District Administration - November/December 2011 - (Page 52)

Taking the Helm in Cheating Scandals ing—albeit wrongly—to the high-stakes standardized testing required under the federal No Child Left Behind law. “We’ve seen an explosion of cheating over the past year among schools and teachers manipulating scores to meet NCLB’s unrealistic standards,” Schaeffer explains. And various education departments have noticed improbably high jumps in student scores and widespread and suspicious erasures on answer sheets, he adds. The growing cavalcade of transgressions certainly runs counter to the Ameritotally unethical and wrong, we’re probably going to see more of it as educators feel the pressure,” he admits. Cleaning Up in Atlanta The largest cheating scandal by far has cast a pall over Atlanta’s national reputation for dramatic rises in student scores over recent years. State investigators found evidence of “cheating parties” at some schools, where teachers and principals made wholesale changes to student answer sheets. The job of setting things right has fallen to Erroll Davis, the new superintendent of Atlanta Public Schools, who arrived in July after serving for the past five years as the chancellor of Georgia’s university system and its 33 campuses. “I was asked by a number of people [to consider the job] because they knew the scandal was coming and wanted someone who brought credibility and some stability to the system,” he says. Indeed, Davis began work just as the state’s 400-plus-page report was ready. “I had to read that report in two days, and I didn’t know if it would implicate people in my office,” he recalls. “It did, so very soon I had to start getting rid of people.” The firings included the district’s head of human resources, although the 178 educators implicated in the report consisted almost exclusively of teachers and principals. While some of those involved in the cheating scandal have retired or resigned, Davis notes that about 120 “are still at home collecting money” as the grand jury investigation runs its course. “I made it clear to them they would not be in front of students,” says Davis, who removed principals at schools where cheating took place, even if they were not directly implicated. “I have commented extensively on their ‘duty of care,’ to take care of everything in their schools,” Davis explains. “They were derelict in that duty.” On the legal front, Atlanta’s school board has gone so far as to waive the district’s legal privacy rights and has turned over records and computer drives to the grand jury. What remains, Davis says, is to make sure testing irregularities do not happen again. “...we are working to recast relationships, restore confidence, and embrace real change in fundamental ways.” —Leroy Nunery, interim superintendent of schools, The School District of Philadelphia (as stated in his letter to the community on the district Web site) “We’ve seen an explosion of cheating over the past year among schools and teachers manipulating scores to meet NCLB’s unrealistic standards.” —Robert Schaeffer, public education director, National Center for Fair and Open Testing can Association of School Administrators’ Code of Ethics, which demands that educators “fulfill all professional duties with honesty and integrity and always act in a trustworthy and responsible manner.” “It specifically identifies teachers and administrators as the last individuals we want to practice unethical behavior,” explains AASA Executive Director Dan Domenech. He notes that with adequate yearly progress and even educators’ own jobs dependent on student test scores, more teachers and administrators are resorting to measures they might not have taken in the past. “Although [cheating] is 52 November/December 2011 To that end, the district has clarified the chain of custody of tests, including careful documentation, from the time they arrive at schools until they are returned for scoring. Schools are now required to keep tests in sealed storage rooms monitored by cameras and accessible only by a special key that records any entry. Davis may require that future testing be monitored by teachers from a different school and that two people instead of one be involved in counting all answer sheets and test booklets. The downside is more work for administrators. “It takes more time, more energy, more dollars, and it’s definitely an additional distraction,” observes Domenech. “But it’s essential for administrators to do in order to not end up holding the bag.” A Renewed Focus on Ethics Davis also has imposed yearly ethics training for all educators in the district, which is a condition of ongoing employment. “We’ve developed a full-blown ethics program that includes conversations, role playing and online work,” he says. “I want to keep ethics in front of people so they’ll understand that it’s important.” John Barge, Georgia’s state school superintendent, adds that one of the lessons to come from Atlanta’s cheating scandal involves ethical breaches by District Administration

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of District Administration - November/December 2011

District Administration - November/December 2011
Contents
From the Editor
News Update
Inside the Law
Administrator Profile
District Profile
CIO news
How to Update Your Network on a Budget
The Importance of IT Team Unity
Creating an Anti-Bullying Program With the Resources You Have
The Ultimate Empowerment Program for Parents
Taking the Helm in Cheating Scandals
Readers’ Choice: Top 100 Products
New Directions
Professional Opinion
Problem/Solution
Going Mobile

District Administration - November/December 2011