Re: The Fundamental Cause of Test Cheating

[aburke5054@aol.com]

Campbell did say that corruptibility and corruption inevitably surround 
indicator systems that play central roles in social decision-making. 
And he did say that achievement tests are "highly corruptible" 
indicators.  But he never argued for abandoning indicator systems. In 
fact, he argued that indicator systems are extremely important for 
understanding the effects of planned social change. Consequently he 
casts "Campbell's Law" as a problem to be solved toward the 
socially-important end of evaluating social programs. He said that he 
and many others believe that using multiple indicators will alleviate 
the problem, even though other disagree. NCLB already calls for 
multiple indicators, whether multiple indicators can be operationalized 
in ways that protect the interests of parents and children by 
identifying schools that need to be improved remains to be seen.

Some teachers and principals are cheating or cutting corners, but 
certainly not all are.  Arguing that unethical and unprofessional 
behavior is a natural, and even understandable and excusable response 
by principals and teachers to the testing and accountability mandates 
within NCLB sells the interests of parents and children down the river 
and it does a disservice to the teachers and principals who are living 
up to their professional and ethical obligations.  FairTest disgraces 
itself by accepting cheating as "predictable."

Art

-----Original Message-----
From: Bob Schaeffer <bobschaeffer@earthlink.net>
To: ARN Main List <arn-l@interversity.org>; arn2-strategy 
<arn2-strategy@yahoogroups.com>; ARN State <ARN-state@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Mon, 16 Jul 2007 11:32 am
Subject: [arn-l] The Fundamental Cause of Test Cheating

Congratulations to assessment reform advocate Walt Gardner for another
insightful essay


CHEATING ON STANDARDIZED TESTS ISN'T FLEETING -- IT'S PREDICTABLE

  San Francisco Chronicle -- July 15, 2007

              by Walt Gardner


Whatever the final outcome of the investigation into allegations of
cheating on state-mandated tests for two consecutive years at 
University
Preparatory Charter High School in East Oakland that led to the
resignation of its director, Isaac Haqq, one thing is certain: The
wrongdoing was altogether predictable, although not for the reasons
being widely circulated in the community.


While lax oversight of the school undoubtedly played a role in the
scandal, the cause is more fundamental. More than 30 years ago, Donald
Campbell, an eminent social scientist, warned about the danger of
measuring effectiveness by a single influential metric. The more any
quantitative indicator is used for decision-making, he said, the more
subject it will be to corruption and the more it will corrupt the very
process it is intended to monitor.


The use of high-stakes testing is precisely the kind of process that
Campbell's Law unwittingly foresaw. When attention is focused on
standardized test scores to the exclusion of other factors in 
evaluating
educational quality, the stage is ideally set for unethical behavior.
Uprep, however, is not alone. And neither are charter schools.


In 1969, what was then called the U.S. Department of Health, Education
and Welfare wanted to increase reading and math scores for some 300
junior high and high school students in Texarkana, Ark. The district 
was
under intense pressure to desegregate its schools and close the
achievement gap between black and white students.


The district made the federal government an offer it couldn't refuse.
Under a program called performance contracting, federal funds would be
returned for students who failed to pass at a stipulated level. The
experiment provided incentives for administrators, teachers and
students. The initial evaluation was truly remarkable. Students 
averaged
gains of more than two grade levels in reading and one in math after
only 48 hours of instruction. But the miracle in Texarkana turned out 
to
be the result of cheating on the high-stakes tests being used.
Nevertheless, in the belief that what happened in Texarkana was an
anomaly, the idea moved on to 18 other cities in the state. The lack of
results there eventually put an end to performance contracting.


Fast forward to the No Child Left Behind Act, which became law in 2002.
With so much riding on a single measure, corruption was bound to
flourish under Campbell's Law. In fact, since 2004, at least 123 public
schools in California alone have been identified as engaging in 
cheating
on standardized tests required by No Child, according to a Chronicle
review of documents. In about two-thirds of the cases, schools admitted
their guilt. While the number represents a small fraction of the 
state's
9,468 public schools, it still is cause for deep concern.


Cheating can take many subtle forms. Administrators have pushed out
struggling students from their schools by encouraging them to enroll in
continuation classes, or have advised them to stay home on testing day
because they constitute a liability. The pressure to post high scores 
on
the closely watched tests is greater than ethical considerations.


Campbell's Law also shows up in higher education, when researchers
fabricate or manipulate data in order to get tenure or receive 
lucrative
grants, and in business, when top management cooks the books to boost
the company's price in order to inflate the value of their stock 
options.


In fact, the law is so ubiquitous that it's surprising it hasn't
garnered more attention. That's likely to change in the years ahead,
however, as high-stakes tests continue to be viewed as the gold 
standard
of accountability. One way to resist this trend and minimize Campbell's
Law is to bear in mind Albert Einstein's prescient words: "Everything
that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts
cannot necessarily be counted." This caveat won't eliminate cheating
entirely, but it provides the rationale for reconsidering the nation's
insular approach to educational quality.


Walt Gardner taught for 28 years in the Los Angeles Unified School
District and was a lecturer in the UCLA Graduate School of Education.


http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/07/15/ING9UR0IMM1.DTL







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