Veteran journalist Sol Stern looks at the Atlanta cheating scandal from a different angle.
Pay for performance plans send big bucks to certain adults, he points out.
And those plans lead some people to cheat.
It is up to the people in charge to investigate.
He shows how in one egregious example in New York City, where the scores zoomed up, then collapsed, the city didn’t even bother to investigate the principal in charge of the school. She retired with a tidy boost to her pension. The city investigators said they couldn’t interview her because they couldn’t find her. Case closed.
A reporter did find her, however, at her listed address.
When the people in charge don’t want to know, they don’t find any smoke or fire or smoking guns.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
This is what it is all about and add governors to the list. It is about their reps, not the kids, teaching and learning:
‘This is a systemic problem caused by flawed education policies and by ambitious politicians trying to drive up test scores by any means necessary in order to establish their reputations as “education mayors” or “education presidents.”
True!
I suspect their reputations are important to them not just due to vanity, but because that’s what will secure them a cushy future position with their corporate sponsors after they leave public service, as with Joel Kelin, or as lobbyists for them: “Ex-lawmakers Go to Lobbying-related Jobs”
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/03/25/former-lawmakers-lobbying-jobs/2011325/
The waiting period for this, when there is one, is just ridiculous. It should not be permitted at all. Period.
Look at the “education president” who signed NCLB. I am fairly sure he wouldn’t pass the high school graduation test.
Our ‘C’ Student President. Let’s be real, apparently grades in school & college do not matter if you picked the right parents. Look at Gates – no college educ, power abusive henchman with all the wealth in the world for life. The later should scare us to no end. Education and children in public schools are doomed.
Hope we live long enough to see how this ends. Maybe not.
Debbie, You’ve said it all!
Reasons for not investigating further may indicate that the high scores were achieved, documented, data saved, done deal, $$ spent on pay-4-performance, on to the next educational water boarding!
Great options for educators: achieve the impossible and cheat, or report the cheating and get fired.
Congrats to Duncan/Obama/Gates/Rhee/Hall and all their cronies with Big$$$.
*** Look forward to the Nürnberg Trials of Unethical Educators & Reformers.
“*** Look forward to the Nürnberg Trials of Unethical Educators & Reformers.”
Fat chance the “reformers” will be included. As I stated in a previous post on another thread addressing this matter, “If I learned anything from Nuremburg, it’s that “just following orders” does not justify crimes against humanity.”
The head honchos were put on trial at Nuremberg. In America today, as Sol Stern stated, “You might think of the politicians who set the test-based accountability policies of the past decade as unindicted co-conspirators…”
The government did not thoroughly investigate or pursue indictment of MIchelle Rhee et al for the DC cheating scandal, or their billionaire bankster buddies who crashed the economy, so perhaps it’s because they know only too well that following the evidence (and/or money) is very likely to lead directly to themselves.
Regime change might be necessary to achieve justice for debacles caused by “reformers,” politicians and their corporate cronies.
Agree!
What happens when a real, honest-to-gosh investigation is carried out?
Go to this link for the pdf file of the official Georgia investigation of Atlanta Public Schools under Superintendent Beverly Hall: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/us/Atlanta_Investigation_docs.html?_r=0
A sincere thank you to ElementaryRat for the link.
🙂
In NJ, a message has been sent very clearly from Chris Cerf’s NJDOE: raise test scores. Testing irregularities will be damned with false investigation and no consequences. In fact, one school flagged for extremely unlikely wrong to right error erasure percentages was recently named a NJDOE “Reward School”! All the students pass the NJASK test every year at The politically affiliated Robert (Cheat) Treat Acaedemy! No severe cognitive sped students there! And erasure patterns that are extremely suggestive are not seriously investigated.
The NJDOE lets everyone know that cheating will not be pursued with gusto because they do not care about learning, and they NEED the tests to be believed more than they want to preserve the validity of the process.
Failure by design on an Eli BROAD controlled DOE!
Time for the legislature to commission of test cheating in NJ.
Oh, and don’t forget the PRAXIS exam scandal in Tennessee, Arkansas, & Mississippi. Clarence Mumford, now convicted, couldn’t have pulled it off without complicity of university testing sites & licensure board offices, but they remain at large. At time of arrest, he worked as a guidance counselor in a “small Arkansas district.” What’s the big secret?
Diane, Chris Hayes (MSNBC) did a segment on this last night (debut of his new show). The panelists appeared not to be happy with RTTT and compared it to NCLB.