To what extent are teachers willing to ensure the success of their students and the preservation of their schools? In the article “Wrong Answer” written by Rachel Aviv, a teacher was willing to risk his position, the integrity of his school, and his students’ knowledge of such scandal for the chance to finally meet the annual goals required by the No Child Left Behind act. The way the article was written elicited a sympathetic reaction towards the plights of teachers in lower socio-economic areas who try to teach to the standardized tests required by the government. It seemed to insinuate that passionate teachers in run-down neighborhoods should be forgiven for acts such as cheating for their students on these tests with the justification of boosting the confidence of their students and avoiding the permanent closing of their schools.
As a reader of this article and a strong advocate against standardized tests, I did feel some sympathy toward the teachers and the state to which they were reduced to through the implementations of standardized tests. But I also do not believe that such unjust acts should be condoned regardless of the circumstance. Not only is a flawed example is being set for the students, but once the news on the teaching scandal is exposed, these students are likely to feel even more discouraged when they find out that they were not responsible for their good grades. Rather, they had to be assisted by their teachers. There is no pride in this. Furthermore, I do not condone the unjust acts of creating standardized tests which are predestined to fail certain students before they even take the tests. This brings me to beg the question, is one of these unjust acts less unjust? Or is there another way completely to fight the unjust system in a more just manner?
Comments
9 responses to “Which form of injustice is more right?”
I agree completely with you that such unjust acts should not be condoned regardless of the circumstances, but it also reflects to me as a reader just how unsupportive those who work directly in the education environment feel toward standardized testing. It is so interesting that such a strong emphasis is placed among these tests, yet teachers will go out of their way to perform these unjust acts to get by the standards which have been set in place for each school.
While obviously it does not set a good example to the children of that school, and furthermore cheating is not ever the correct answer, I think the article raises an important issue, and that is some other type of education reform needs to take place over these standardized tests. What that may be, I am unsure, but it is examples like this that should be such a wake up call to those in charge of school reform and who make these sort of decisions. Still though, it seems as if they are not taking actions to redesign school reform. It only seems that they try and make these tests “less flawed”, but I feel the idea of these tests are simply flawed.
I’m really happy someone shared the same opinion as me on the “Wrong Answers” article. Although I am also against standardized testing and think a new system needs to be put in place, I was extremely bothered by the manner in which unethical actions where being justified. How can one be sympathetic to cheating? Would those same teachers in Park Middle School be as understanding if their students cheated on a test? What if the student was under huge constraints or really did try their best to learn and study the material? I doubt any teacher would condone cheating under any of these circumstances.
In addition to your comments about how cheating provides a bad example for students and could lower their self-esteem, cheating also creates a bad example for other failing schools. Other schools that are struggling and not cheating are shown that schools that take extreme unethical measures are praised and receive additional funding for the years they “get away it”. I agree with Melinda that all our points simply display the deeply rooted problems with standardized testing or the unintended consequences. Personally, I believe that reformers should do away with standardized testing as the sole measure of success and instead encompass a variety of measurements ( graduation rates, SAT scores, teachers evaluations, etc.) like the “school report card” reform suggests.
I too did not feel comfortable reading Rachel Aviv’s article “Wrong Answer.” While I do understand the seriousness of having bad test scores and how that can lead to school closure, I do not see how cheating is at all beneficial to the children at Park Middle School. The school is struggling. Scores are low. Teachers, however, were stooping lower than the scores by changing answers. The teachers may only outwardly claim they were acting in the best interests of the students, but I would bet there were self-motivated teachers afraid of their job security if the school closed.
I also believe in education, specifically elementary and middle school education, learning character is just as important as learning the material. The educators of Park Middle School failed in teaching their students character. We need to be building up the future generation to be filled with honesty, integrity, and respect not falsified success, purely self-interests, and deceit.
