Centrarse en las pruebas estandarizadas pueden estar empujando a algunos maestros a engañar

The number of California teachers who have been accused of cheating, lesser misconduct or mistakes on standardized achievement tests has raised alarms about the pressure to improve scores.

By Howard Blume, Los Angeles Times

7:06 PM PST, De noviembre 6, 2011

The stress was overwhelming.

Por años, this veteran teacher had received exemplary evaluations but now was feeling pressured to raise her students’ test scores. Her principal criticized her teaching and would show up to take notes on her class. She knew the material would be used against her one day.

“My principal told me right to my face that she — she was feeling sorry for me because I don’t know how to teach,” the instructor said.

The Los Angeles educator, who did not want to be identified, is one of about three dozen in the state accused this year of cheating, menor falta o errores en las pruebas estandarizadas de logros.

Los profesores vinieron de 23 escuelas y 21 distritos - un número sin precedentes que ha provocado la alarma acerca de los educadores de California están bajo presión para mejorar los resultados de las pruebas. En el peor de los casos denunciados, docentes son acusados ​​de cambiar las respuestas incorrectas o rellenando los desaparecidos después que los estudiantes regresaron cuadernillos de respuestas.

Muchos maestros acusados ​​han negado haciendo nada malo. Pero los documentos y las entrevistas sugieren que un mayor enfoque en resultados de las pruebas ha creado una atmósfera de dichos actos de intimidación que los maestros idea sería hacer trampa se ha convertido plausibles.

“Un maestro ha confiado personalmente en mí que si su trabajo era en la línea, que de hecho sería hacer trampa para obtener los resultados más altos,” un instructor área de Los Angeles, dijo. “Los procedimientos de prueba no han sido seguras en los últimos más de 10 años. Algunos de los 'más eficaz’ los profesores podrían ser simplemente el "más astuto.’ ”

Ninguno de los maestros acusados ​​contactados por The Times estaban dispuestos a ser identificados. En la mayor parte, incluso sus colegas se negaron a ser entrevistados, diciendo que cualquier comentario sobre sus escuelas sólo continuarían la ignominia.

Pero en comentarios o informes presentados a los distritos escolares off-the-record, los acusados ​​han hablado de sus motivaciones, sus errores o su inocencia. Muchos hablaron sobre la devastación que los casos de engaño han forjado en sus vidas y en sus escuelas.

“Estoy perdiendo el sueño por eso,” el profesor de Los Angeles, dijo en una entrevista. El maestro, who taught at Virgil Middle School in Wilshire Center, denied cheating but retired under pressure. “I got so scared. I am crying now. It really broke my heart.”

Cheating has been uncovered across the country as more states and school districts have made test results the key factor in teacher evaluations.

Investigations have found serious cases of cheating in Atlanta, New York City, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.. Atlanta’s experience has become a parable for a system gone awry. Investigators there found cheating at 44 de los 56 schools they examined and identified 178 people thought to be involved.

This year’s spate of misconduct in California ran the gamut:

A teacher in Chula Vista last spring gave students portions of the test to help them prepare. Un maestro en San Francisco dio a los estudiantes consejos durante los exámenes. In La Quinta, un profesor violó las reglas mediante la lectura de las preguntas del examen y los pasajes en voz alta.

El profesor en la Escuela Intermedia Virgil fue acusado de escaneo de la prueba y el uso de preguntas del examen real para preparar a los estudiantes.

El número de presuntos tramposos es minúsculo en comparación con el 300,000 maestros en California. Para la gran mayoría, engaño sigue siendo impensable.

“Yo no puedo por la vida de entender por qué un profesor arriesgaría su trabajo sobre esta materia,” dijo Tina Andrés, un profesor de matemáticas de la escuela secundaria en el Condado de Orange.

Pero, añadió: “¡Por supuesto, muchos de ellos probablemente se sienten que podrían perder su trabajo si no lo hacen.”

Es un lazo que los maestros luchan con frente a la disminución de los recursos y los estudiantes que a menudo carecen de apoyo y los recursos desde casa.

“El actual sistema lo configura para que los estudiantes y los profesores deben tener éxito en una prueba de opción múltiple, pero no proporciona los recursos para hacerlo de manera efectiva,” dijo un administrador que no quiso ser identificado.

“Tanto el sistema como los tramposos están equivocados.”

Tal combinación puede dar lugar en casos raros a una lógica peligrosa, dijo Palo Alto profesor de la Escuela Secundaria Inglés David B. Cohen. Algunos maestros “incluso puede sentir que desde ellos y sus estudiantes han sido tratados de forma poco ética por 'el sistema’ ... Que bien podrían tratar de engañar al sistema con el fin de disminuir su impacto.”

“Con mis propios alumnos,” añadió, “if I give meaningless assignments that have significant impact on grades and are easy to cheat on, I would never condone cheating but I can’t claim to be surprised if it happens.”

Some teachers insisted that their misconduct was about helping their students in reports to the state obtained by The Times through the Public Records Act.

At Franklin Elementary in La Quinta, por ejemplo, the teacher admitted she had violated rules by reading test questions and passages to students.

El maestro “said she had good students” y “wanted them to do well,” according to a report sent by the school district to the state Department of Education.

The teacher at Chavez Elementary in San Francisco offered a similar explanation for why she gave students hints.

“The teacher reported that the students were very needy and had many questions” that made the teacher “incómodo,” the report stated without further explanation. District officials declined to discuss the matter.

Underlying the rationales is a persistent anxiousness that many teachers said they feel over performance evaluations. These reviews are increasingly linked to tenure and dismissal decisions.

A lawsuit filed last week seeks to force the Los Angeles Unified School District to begin evaluating teachers with test data to demonstrate student progress. Those types of measures have been opposed by teachers unions and some experts, who see them as an unreliable, one-dimensional assessment of a teacher’s skill.

El año pasado, The Times published “value-added” ratings of teacher performance, based on test scores, for thousands of L.A. Unified teachers in grades three through five. The school system subsequently produced its own similar yardstick, which has been released only to teachers, called academic growth over time. Administrators will be able to see that data in the coming weeks.

The school district also has launched a pilot program — without job consequences for participants — that tests a new evaluation system including a student-growth measure. The teachers union has gone to court to block it.

A focus on test scores can be found statewide. The partner of one teacher in a rural California county said there is an unhealthy preoccupation with test scores at his spouse’s school — an obsession, even.

“You have no idea,” the spouse said.

The veteran teacher, who’d been a recent honoree as the school’s teacher of the year, was accused of inappropriately helping students during the tests. The teacher has contested the allegation.

There are tangible rewards and punishments for schools, dependent on test scores. High scores can earn prestige and boost neighborhood property values; low scores or none at all — the state can invalidate a school’s ranking if cheating has occurred — can lead to loss of funds, the removal of faculty or administrators, and even the closing of a campus.

On any campus, a cheating allegation unleashes turmoil that is not easily calmed.

Parents at Short Avenue Elementary in Los Angeles rallied behind three teachers accused of cheating or lesser misconduct, questioning the evidence against them and asserting that one episode should not negate exemplary careers. All three instructors have decades of experience, and no one has challenged their ability to teach.

Parents also expressed concern about the undermining of their efforts to support the school and build its reputation as the best place for local parents to send their children.

“There is a risk right now that we are going to lose everything,” parent James Zucker said at a meeting of school district officials and parents

Fuente: LA. Tiempos