Thomas B Fordham Institute - Advancing Educational Excellence

The right response to the Atlanta cheating scandal

yes Michael J. Petrilli / April 5, 2013

For those of us who support academic standards, testing and accountability as strategies to improve public education, the Atlanta cheating indictments are sobering. Here was a system where dozens of employees, over the course of almost a decade, racketeered to rig results (or so it is alleged).

And while one can hope that Atlanta was an outlier in terms of the scope and longevity of its cheating conspiracy, it’s hardly an isolated case, as examples from El Paso, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and other locales demonstrate.

As expected, test critics are having a field day, using Atlanta as evidence of why all this must go. They yearn to throw the accountability baby out with the testing bathwater. But they’re wrong. The better approach is to “mend it, not end it.”

Try this thought experiment: What would happen if U.S. schools ceased all standardized testing—and related consequences? No more annual assessments, no more grading schools based on the results, no more interventions in low-performing schools, no more teacher evaluations tied to test scores, no more “merit pay” for high performing teachers or job jeopardy for low performers.

The result: In our most affluent communities, little would change. Schools would continue to drive toward the real-world standard of college acceptance at elite universities, via Advanced Placement exams and high SAT scores.

At schools serving both rich and poor kids, we would probably see a return to the 1990s, when achievement gaps were overlooked, wealthy students were guided toward

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The right response to the Atlanta cheating scandal

First Bell 4-4-13

yes Pamela Tatz / April 4, 2013

A first look at today's most important education news:

On Wednesday, the Mississippi House and Senate passed legislation providing $3 million to partially fund pre-K programs for four-year-olds. Today, the state Senate will consider a bill (passed by the state House yesterday) that would allow charters to open in low-performing districts and give school boards in high-performing school districts veto power. (Hechinger Ed and Charters & Choice)

Last autumn, Tennessee began to place its lowest-performing schools in a special state-run district; 80 percent of those bottom-ranked schools are in Memphis. (New York Times)

The Indiana House Education Committee considers a bill that would make it the first state to require all public schools to have an armed person with a loaded weapon on the school campus during school hours. (Huffington Post)

With the Atlanta school cheating scandal on the mind, NPR looks back at a similar scandal twenty-five years ago.

Leonie

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First Bell 4-4-13

Agitating, standards, charters, teachers, and widgets

yes Andy Smarick / April 4, 2013

• Just got back from a great trip to Kansas City (part of my National Agitation Tour). The Kauffman Foundation is doing very important work (check out these videos), and their team members were terrific hosts. You can scroll through the audience’s take on my book talk here. Per my pushing for the replacement of the failed urban district, Marc Porter Magee, temporarily at the helm of the SS Hess-blog, turns in a good piece about the need for cage-busting leaders to change the system, not just break its rules.
• Common Core (and assessments!) guru KPM teamed up with Sol Stern on National Review Online to explain to conservatives why the new common standards aren’t to be feared or pilloried. Tom Friedman’s column explains why the U.S. needs tougher standards and expectations, even (especially?) in our more comfortable (complacent?) middle-class communities.
• If you care about urban schooling, charters, and/or governance reform, you ought to give the latest report from Fordham and Public Impact a read. It looks into charter performance in five cities and offers lots of reason for encouragement and sound advice for improving policy and practice. Its prescription (smart authorizing, closures, replications, strong support environment, etc.) mirrors that of my book. When you combine these lessons with recent findings from CREDO’s many city-

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  Category: Charters & Choice / Curriculum & Instruction / Standards, Testing, & Accountability / Teachers

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  Agitating, standards, charters, teachers, and widgets

First Bell 4-3-13

yes Pamela Tatz / April 3, 2013

A first look at today's most important education news:

Test-prep-focused “cram schools,” once the turf of Asian- and Russian-American students, are gaining popularity with other cultural groups. (New York Times)

Some Texas lawmakers are aiming to scale back the state’s high school graduation requirements. (Education Week)

AFT president Randi Weingarten attributed the standardized-test cheating scandal in Atlanta to “test-crazed” education policies. The drama continues. (Huffington Post and New York Times)

Studies find that students who have the most trouble in mathematics have the worst odds of obtaining a qualified math teacher. (Education Week)

According to Thomas Friedman, the most recent PISA report comparing U.S. middle-class students to global peers shows that the best schools have “cultures that believe anything is possible with any student” (New York Times)

U.S. Representative Eric Cantor argues that federal education aid should follow children, especially those of “vulnerable populations” and kids with special needs. (Politics K–12)

Malala Yousafzai, the fifteen-year-old Pakistani girl who was shot in the head by the Taliban earlier this

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First Bell 4-3-13