Standardized tests are the bane of teachers and teachers unions who recognize that the tests measure the teacher's classroom performance more than the student's. The "high stakes" they talk about isn't worry for the children. It's their jobs they fret about. And some of the lengths they go to is astonishing.
November 2, 2008 - Employees at the South Carolina Department of Education, like other states, scrutinize test results to look for signs of cheating. One telling sign is the overabundance of answers that have been erased and corrected, especially if the answers are consistently changed from wrong to right. Twenty-nine of South Carolina's roughly 1,100 schools popped up last year on the state's analysis for having higher-than-average numbers of eraser marks.
One, however, was a standout.
Sanders-Clyde Elementary in downtown Charleston, is a high-poverty school. In 2007, the number of answers corrected in some classes was more than six times the state average of less than one per test. In 2007, 96 percent of third graders taking a South Carolina test at Sanders-Clyde met the state standard in English, compared with an average of 78.3 percent at other city schools. Despite that, Sanders-Clyde students struggled when they went to other schools (New York Times, Oct. 30, 2008) It was the only school in the state red-flagged in every subject for its number of wrong answers corrected.
At Sanders-Clyde Elementary in downtown Charleston, the unusually high wrong-to-right answer switches and improbable one-year academic gains has led to scrutiny from the state and district, and now a State Law Enforcement Division investigation.
Prior History
In an analysis of erasure marks on the tests, Sanders-Clyde Elementary had more wrong answers erased and corrected than any school in the state. The state flagged the school for making improbable one-year academic gains in 2005. State officials made an unannounced visit in 2006 and found no problems.
In 2007 the school popped up on the state's analysis for its high number of eraser marks. The students' scores on the state Palmetto Achievement Challenge Test were among the best in Charleston County. That prompted supervision of the Spring 2008 tests by district monitors.
INTENSE SUPERVISION IN 2008 With intense district supervision of the school's testing process in May 2008, the results showed there were, amazingly, no unusual eraser marks. The school's test scores also fell sharply — by an average of 31 percentage points — in every subject and at every grade level
Almost immediately, teachers and the principal protested. They claimed that,
When Charleston County school officials monitored Sanders-Clyde Elementary School's testing process this year, they deprived students of snacks and breaks and created a stressful and uncomfortable atmosphere, according to teachers' firsthand accounts of the situation.School district leaders dispute that.
Testing monitor Janet Rose, the district's executive director of assessment and accountability who oversaw the monitoring process, said she was surprised at teachers' reactions to the monitoring because it was totally unobtrusive.Her staff deliberately sat in the back or sides of classrooms so they would not distract students, and Rose said no one was pressured to finish tests quickly.
Snacks and breaks were allowed, she said. Rose asked teachers to provide snacks in a more orderly way rather than constantly supplying students with food because that was distracting.
District staff didn't go to the school in an effort to try and find something wrong; they were there to validate the school's scores, she said.
The district stationed monitors in the classrooms and took the tests away from the school each night. When the results came in, the community was stunned.
School response
So how did the school respond? With a 16-page report that blamed the monitors.
The State Law Enforcement Division investigation is ongoing.
"Many Sanders-Clyde staff members are left wondering if the distractions were intentional," the packet read. "Is it possible that individuals had personal agendas that included proving that the poor African-American child on Charleston's East Side could not have possibly produced the improvements documented over the past five years."
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See New York Times, Oct. 30, 2008, "School’s Success Gives Way to Doubt"
The state has deemed half the schools in Charleston as unsatisfactory. The prinicpal of Sanders-Clyde Elementary resigned and left town after the closely supervised tests were given in May. She is now the assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction for schools in Halifax County, N.C. She denies wrongdoing.
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TT - What favors do people do for children when the adults pretend to teach them, fake their test results, patronizingly pat them on the back and graduate children who can't find jobs? Can't even fill out employment application forms and have no hope of leaving squalid poverty?
Education charlatans glorify themselves. They accept the accolades and the glowing news stories. And then they teach children by example how to blame others for lack of achievement. These imposters get away with it every day in high poverty schools using the race card - the "get-out-of-responsibility ticket." They might as well accept money for selling these children into slavery because poverty IS slavery when there is no hope.
Doubtless, we will get letters from teachers who claim that poor children don't get support from home that would enable them to learn. That's what teaching is - motivating and mentoring children. Not standing at a black board. Admittedly, it's harder to teach children whose families aren't convinced that education is worthwhile. But it is not impossible. Writing them off - poor white or black children - as unteachable is pure bigotry.
If standardized tests and the No Child Left Behind Act do nothing else, they demand accountability. For black children. For white children. And isn't it about time?
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