With the Rowan-Salisbury and Kannapolis school systems digesting the Adequate Yearly Progress results released late last week, this is an opportune time to talk about standardized testing disasters.
Not here ó in Atlanta.
A brief consideration of the crisis in that large urban system can serve two purposes. It stands as a cautionary tale about the perverse consequences that result when obsession with high-stakes testing clouds the judgment of top-level administrators as well as teachers. (Not to mention politicians.) It also offers perspective on this yearís AYP results, when only five RSS schools and none in Kannapolis met the tougher standards that took effect. There are worse outcomes than struggling to meet ever-rising federal performance hurdles.
For those whoíve missed the story, a recap: Following an investigative series in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Georgia officials launched a 10-month probe into allegations of widespread cheating on standardized testing in the 50,000-student Atlanta system, where former Supt. Beverly Hall had received national recognition for driving up scores. Those scores, the state found, were heavily tainted by manipulation and dishonesty. Instead of ěteaching to the test,î teachers and administrators were teaching children to cheat, or in some cases changing answers themselves.
The stateís report said the abuses dated to 2001, affecting half the districtís 100 schools. Top administrators ignored ěsignificant and clearî warnings of widespread cheating, the report said; it concluded that an environment of fear and intimidation ruled the system, symbolized in Hallís ěno excuses, no exceptionsî mantra.
The report implicated 178 educators, many of whom have resigned. Most telling, it summarized the atmosphere this way: ěMost teachers, and many principals, described an oppressive environment Ö where the entire focus of the district had become achieving test scores rather than teaching children.î
Testing scandals have emerged in other school systems, including Washington, D.C., but the Atlanta episode is the largest, and it has renewed debate over the ěall or nothingî nature of NCLB standards. Thereís no excusing the shocking behavior described in the report, which damaged untold numbers of students who were passed along from grade to grade, woefully ill-prepared for the world outside school walls. Yet, unless you believe the Atlanta system attracted unusually dishonest educators, the testing culture bears some culpability.
The scandal should make all of us, educators and community alike, consider how high we want testing stakes to be ó and how the results should be used to evaluate systems, schools and individual teachers. Atlantaís scandal can be dismissed as a horrible aberration. But the reportís description of a high-pressure atmosphere and single-minded focus on ěachieving test scoresî could equally apply to many other schools where honest efforts fall short of ěall or nothingî expectations.