I found this article was on Yahoo this morning, and had a couple things to say about it. While I'm appalled that teachers would actually do something like erase and replace student test answers, I'm almost more appalled by what's implied by the article: that this kind of cheating is popping up everywhere, indicating that teachers are getting more and more corrupt. As if we need another reason for people to hate on us. THe article is actually the first I've heard about such things happening. Of course, that doesn't mean it doesn't happen, I'm just saying, let's not make teachers out to all be evil, corrupt, cheating human beings. I do appreciate that the article gets down to the root of the issue, and that is the pressure that schools, teachers, and administrators feel to have high test scores. The alternative is to lose funding. But what I find crazy about the whole situation is that, like the article suggests, how is teaching to the test not equally bad as changing answers. Isn't it in essence the same idea? I don't diminish the illegality of what those teachers did in Atlanta, but I'm saying that clearly there's a larger issue here that we need to address. Perhaps, standardized testing is not the way to go. Can you imagine what might happen when states start going to merit pay for teachers based on those standardized test scores? It's certainly not going to eradicate the problem, that's for sure.
My point is this: at what point will government officials realize what teachers have known for years? Standardized testing has it's place, but it's definitely not to determine what schools are successful, what schools get funding, and what teachers get better pay.
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