Fwd: [ARN-state] The Fundamental Cause of Test Cheating

[Susan Harman <susanharman@igc.org>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Bob Schaeffer <bobschaeffer@earthlink.net>
> Date: Mon Jul 16, 2007  11:32:11 AM US/Pacific
> To: ARN Main List <arn-l@interversity.org>,  arn2-strategy 
> <arn2-strategy@yahoogroups.com>, ARN State <ARN-state@yahoogroups.com>
> Subject: [ARN-state] The Fundamental Cause of Test Cheating
> Reply-To: ARN-state@yahoogroups.com
>
> 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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