One teacher has contrived a brilliant but simple idea to help students pass standardized tests: just give them the answers. When test scores seem too good to believe - USATODAY.com The wild part about the story is that it was the students who turned in their teacher for cheating!
Weren't that certain school districts had done in the past because if their schools got higher passing rate. Then the school district got more money?
And the teacher in question did resign, but merely had his teaching certification suspended for 90-days …:wow:
I think it is ridiculous that teachers are teaching to the test today anyway and are held accountable for their students not performing as well as they want when in reality it could only be partly the teachers fault......... But 3 months of a suspended teachers license? Its like a summer vacay and then he gets to go back to work....
Of course on second thought, with a resignation in lieu of a due process termination along with a previously suspended (for cause) teacher certification on his record, re-employment with another school district might not be so easy…
I think this is all too common, as it happened at a nearby school district here last month. Teachers here are paid based on end of grade exam scores. We have some horribly performing students here due to a large welfare population. An example, two years ago my daughter was one of only 4 students to pass the science EOG for the entire 5th grade in our schools. So only 4 out of 135 students passed. She got moved for the last two months of the school year to another class to work ahead while the entire rest of the grade focused on relearing all they should have learned the first time around so they could pass the EOG exam the second time around. Why have the exams if they are just going to "teach for the exam" and let them take it until they pass? I know instructors at my community college that do the same thing for their students. I'm appalled by that! How does that prepare them for their university career or life? They then come to me and say, gee your exams are so hard! Duh, it's called college level work. I think the problems run through all levels of education and that is why we are losing ground to other countries when it comes to education.
This is one of those ideas that sounds good on paper but fails miserably in the real world. It acts as teacher-repellent, as teachers who can get other jobs won't take positions in failing schools. This means that the failing schools get the least-qualified teachers, which in turn hurts the test scores. The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer.