|
|
|
High-stakes testing, paltry funding are to blame for Philly cheating scandal
Teachers and/or administrators have, it appears, engineered far more widespread cheating on standardized tests at Philadelphia schools than has previously been reported. Sufficient funding, in place of high-stakes testing, is critical to true reform.
High-stakes testing, paltry funding are to blame for Philly cheating scandal
Teachers and/or administrators have, it appears, engineered far more widespread cheating on standardized tests at Philadelphia schools than has previously been reported, according to a lengthy article in the Sunday Inquirer.
Citywide, 53 city schools—one in five—is under investigation. Twenty-five of the city's top-tier Vanguard Schools—an astonishing 44 percent—are suspected of cheating.
The Inquirer first uncovered potential cheating at Roosevelt Middle School in May 2011. One month later, The Philadelphia Public School Notebook uncovered a 2009 state study that found 89 schools statewide, including 28 in Philly, had been identified for suspicious test scores. The Notebook's scoop prompted the current state investigation.
Thanks to the Notebook and Inquirer, the state is well on its way to establishing if cheating happened. The next big question—and, I think, the far more important question—is why cheating happened.
“The pressure to perform well on achievement tests is intense,” notes the Inquirer. “State tests such as the PSSA determine whether schools make 'Adequate Yearly Progress' under the federal No Child Left Behind law. Failing to make AYP over several years could trigger school closure. In recent years, cheating scandals have rocked the Atlanta and Washington school systems, where federal officials eventually got involved.”
The New York Times put it more directly last July, reporting on our city's unfolding scandal: “Never before have so many had so much reason to cheat. Students’ scores are now used to determine whether teachers and principals are good or bad, whether teachers should get a bonus or be fired, whether a school is a success or failure.”
Yet the cheating scandal has yet to fully reverberate as such, perhaps because the school district has so many nigh-apocalyptic problems revolving around its budget gap: the district must cut $61 million by June, and there is an expected $269 million gap in next year's budget. Last summer's cuts led to the elimination of 3,800 teacher and staff positions, including 1,300 layoffs.
Teachers, aides, school police, nurses are being cut at schools that already provide very little in the way of extracurriculars, arts, music or libraries.
But the two issues—cheating and budget cuts—are truly one and the same. The long-term underfunding of schools—exacerbated by Gov, Tom Corbett's $300 million cut to the district last year—has fatally undermined the district's capacity to educate our children.
Is this a problem, you may ask, that you can “just throw money at”? Umm, yes!
The 2007 state “costing out” study found that the state underfunded schools by $4.38 billion—including a $1 billion deficit to Philly schools, which had the greatest needs but spent much less per pupil than better-off districts. For a tidy illustration of this glaring racial and economic inequality, read the Notebook's report comparing Overbrook High and the neighboring suburban high school in Lower Merion: in 2008-'09, Lower Merion spent nearly $26,000 per student each year, while Philadelphia spent less than $13,000.
Gov. Ed Rendell made some effort to remedy the funding gap, but as the Notebook reported (before Corbett's cuts) in 2010, “If you don’t count federal stimulus dollars, which are used up this year, the state’s own contribution to spending on education is barely higher than it was in 2007-'08.”
Philadelphia students often start out in poverty and with other related disadvantages, and then go on to receive an inferior education.
Instead of dealing with this social-justice problem as a straightforward matter of civil rights, so-called reformers have spent the past decade (with bipartisan support, including vocal backing from presidents Bush and Obama) insisting that everything but money—more charters, harsher teacher evaluations, and vouchers—is the solution.
The alleged cheating took place during the controversial reign of Superintendent Arlene Ackerman, and it will be interesting to find out how and if she promoted misbehavior. But this scandal likely goes far beyond, and way deeper than, Queen Arlene.
The evidence is abundant that the current model for “reforming” low-performing urban schools—rewarding and punishing teachers, principals and schools for their students' standardized test scores, opening charters pell-mell to replace traditional public schools and, if pending legislation has its way, using taxpayer dollars to fund private school tuition via vouchers—has failed. Take Chester, where the schools teeter on the edge of bankruptcy after being run under state control from 1994 to 2010. During the trusteeship, the state administration tried nearly everything in the reform handbook: private management and charters galore, it was a veritable lab for education reform. They tried everything, that is, save for giving the district the funding it needs to educate its children.
State officials now believe that cheating at Chester Community Charter, a mega-charter that now enrolls nearly half the district's students, was widespread.
- ActiVman
- adventures
- Arts
- Ask A Man-About-Town
- Award Tour
- Awards
- Bad Idea Factory
- Beer
- Below the Curve
- Bikes
- Booze
- Brian Hickey
- BRT
- Budget
- Budget Fuss
- Business
- Casinos
- City Council
- City Hall
- CouncilMANIC
- CP Abroad
- CP in the Community
- Criminal Justice System
- Day Tripper
- Death and Taxes
- Delaware River
- Design
- DROP
- Drugs
- Dubious Distinction
- Elections
- End of Days
- Environment
- Fashion
- Film Fest
- Financial Meltdown
- FrackTrack
- Free Library
- Gambling
- Gay Stuff
- Get Lit
- Greenstorming
- guns
- Hall Monitor
- Health
- Health Care
- Hello, Kitty
- Holidays
- Ice Cubes
- Iggles
- Immigration
- In Memoriam
- Labor
- Lawsuits
- Letters
- LGBTQ
- Maps
- Marcellus Shale
- Media
- MMA
- Mummers
- Music
- MUST READ
- Mysterious Mysteries
- Nation
- News
- Non Sequitur
- Opinion
- PA politics 2010
- Parking Wars
- Parks and Recreation
- People Send Us This Stuff
- Philadelphia Police
- Philadelphia Union
- Philaphemera
- Philly From Scratch
- philly madness
- Photos
- Poverty
- PPA
- President Obama
- Print Edition
- Prisons
- Protest
- Readers Write
- Real Estate
- Rock Bottom
- Schools
- Science
- Screwing Philly
- SEPTA
- snow
- So Lush
- Soccer
- Sporting Life
- Sports Complex
- State Politicians
- State Politics
- Street Art
- Strike
- Stuff We Like
- Taxes
- Taxi Drivers
- Tech Fetish
- television
- The Budget Crisis
- The City Paper
- The CLOG
- The Human Condition
- The Mayor
- The Phightin Phils
- The World
- Things that make you go hm
- Tinfoil Hats Off
- Under the Table
- Under the Tables
- Urban Development
- Urban Planning
- urban wildlife
- Video Poker
- We Call Shenanigans
- Weather
- Web Junk
- Weekend Omnibus
- White House
- What We've Found
- Women's Issues
- Flyered Up!
- How 'Bout That Weather?
- it's always sunny in philadelphia
- Stu!
- Shopping
- get out
- 10-track mind
- ArtsFlash
- Bloggity
- Bruce Being Bruce
- Colleges
- Comedy
- Gigantic Surprises
- Hello Canary
- Hello Puppy
- errata
- get lost
- Inside The Fishbowl
- Library Closings
- Local Support
- Movies
- Murder
- Night Moves
- Recycling
- radio
- Scientology
- Sex
- Sixers
- Skeeze Police
- State Politicians Screwing Philly
- That's a cool stencil!
- Theater
- Things We See
- This Week
- This Week in Oates
- University City
- WIN
- What we don't heart
- trailer!
- what we heart
- Feeling Guilty
- Askadelphia.
- Broke in Philly
- Contest
- Dance
- Dear Paper Doll
- Do A Good Thing
- Education
- Film Fest Schism
- G20-20 Vision
- Goodbye
- Gossip
- Great American Heroes
- PATCO
- Pearl Jam Week
- Puppy
- Stars of the Photostream
- sustainability
- Lower Merion Webcam-Gate
- The Cycle
- Equality Forum
- Bureaucrat of the Week
- Animals
- ElectionEar
- Photostream
