Standardized test & cheating teachers in atlanta

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Forums > All Posts > Standardized test and cheating teachers in atlanta

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2011-07-18 06:35 PM

paul T.
Colchester, VT
Posts: 31

just wanted to put my two cents worth into the cheating scandal in Atlanta regarding the Standardized tests...I understand that the teachers union does not want these exams...but this just demonstrates the importance of these exams...IF THOSE TEACHERS ACTUALLY WERE GOOD TEACHERS AND ACTUALLY CARED ABOUT THEIR STUDENTS...THEN THEY WOULD HAVE PUT MORE EFFORT INTO TEACHING THEM...INSTEAD,THEY FAILED THEIR STUDENTS AND SHOWED JUST HOW BAD OF A TEACHER THEY WERE BY CHEATING ON THEIR STUDENTS TESTS...MAYBE IF THEY PUT AS MUCH EFFORT INTO TEACHING AS THEY DID CHEATING THEN THEY WOULD NOT HAVE HAD TO CHEAT...

SOME OF THESE TEACHERS GOT MERIT PAY BASED ON THOSE FALSE SCORES AND ADMINISTRATORS GOT BONUSES ALSO...ALL THOSE PEOPLE SHOULD NOT ONLY HAVE TO REIMBURSE THOSE BONUSES BUT SHOULD LOSE THEIR LICENSES AND FACE JAIL/FINES FOR STEALING MONIES FROM THEIR COMMUNITIES...

BUT THE TEACHERS UNION WILL FIGHT THAT...INSTEAD OF WORKING TO GET GREAT TEACHERS, THEY WOULD RATHER PROTECTTHE BAD ONES...THE UNIONS ARE ALSO TRYING TO SAY THAT IT WAS THE STANDARDIZED TESTS FAULTS FOR THE CHEATING...MIGHT AS WELL BLAME THE PERSON WHO WAS RAPED AND NOT THE ACTUAL RAPIST...

2011-07-18 11:42 PM

Schmidt
Colorado Springs, CO
Posts: 1058

Well paul t. you are entitled to your anti-union perspective. I'll provide an alternative perspective, compliments of ThinkProgress. This July 7th article entitled, Atlanta Could Have Averted its Cheating Scandal If It Had Listented To Its Local Teachers Union. According to the article, "these abuses were facilitated by a “culture of fear, intimidation and retaliation” that faced APS teachers and administrators, who were pressured to raise test scores and feared for their jobs if they protested these policies or even reported cheating."

"In the current political climate, teachers unions are often demonized and portrayed as simply institutionally defending the most corrupt members in their ranks. Yet as the APS scandal shows, if Dr. Hall and others had taken the AFT complaints seriously and addressed faculty abuses, this very serious cheating scandal could’ve been avoided. Instead, Dr. Hall created a “culture of fear,” where dissent wasn’t tolerated, discussion was not encouraged, and systematic cheating became a natural result."

Here's another article: How Fear and Intimidation Led to Massive Atlanta School Cheating.

A short paragraph extracted from the article:

"The report laid out three main reasons for the widespread cheating: politicians and school officials set and enforced unreasonable targets for yearly testing progress that were to be met at any cost. This in turn helped institute a culture of fear and intimidation throughout the district. So obsessed was the district with test results, it discarded concerns about ethics."

“Teachers and administrators in a setting like that feel set up for failure. They are stuck between a rock and a hard place, between idiotic laws that have no relation to the educational reality, and which are being enforced through sanctions that include closing the school and firing the employees.”

Fear and intimidation...fear and intimidation...where I have heard those words recently. Oh...in the Rupert Murdoch scandal at the News of the World and maybe beyond those shores to our country and Fox News.

Paul t. I don't know where you got your story, but I hope you'll find somewhere in your heart that unions are not all bad...and certainly not the teachers union of Atlanta that doesn't have near the power of their counterparts up north.

2011-07-19 10:42 PM

paul T.
Colchester, VT
Posts: 31

First....if a teacher "discards their ethics" as you say, then they have no business teaching our youth...what the teachers and administrators showed is that cheating is okay...DO YOU FEEL THAT THOSE TEACHERS SHOULD BE FIRED FOR CHEATING ESPECIALLY SINCE MANY OF THEM GOT BONUSES FOR THE CHEATING SCORES...? THe standardized test are not hard for the average student and teacher...It seems as you stated that they were in fear and intimidation and retaliation from who....itseems it wasfrom their own union...doesn't say much about the union does it...this country does have whistle-blowing laws to protect people...
obviously, it was easier for them to go along with the cheating than to have any ethics,,,and concern for their students....they seemed to have taken the monies with no problem...so don't give me any sad story....
IN SHORT...THE UNION CHEATED....THE TEACHERS CHEATED...THEY HAD NO MORAL OR ETHICS...THEY TOOK THE MONEY AND RAN...NOW THEY ALL NEED TO PAY THE PRICE...THEN MAYBE THE UNION CAN BEGIN TO DO WHAT IT IS SUPPOSE TO DO...TEACH OUR CHILDREN....WITH TEACHERS AND ADMINISTRAORS WHO HAVE ETHICS...

2011-07-20 12:34 AM

CARLITOS BAM-BAM
Dallas, TX
Posts: 897

paul t. did you even bother to read the articles in Schmidt's post?

From here....it looks like the teachers were corrupted by administrators from all the way at the top.

Now, I agree.....there's no excuse for cheating.....but coercion is a powerful force....especially in a wage-slavery system such as ours.

And what was the school board doing? You know....the local school district government.....democratically elected by the people....why the hell weren't they keeping tabs on their superintendent?

Teachers were whistleblowing.....and principals sought to silence them.

Meanwhile, the teachers unions in Atlanta are weak....this is the South we're talking about.

A pervasive culture of fear of losing one's job for not delivering good enough test results (one way or the other) combined with the self-interested blind-eye of principals and district officials led to one hell of a taxpayer scam*.

* Atlanta's school district....like all local governments, US states, or even European states.....does not have the power to issue currency. Hence, it is revenue constrained, unlike the Federal Government.

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