In an era of high-stakes testing, a struggling school made a shocking choice—to cheat on the standardized exams. Damany Lewis, of Parks Middle School, made an initial decision to photocopy subjects out of the examination booklet that would determine, under the No Child Left Behind guidelines, whether Parks would be classified as a “school in need of improvement” for the sixth year in the row. If they were, the state could possibly shut down the school completely. In a combined effort with other faculty members, Lewis began a system of reviewing the exams to help better prepare students, as well as chose to go back and change answers in the student’s finished test booklets.
Lewis felt, after reviewing the exam that he had covered a lot of the material that was presented in the exam booklet, but felt that the way in which problems were worded could trip up the children, causing them to not understand the question. These children came from a poverish background with little opportunity available outside of their school. “Lewis felt that he had pushed them to work harder than they ever had in their lives, and he was not going to let the state slap them in the face and say they’re failures” (Aviv, 2014).
Was making the striking decision to cheat on the standardized exams too much? Had Lewis created a situation that put the school in too much risk? Aviv quoted in her article that, “They didn’t see the value in the test, so they didn’t see that they were devaluing the kids by cheating.” Were these decisions made by faculty members at Parks an effort to better the students at the school, or was there decision only putting the children in an even stickier situation?
I felt that Aviv’s article made two striking points that could help us understand why these faculty members would make such a decision. One was a quote by a student at Parks after hearing they had reached the standard level for that year. She had said, “We heard what everyone was saying, Ya’ll aren’t good enough. Now we could finally go to school with our heads held high.” The second was a point made that described how Parks was a “sanctuary” or a “safe haven” for these children who attended. They came from very difficult backgrounds, and if the school were to shut down, these efforts to help the children gain an opportunity in life would diminish, as they would be separated and sent to other surrounding schools. It seemed as if these particular teachers were doing anything in their power to get success out of these children. But are these claims a good enough reason to cheat on the standardized exams?
To read an article like this, it is rather alarming. To even go to such an extent to make sure that your children were safe and passed the level at which they needed to be shows how the student’s best interest really is at the heart, as well as how standardized testing is completely unfair. While the decision to cheat is completely unethical and immoral, I think that a greater message comes out of this article and that is that school reform through testing needs to diminish. These tests are in no way an indicator of the improvements that teacher’s get students to make and overcome, especially in situations where the backgrounds of the students are like they were at Parks Middle School.
I know we discussed this article in class, but I thought looking at the overall take home message from this article could be a good conversation topic. Do you think that this article further confirms that standardized testing is not a good step to take in school reform seeing the drastic steps these faculty members were willing to take in order to get the scores needed to keep their school functioning? Or do you think that this article overall just shows how corrupt our schools can be and even more serious steps need to be taken in order to evaluate our students in an ethical manner?
Comments
4 responses to “How Far Is Too Far?”
I feel like the overall message of this article is hard to evaluate considering how biased the article is. The article defends unethical practices and cheating if its for just cause. This is a hard thing for me to look past when deciphering the overall message. In a general sense, I think the article displays how standardized testing has once again gotten in the way of actual teaching. In addition to narrowing curriculum and teaching to the teach, teachers are now wasting time figuring out ways to cheat the system and change answers instead of focusing on truly teaching the things that matter most.
Instead of an article showing how standardized tests prompted teachers to take an “easy way out”, I would like to hear stories of schools who didn’t make AYP, despite various attempts. What happens to schools like Park Middle School where teachers don’t engage in cheating scandals? Is the only other option for these schools to be completely shut down?
I think the teachers were motivated by both student welfare and their own. They have to live in the community, and if the school was closed they would have to find new jobs, their property values would probably decrease, and their community would suffer. They might have also thought about student welfare in that if the school was closed, the students would have to go somewhere else. As a result, they would have a period of transition in their new school, which would most likely place them further behind their peers. I can understand how the teachers felt like this was their only choice, but it still doesn’t make cheating acceptable.
What the cheating did allow the teachers to do was to have control over what they were teaching their students. They didn’t have to worry as much about test prep, but could focus more on the content and making connections between concepts. So, what good are standardized tests doing if teachers see cheating as the only way to get back to actual teaching?
Part of what I got from the cheating article is that standardized tests are simply not effective. As Melinda mentioned, Lewis felt that his students knew the concepts but not the convoluted ways in which the tests expressed them. In addition, if cheating on these exams is as widely spread as this article implies (at least within that district), then the tests are not measuring anything at all. Cheating not only skews the results of a particular student, but gives false ideas about what is working in school reform, and what is possible in terms of yearly progress.
I agree with your point that “Wrong Answer” raises the question of how far is too far when it comes to helping your students succeed. I sympathize with the administration that felt the need to lie about their students’ test scores with the thought that it would help their students succeed. However, I cannot condone an administration being involved in a scandal and sending the message to its students that lying to get your way is okay.
I think the larger take-home message of this article is not one of morality, but rather, speaks to how ludicrous the system of standardized testing has become. The fact that a caring middle school felt that they had no choice but to lie about test scores speaks to how even hardworking and dedicated educators struggle to fit their students into the mold that standardized testing creates. The students at Parks Middle School are blessed to have teachers who care enough to lie and cheat in favor of helping them in the long-run, however they are dammed so long as they are forced to take standardized tests that they will never pass.