Cheaters Cheaters...Everywhere?

When there is a reason to cheat someone will cheat.  Not everyone will cheat.  But someone will.  It doesn’t make it right to cheat, it doesn’t make it justifiable or acceptable.  It does make it expected.  Athletes cheat in sports, people cheat on their taxes, people in relationships cheat on each other, students cheat on tests.  I attended what many consider to be the best public high school in the country, full of the brightest students, home of incredibly high standardized test scores and people cheated there.  I went to a university known for its strong academics and stronger honor code and people cheated there.  People breaking the rules is a fact of life.  That’s why we have a judicial system, drug testing and numerous oversight and regulatory bodies.

 

Bill Turque’s article from a few days ago announced that three DC Public Schools classrooms’ test scores will be invalidated due to cheating.  The article itself provides a good rundown of the facts but the response will inevitably consider a small group of cheaters to be a referendum on policies put in place to turn DC schools into something other than the worst in the country.  This is not what the takeaway should be.

The USA Today story about erasure analysis in DC brought the story to the national level.  Please note that Turque’s most recent article is about last year’s test scores, whereas USA Today was in fact rehashing findings that were reported previously.  USA Today brought up good points about the statistical improbability of some of the findings at some DC schools.  These improbabilities indicated that further investigation should take place, although they are not considered proof of cheating.  And investigations did take place.  Apparently a few people got fired because of these investigations.

Where the USA Today story steps over the line with paragraphs like the following:

Noyes is one of 103 public schools here that have had erasure rates that surpassed D.C. averages at least once since 2008. That's more than half of D.C. schools.

These two sentences, at first glance, seem pretty bad.  Half of schools have irregular erasure rates that could be indicative of cheating?  Well, yeah.  More than half the schools had higher than average erasure rates.  A little less than half had lower than average erasure rates.  Unless I'm missing something that sounds pretty close to the definition of the word average.  It is statements like these, which are essentially meaningless, that push the message that there is an epidemic of cheating that undermines all test scores, all assessment measures, all efforts to increase accountability. 

I’m insulted by the idea that increasing pressure forces people to cheat.  Somehow creating a system of accountability, a system of transparency, where people can see the results of your work, turns people into cheaters.  An adult cheating in an institution of learning is one of the worst kinds of cheating possible, and those who cheat should be punished.  People have free will, they can make their own decisions and blaming a standardized test for morally questionable behavior infantilizes the people we entrust our kids to every day.

But the true witch hunt is not in pursuit of the people making the decisions to cheat but the higher ups who believe standardized tests do have a role, serious accountability and evaluation is important.  On the one hand there is probably a valid argument to be made about creating a culture in which widespread cheating takes place.  But it could also be said that introducing change to a bad culture would lead to some desperate behavior no matter what.   And there is no indication of how widespread any cheating is or how the scope of cheating compares to other districts, urban and suburban, high achieving and low achieving.

When we look at the actions taken by the decision makers it doesn’t look like the leadership in DC have taken this issue lightly.  A huge amount of effort goes into training about and monitoring testing compliance.  And within Turque’s article it is clear that there is substantial self reporting of any violations, intentional or not.  The only reason there was a USA Today article is because DC Public Schools hired a third party firm to investigate, likely at great expense.  Kaya Henderson should be applauded for taking it a step further and asking the DC Inspector General to investigate further.

You see, for people who are invested in making education improvements based at least in part on rising test scores, the credibility of those scores is incredibly important.  In terms of incentives it is the very people who will be accused of covering up something sinister, or even worse setting up something sinister, who have the biggest incentive to have clean, credible tests.  The chances of getting caught systematically cheating is so high that it would be a terrible decision to make even if the decision was based solely on selfish reasoning.  And based on what everyone thinks of the education reform radicals, both positive and negative, I don’t think anyone believes the front runners of the movement are desperate or dumb.  Some say cold and calculating but not many say desperate and dumb.

