By Kim Dancy
This September, more than 49 million students will return to public school classrooms across the country. By June, these students will have received a minimum of 160 days of instruction from nearly four million teachers. These same students will complete a gauntlet of tests, designed to measure academic proficiency in reading, math and other subjects, and their scores will influence whether teachers get bonuses or pink slips, not to mention which schools get shut down entirely. With such high stakes associated with these exams, it’s no wonder that some school officials have resorted to extreme measures to mask low or declining student performance.
Suspicions of widespread cheating first broke in Atlanta in 2009. Since then, the phenomenon has snowballed: allegations have surfaced in Baltimore, Philadelphia, Washington DC, Detroit, Denver, Los Angeles, Brooklyn, Houston and Memphis, just to name a few. Then there are the horror stories—the principals who forced their teachers to crawl under tables at meetings as punishment for refusing to cheat, or the purported “answer changing parties” that were held by school administrators. As sensationalist as these anecdotes may be, they’re indicative of a pervasive and daunting trend in the world of K-12 education. 
Among numerous problems in standardized testing, oversight remains a serious issue. The decentralized nature of the education system and the lack of manpower at the federal level make it inappropriate, if not impossible, for the Department of Education to take on monitoring responsibilities. And while many State Educational Agencies do conduct on site audits of test administration, they often lack the necessary resources to do so in every individual school district. This leaves local officials as the primary entity responsible for monitoring testing activities—in cases where local leadership fails to emphasize the importance of test integrity, the dependability of the results is put at risk. Thus, the highly localized nature of testing creates high variability in the scrupulousness of test results nationwide.
Even when clear oversight exists, determining what conduct is considered cheating remains an important issue. Some practices are clear-cut: changing student answers is undeniably dishonest no matter what the circumstance. Still, gray areas persist. Is it cheating to provide definitions of a word like “denominator” during a math exam? To allow a student a few extra minutes at the end of the testing period? To tailor this year’s instruction to last year’s exams? These answers depend to a large degree on the policies set forth by a particular jurisdiction regarding appropriate testing behaviors, but consistency within a state or locality is crucial. Ambiguities such as these diminish the comparability of scores across students, classrooms, and districts—in this way, seemingly harmless behavior may undermine the reliability of test results.
Arguably the most significant challenge in standardized testing is the incentive structure in place under current federal, state and local law; testing is not new, but high stakes for teachers, schools and administrators are. The No Child Left Behind Act’s (NCLB) emphasis on assessments was based on state-level initiatives that gathered information on the effectiveness of schools by testing students. NCLB added the now infamous sanctions for schools that failed to meet ever-escalating achievement goals, but even with the heightened importance of test results in national policy not one federal requirement exists to ensure that appropriate test security structures are in place.
The increasing popularity of pay-for-performance systems in many states and localities (as well as federal competitive grant and waiver programs) has further exacerbated this pressure. Incentives now exist not just for schools, but also for individual teachers to turn to desperate measures in order to avoid the catastrophic impact of low-test scores. In DC alone, nearly 400 educators have lost their jobs as a result of the three-year-old IMPACT evaluation system. Regardless of whether these terminations were justified, putting a person’s livelihood and career on the line makes bending the rules on a test that much easier to justify. Some districts, such as New York Public Schools, have gone so far as to publish rankings for teachers and schools, despite serious methodological flaws in the generation of these estimates. This, in conjunction with the pervasive mentality that an administrator’s success is determined by his or her ability to raise test scores has created an environment where a strict focus on data can come at the expense of learning itself.
What’s more, these incentives are exacerbated in places like Atlanta, where a culture built around “results at any cost” undoubtedly amplified these pressures: whistleblowers were punished and ostracized, district leaders created an atmosphere of fear and intimidation, and those who failed to improve scores were openly shamed. Ultimately, 82 teachers confessed to changing student answers, while 96 others were implicated. While anonymous or confidential reporting mechanisms would have allowed these teachers and others to come forward without fear of retribution, few of these avenues exist.
Despite these critical flaws in the implementation of NCLB’s assessment policies, testing remains an incredibly important and useful tool when administered appropriately. One of the key success stories of NCLB is the vastly expanded pool of information it engendered regarding student performance. Testing and the resulting data are essential to tailoring education policy and to identifying where public education is falling short. However, insufficient resources in most, if not all districts, coupled with the overwhelming test-based incentives faced by teachers and administrators have created a predicament that is more resilient than many would like to acknowledge. Establishing anonymous and confidential reporting mechanisms, implementing airtight oversight and monitoring procedures, and developing best practices in test administration are all potential avenues for federal policies aimed towards alleviating the burden of cheating. Should these tactics fall short, it may be that divorcing high stakes from standardized testing is the only way to ensure assessments are capturing an accurate picture of student ability. Anything less is a disservice to students and teachers alike.
Established in 1995, the Georgetown Public Policy Review is the McCourt School of Public Policy’s nonpartisan, graduate student-run publication. Our mission is to provide an outlet for innovative new thinkers and established policymakers to offer perspectives on the politics and policies that shape our nation and our world.
I agree. Let’s look at potential nomeeins who may start the 2016 Presidential run in a few days of both parties and also 3d and independent parties and groups. I would hope that teachers, me included could find the time to write our Congressional and Senatorial representatives. I wrote a letter on Oct. 17. I don’t a lot of free time but I did so for several reasons. One of which is to have a legacy that can be researched by decedents a few hundred years from now. What did my relative Mark, a teacher think about President Obama’s stand on education? Oh, let’s search Obama’s records. Now, we have another opportunity. Let’s hope it’s better than the 430 letters out of a possible 3.5 million. A quick note is better than nothing at all folks. Of course, those who don’t have the time may find themselves with lots of time if they don’t get involved. Just a nudge.