public Schools: Dr. Beverly Hall, Superintendent of the Year in US that year, retired and got the hell out of Dodge. System did not prosecute her. Should have, but it costing taxpayers $600,000 per month to deal with cheating scandal w/o going after Dr.Hall. What a shame! Where do they find these liers and cheaters? Seems to be an endless supply. DC should have investigated possible cheating.
Looking at erasures patterns to determine the extent of cheating is a bit like catching a mouse in a trap and believing you only had a mouse problem.
Where you catch A mouse, you have a problem with MICE.
Worse still, inflated scores will be used to measure ” student growth”. Think about that.
Cheating was enabled by design. How can those that are judged by student tests be allowed to monitor the tests? That is the fox watching the chickens.
I’ve glanced over the shoulders of students to read a few test questions. The correct answer was often not a choice. True, my observations were limited, but I’ve heard similar discoveries by other teachers in other districts over the years. We were all advised not to write in a complaint to the state.
Since the test is so obviously wrong, I question the key used for the answers. The answer key may also have errors on it.
If the test is not correct, how does any school do well on it?
At meetings, I have heard complaints that on the math test, many students had not yet even been exposed to that material.
I have had students refuse to take the test because there is no feed back for the individual. Other times, I have had students finish the math test in 5 minutes and then pick up a Calculus book to study.
If eBay had a feed back system for sellers that was as flawed, eBay would be out of business.
Now, I will make a quantum leap. Poor public school tests are justification for privatization of schools for profit, creating a cash cow for corporations. Bill Gates does not know a lot about education, but he has software to sell and he is right there with with donations to reform schools.
Government likes privatization because it will save tax dollars and make money for the corporation controlled government. But, at what cost to students?
And the requirements for the SBAC testing is to upgrade to
Windows 7…what a coincidence, huh?
Nobody past the age of reason really thinks scores go because you get rid of unions or fire teachers. Obviously, Ms. Rhee had the hook up so the bean counters went along with her. Politics as usual. Money talks and big money talks loudest. The inner city kids all over the country are being sold out for money and lots of people of color are in on the scheme.
Read this…what a crock of sh$$:
More Data on the Fraud that Rhee and Henderson and Duncan Insist Never Happened at Noyes and Elsewhere
My colleague Erich Martel has done it again.
He dug around and found out how the numbers of students who were supposedly “proficient” at Noyes Elementary School (or Educational Center) jumped around crazily from year to year. He was nice enough to put these into color-coded tables so you can watch how the cohorts progress. Here are his tables, which I formatted for viewing on this blog:
It will be posted tomorrow morning
This is GREAT stuff. Keep the story alive….. It has more of an impact around the country thean you know.
IMPACT is being used as a weapon against teachers who displease the principal especially at Theodore Roosevelt High in Petworth.