The fact is most people are playing by the rules.  And in at least three instances where people weren’t playing by the rules action was taken.  Proving cheating is very difficult and making loose accusations is not something any school district would do.  There will always be some uncertainty involved with erasure analyses, cheating accusations, disciplinary action related to test security infractions.  It doesn’t undermine the entire system unless we let it.  It is just a fact of life that districts must acknowledge and work to minimize.  From my viewpoint it looks like that is exactly what DC is doing.  In a system in which so much has been broken for so long it is naïve to expect perfection but a good faith effort to clean things up is a strong start.

Deception and Rage...Must Be Education Reform

Time to get back to the original reason I even started this blog: Valerie Strauss, her blog and the type of debate it engages in enrage me.  To Ms. Strauss’ credit her bizarre vendetta against Michelle Rhee is at least consistent.  She has once again posted something with an ironic headline (considering that the post itself is at best completely absent of nuance and at worst totally deceptive itself), which I guess is a step up from literally creating a cartoon comprised of misquotes.

Anyway, the gist of Ms. Strauss’ post is that StudentsFirst (also known as Michelle Rhee’s organization) sent out a fundraising letter during Teacher Appreciation Week that refers to some reforms that Ms. Strauss doesn’t agree with.  This letter was apparently sent to Diane Ravitch.  Ms. Strauss acts shocked by this because Diane Ravitch and Michelle Rhee disagree.  I’m guessing that Ms. Ravitch, like many ed policy folks, is on the StudentsFirst mailing list.  I’m on the list too.  I got the letter too (I didn’t contribute, sorry Michelle Rhee).  Seemed pretty standard fare.  Barack Obama’s organization sends me a lot of emails too, some asking for money, some with third party commentary about what a good job our president is doing and most from someone not named Barack Obama.  I don’t see how this is unusual or deceptive in any way. 

The fact that this is news in the mind of Ms. Strauss is the perfect example of why so much of the debate around education in this country is false debate, focused more on personalities than policies, full of red herrings that don’t address the actual issues at hand, obsessed with narratives about conspiracies that don’t even make sense.

And on that note I guess it is time for me to chime in on “privatizing public schools” and the three ways Michelle Rhee is accomplishing this feat that I don’t think is remotely possible even if that was her intention, which I’m completely sure it isn’t.

1.            Expanding charter schools that are often run by for-profit companies – Call me crazy but I’m in favor of kids receiving a good education.  And I’ve definitely seen charter schools that provide a better education than most public schools.  There is a reason charters have such a large share of the students in DC.  Yes, just like some public schools are good and some are bad, some charters are good and some are bad.  The good news is failing charter schools can be shut down easily, or at least should be.  In terms of the charter-traditional debate…who cares?  Whoever serves the students the best works for me.  As for the for-profit companies running the schools; I say if you can provide a high quality education to a bunch of kids, it is free for the kids, you don’t require a private school style application and you can make money from it, more power to you.  Way to be the best kind of capitalist there is.  And if you try and fail then the city or district or state who hired you should do the right thing and fire you.
2.            Increasing the use of standardized tests that are sold to schools by private firms – You mean like the SAT?  Or the AP tests?  Or the ACT?  Or IB? Or the LSAT? Or the MCAT?  Did I miss something here?  I’ve already said a little bit about how I feel about standardized tests.  But the private profit thing…I never realized that engaging in business was such a bad thing.  Michelle Rhee didn’t invent standardized tests or testing companies.  Her issues of choice aren’t even the issues keeping those companies in the black.  Look at the suburbs, look at the best schools in the country including the private ones and tell me if standardized testing plays a major role there.  There are absolutely companies taking advantage of a huge market for testing and making a big profit.  Once again, I’m pretty sure that is a side effect of capitalism.  And pretending that standardized tests are evil extensions of profiteering corporations seems a little…I’m not even sure what.  People are entitled to their beliefs.  But try getting into the Ivy League without a good SAT score.  I’m pretty sure Harvard arrived on the scene before Kaplan.  Those standardized tests aren’t just a money maker for companies.  They are the currency that our education system uses for just about everything and everything isn’t all bad, not all good either, but not all bad.
3.           Supporting the use of public money for use as private school tuition – Now here is an example of something I don’t agree with.  But I can see why people would be in favor of school vouchers.  In fact, there has been a lot of debate here in DC on this very topic.  There are pretty good arguments on both sides.  In my mind one of the reasons vouchers aren’t a great solution is because if they were scaled up enough to impact a lot of students it would just shift the same problems we see in public schools to private schools but with less oversight.  Plus, last time I checked, the current research on vouchers is a little wishy-washy.  I don’t think it would ever lead to “privatizing public schools” on the level of actually threatening public schools as we know them.  But strictly speaking school vouchers could be considered a form of privatizing public schools.  I just don’t see it as one of the long term consequences of vouchers.

