Blogs:

A lot of attention was given to the recent cheating scandal in Atlanta school. This is not surprising considering the extent of corruption that shocked the nation. What we must remember however that it is not enough to just focus on Atlanta and a few other cheating cases around our country.

The problem is much bigger and these incidents are not really isolated. These series of incidents are a direct result of our government’s obsession with testing. Policymakers must certainly consider this trend a wake-up call considering the NRC or National Research Council’s report that highlights high stake testing’s negative impact.

There is a link between the culture of retaliation, intimidation and fear and high stakes testing says a Georgia Office of Special Investigators report. Impossible and unreasonable test score targets are set by the school leaders according to this report and this in turn places a lot of unwanted pressure on the principals, teachers and students to achieve targets.

The No Child Left Behind law says by the year 2014, mandatory 100% proficiency will be the requirement for all state tests. This is the cue taken by the Atlanta school leaders. This goal is understandably unattainable.

This unreasonable and irrational mandate is also the reason for the epidemic of cheating cases in states such as New York, Los Angeles and Orlando. Logically, our education secretary Arne Duncan should have addressed this problem with a clear perspective. On the contrary, what he did is to raise the stakes even higher.

Student test results are linked directly to teacher evaluations in his Race to the Top initiative. The amount of testing is expanded too intensifying the pressure on the concerned to do whatever they can to enhance test scores. This is the exact issue identified by investigators dealing with Atlanta case.

Recently a research review was conducted by NRC which brought the impact of high stakes testing on teaching and learning into perspective. The review shows that student achievement has not really improved with high stakes testing, at least there is no improvement enough to bring our country to the levels of other countries that are high achievers.

In fact, they only have a negative impact. This is evident with the fact that rather than increased achievement, high school exit exam programs have only reduced the high school graduation rate. Most educators now focus on aspects that could somehow enhance test scores as they face sanctions.

The focus is more on teaching students strategies for taking tests. Students are constantly drilled on how to meet proficiency cutoffs than actually learn anything. Students are cheated out of a good education and are forced to do nothing but prepare for tests.

Schools give misleading information to the public due to inflated test scores. It is of great concern to parents that students today are in the midst of corruption and are grow up in an atmosphere of fear, retaliation and intimidation. Duncan has dismissed incidents such as what happened in Atlanta as aberrations. Predictably he blames the teachers and says more security is needed.

Don’t you think addressing the root cause of the problem is an imminent requirement? Serious course correction is an urgent requirement if we should avoid any future scandals and further damage to our system.