Everybody Does It / Academic cheating is at an all-time high. Can anything be done to stop it?

It used to be that cheating was done by the few, and most often they were the weaker students who couldn’t get good grades on their own. There was fear of reprisal and shame if apprehended. Today, there is no stigma left. It is accepted as a normal part of school life, and is more likely to be done by the good students, who are fully capable of getting high marks without cheating. “It’s not the dumb kids who cheat,” one Bay Area prep school student told me. “It’s the kids with a 4.6 grade-point average who are under so much pressure to keep their grades up and get into the best colleges. They’re the ones who are smart enough to figure out how to cheat without getting caught.”

This sounds a lot like the kids at the schools the our former TEA commissioner, Dr. Neeley, said wouldn’t have to cheat to get good TAKS scores.

Money makes you honest « Texas Ed: Comments on Education from Texas

Dr. Neeley said the wealthy districts on the list – including many considering self-investigations – are unlikely to cheat.

“You look at Highland Park, Richardson, Eanes,” she said, naming some of the state’s wealthiest districts in the Dallas and Austin areas. “Do they have to cheat to have good scores? I gave a talk in Eanes not long ago and said, ‘Do you people think Westlake High School had to cheat to get good scores?’ “

But I’m sure things are different in Texas, right?

Technorati Tags: cheating, TEA, Caveon, TAKS, Shirely Neeley

End-of-course tests go to Perry | Dallas Morning News | News for Dallas, Texas | Texas Southwest

In addition to determining whether a student graduates, the new exams also would count 15 percent toward the final grade in each subject.

Currently, it appears to be the teachers or administration encouraging cheating, not the students. The TAKS doesn’t affect a student’s grade at all. All high school students have to do is to meet some minimum score on a general exam to get a diploma. Their gpas are safe from any sort of “objective” accountability.

What do you think will happen when A students start failing the end of course exam? I’m guessing that most people see this as something happening at poorer, academically weaker schools. These people will be breathing a sigh of relief when they can say their Algebra II class is far more academically demanding than those at some poorer school.

But just think, if that A means so much more in Collin county and the end of course exam is 15% of the grade, who do you think is going to be more likely to cheat? I’m betting on the ones for who that A is so much more important for their GPAs and college applications. Of course, as long as these districts are wealthy, they don’t have to worry since everyone knows that wealthy districts don’t cheat.

MySA.com: KENS 5: Education:

For example, Northside’s Pease Middle School was flagged for gains in eighth-grade math. But districts don’t know which individual student scores stood out. “If they gave us the data files, we could link it back to a ton of things our schools did,” said Sandra Poth, Northside’s testing director. At Pease, the district doubled the time eighth-grade students were in math class from the 2003-04 school year to the 2004-05 year. Students went from 45 minutes of math each day to 90.

But then again, there are those who can’t really point to any reason for gains in test scores:

MySA.com: KENS 5: Education:

North East Superintendent Richard Middleton said it’s nearly impossible to police a system that tests millions of students each year. North East had one school flagged — Bush Middle School — for gains in sixth-grade math.

Maybe it’s time to start looking beyond just numbers for both schools and students. Tests are a valuable tool, but they aren’t the complete answer.