Welp.
I guess if it can happen to me when I merely worked (for pay) in the evenings from 5-9 grading high school proficiency tests, it can certainly happen with a teacher.
FIRED!
You name it, I’ve done it. And sitting in a big, large room with other adults looking as if we were being tested ourselves (or in a concentration camp), I graded high school proficiency tests: the portion where pretty much-the answers my friend would blow in the wind, the answers’ just blowing in the wind.
No, I didn’t change an answer or anything like that, but I questioned the question.
Our job as chosen “professionals” (who had to have had certain colleges courses and/or degrees in order to even secure the job), was to determine (according to the question), if the student’s answer best fit.
Out of about maybe 10 questions on a page, it was obvious (whoever the student was) understood what he/she was doing but when it got to the last question, it was the way it was worded that would have confused me to (in grade school).
Well low and behold, the concentration camp head came around and noticed that I was on the same sheet she’d looked down at when she was first over on my side. When she asked me if there was a problem I simply explained,
“Yeah well, as you can see here, this student knows what’s going on but this last question is kind of confusing. So should I grade this question based on what I think the student meant-if the question was worded differently?”
“So are you questioning the student or are you questioning the question?” she asked.
“Questioning the question,” I answered, simply.
“Well pack your things-you’re fired,” she replied, simply.
I hauled @$$.
It was funny (lol).
Well that was that on that.
In Atlanta, I’m guessing some teachers questioned a lot [of the questions] as, some where actually changing answers of some of their students’ tests.
Basically, “standardized” tests were used as an direct indicator of the school/classroom’s academic performance, and to keep that grade satisfactory or above, some teachers were found having changed some student’s answers.
We’ll let Steve Almasey of CNN tell you the story.
Read on:
All but one of 12 defendants charged with racketeering and other crimes in the Atlanta Public Schools cheating scandal were convicted Wednesday.
“We’ve been fighting for the children in our community, particularly those children who were deprived by this cheating scandal,” Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard said.
Ten of the defendants were taken into custody, while one woman who is pregnant will remain out on bond until sentencing.
All 11 were convicted of racketeering, with a mixture of convictions and acquittals on other charges, including making false statements, CNN affiliate WGCL reported. One teacher was acquitted of all charges.
Howard told reporters sentencing should happen in the coming weeks.
In 2013, a Fulton County grand jury indicted 35 educators from the district, including principals, teachers and testing coordinators.
More than 20 former school system employees took a plea deal, WGCL reported.
A state review had determined that some cheating had occurred in more than half the district’s elementary and middle schools. About 180 teachers at 44 schools were implicated initially.
The cheating is believed to date back to early 2001, when scores on statewide skills tests began to turn around in the 50,000-student school district, according to the 2013 indictment.
For at least four years, between 2005 and 2009, test answers were altered, fabricated and falsely certified, the indictment said.
Michael Bowers, a former Georgia attorney general who investigated the cheating scandal said in 2013 that there were “cheating parties,” erasures in and out of classrooms, and teachers were told to make changes to student answers on tests.
“Anything that you can imagine that could involve cheating — it was done,” he said at the time.
During his investigation, he heard that educators cheated out of pride, to earn bonuses, to enhance their careers or to keep their jobs, he said.
During the trial, prosecutor Fani Willis told the jury that some students were given the correct answers, CNN affiliate WSB reported.
Investigations into the remarkable — and suspicious — improvements on standardized tests were first reported (cont’d)