StudentsFirst isn't evil or deceptive.  I know some people who work there and they’re good people who care about kids. Just like I know many people in DC who are connected in various ways to education who are good people and care about kids.  I very often don’t agree with them.  And believe me, I’ve been yelled at enough times in public to know that a lot of them don’t agree with me.  But most of the time all of us, even while disagreeing about the color of the sky, are pushing for the same thing: a better education for all students.  That’s a noble thing.

I may disagree with Michelle Rhee about school vouchers but that doesn’t make her deceptive.  To call someone deceptive, to openly question their integrity, to continuously use an internationally acclaimed newspaper to push one side of an agenda is irresponsible.  If you disagree about school vouchers or charters or standardized testing or teacher evaluations those are fine opinions to have.  Write that.  Write about the arguments you disagree with and why you think they are wrong.  Don’t pander to “privatizing public schools” conspiracy theorists.  Don’t knee-jerk disagree just because Michelle Rhee believes something.  Don’t automatically pigeon-hole supporters of education reform as people who for some bizarre reason have decided to destroy the education system they are apparently only pretending to work to save.  There are a lot of things I don’t understand but one thing I do understand is that real life is complex and difficult and sometimes hard decisions have to be made that will hurt people.  And when you walk through a failing school and you talk to students who are being asked to be more heroic than I’ve ever been just to graduate from high school you might see, like I have, that the hardest decision to make is the decision to not change something.  But maybe not, up to you.

A Little Bit on Standardized Testing

Today I ready a blog post by Matt Yglesias that hits the nail on the head for how I feel about standardized tests and the arguments against them.  My feelings on standardized testing are a little more complicated than what can easily be communicated in a single blog post but generally speaking I think they are essential.  Not because they accurately test what children have learned and not because they are the best way to evaluate teachers and not because the are fair to everyone.  Those concerns are more complex and require a nuanced discussion.  


The essential part about standardized tests are that by their very nature they are not especially difficult.  They are geared towards standards that most children should be passing with ease.  They are a blunt instrument that measures whether children are achieving even the most basic skills required to progress in our society.  Students not passing standardized tests is unacceptable because generally speaking that means you can't read and we are failing.


Yglesias' post mentions how high the functional illiteracy rate is in Detroit.  DC also suffers from a shockingly high functional illiteracy rate.  Students who are not functionally literate cannot pass standardized tests, including the math portions.  I would venture a guess that not doing well on standardized tests correlates highly with not going to college and diminished earning power throughout life.  Because that's what happens when someone can't read and it is a tragedy.


When people throw standardized tests under the bus they cite low expectations, not encouraging students to be creative, being unfair to children who just aren't great test takers.  All those are probably legitimate to a certain extent.  But if we were all doing our jobs they would be irrelevant.  Standardized tests are only a big deal because of the extent to which we fail at educating our students.  When people talk about standardized testing not really measuring anything they are talking from the perspective of someone who is worried about the difference between the 60th percentile and the 90th.  What standardized tests and NCLB are actually useful for is finding out where the 0-30 percentile is and targeting those children as the ones who need to learn to read right now or be damned to a life without options.


Are standardized tests a panacea?  Like everything in education the answer is no.  But it is naive to think they don't play an important role and that they don't provide a legitimate benchmark in our lowest performing schools.  Nothing drives me crazy like someone telling me a school with 30% proficiency is actually a good school despite the test scores.  Maybe that school is moving in the right direction but until everyone can read well enough to move the proficiency into the 80s or 90s  it isn't a good school.  Think about going into a school and picking four children at random.  How heartbreaking would it be if one of them couldn't read? What about if two couldn't read?  What about three?  What if it was in high school?