Melissa,
After reading the “Wrong Answer” article, I also felt torn about the actions of the teachers, and completely agree that it shouldn’t be condoned. The teachers completely set up their students for failure when they doctored those scores. When the news came out that they had cheated, imagine how disheartened those students must have been! They didn’t just do poorly. They did so poorly that their teachers felt like it was necessary to cheat. And those teachers definitely should be tried and punished. However, I also look at the lack of responsibility and integrity shown by the upper levels of the school board. If Aviv’s interviews are accurate, the superintendent knew what was happening, and put principals and teachers in the position where their backs were against the wall. I feel like the extreme amount of pressure placed on the schools by standardized tests and programs such as No Child Left Behind don’t do anything but corner schools. Why does a school have to go it on their own? Why don’t high-achieving schools share resources, teachers with experience, or anything at all? The weight of competition is on the backs of all school principals, and it kills cooperation from occurring.
I also felt that the article was written in a way that elicited compassion for the teachers involved in the cheating scandal. I agree with Courtney that if the higher-ups were truly involved (or at least aware) of the cheating, then this may signify a larger issue in the relationship between schools and standardized testing. Melinda’s comment about those who work in schools not agreeing with how schools are measured reminds me of the education reform conference we read about, which included politicians and businesspeople, but no educators. It seems obvious to me that people who work directly with students would be the most able to make decisions about how students can be measured. However, as we have seen, other people (like politicians and philanthropists) tend to believe that they are the true education experts.
I think most of us agree that the article was written with a sympathetic attitude toward the teachers. By the end of the article, I felt bad for Lewis and wanted to see him reinstated as a teacher. However, I also think that what he did was wrong and that cheating is never the solution to a problem, even if the system is severely flawed.
As we’ve talked about in class, the problem with “under-performing schools” is deeper than test scores and teacher quality. The largest factors on the quality of a student is their family, socioeconomic background, and community. These are problems that will probably never be fixed, no matter what laws are put in place by the government. There will always be a lower class and there will always be irresponsible parents which are things that cannot be controlled. I think that people shouldn’t overreact to low test scores from schools in poor neighborhoods because honestly, what exactly was expected of them? Although this sounds very judgmental, it is also true. These outside factors make it unfair for children from low-income families or from broken families and it would be unfair to expect them to be amazing students when they are being so heavily influenced by these outside factors. This doesn’t mean that cheating is the solution for this problem, but that policy changes should be made that do not factor in standardized tests as a determining factor.
Mary, I completely agree with your opinions about this article. As many of our classmates have already stated above me, I think the main problem here is the fact that there are teachers in the American school system who are so against standardized testing, that they were willing to risk everything for their students. While there is a positive side to the fact that these teachers care about the success and the futures of their students, this was not the way to show that care. Even if these teachers had not been caught, what did they expect was going to happen? Were they planning on cheating for their students until they graduated high school? Eventually these students were going to have to take tests and receive grades without any help and when these students were left with scores that were less than what they had been receiving, how was that to be explained?
It is important to have teachers who truly love their students and love what they do but it is also important to have teachers who are more than just educators. These teachers are around their students more than many of these students are even around their parents. They are role models. Children look up to their teachers and they need to see people with morals and integrity. It appears that these teachers did not take that into account when trying to help their students to succeed.
I agree that while I can sympathize with the administration of the school described in “Wrong Answer,” I do not think we can condone such behavior from an institution that is supposed to be teaching its students how to be functioning and productive members of society. I also the scandal sends the students the wrong message not only literally about lying and cheating, but also sends them the wrong message at a more subtle level. When I think about the students at Parks Middle School, they are underprivileged students who already have a lot stacked against them in the way of race, social class and lack of cultural capital. By condoning lying and cheating the system is order to make the school look successful, they are sending the message to the students that the only way they are going to succeed in life is if they do so dishonestly. In their home environment, children like those at Parks Middle School already have enough negative influences telling them how to make the wrong choices. The fact that a school administration is not only failing to teach its students morals, but is condoning immoral behavior is failing them far more than allowing them to receive the standardized test scores that they deserve.
I think overall it speaks to what Americans value and our need to place a numerical value on everything in order to gain capital. Yes It is true that eventually students will be faced to test on their own, but I started thinking about why this is true. How capitalism has turned students and learning into commodities and what this means for knowledge. Is knowledge worth anything if we cannot produce or make profit from it? I started reflecting on college majors, how we test and assess knowledge and thus how we make a career out of what we learn. It is interesting to consider the ways in which we have fallen victim to the norm of testing, despite our understanding of its flaws and harms for true education.