Focus sur les tests standardisés peut être pousser certains enseignants à tricher

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.

Par Howard Blume, Los Angeles Times

7:06 PM PST, Novembre 6, 2011

The stress was overwhelming.

Pendant des années,, 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, lesser misconduct or mistakes on standardized achievement tests.

The teachers came from 23 schools and 21 districts — an unprecedented number that has raised alarms about the pressure California educators are under to improve test scores. In the worst alleged cases, teachers are accused of changing incorrect responses or filling in missing ones after students returned answer booklets.

Many accused teachers have denied doing anything wrong. But documents and interviews suggest that an increasing focus on test scores has created an atmosphere of such intimidation that the idea teachers would cheat has become plausible.

“One teacher has personally confided in me that if her job was on the line, she indeed would cheat to get the higher test scores,” one Los Angeles-area instructor said. “The testing procedures haven’t been secure over the past 10-plus years. Some of the ‘most effective’ teachers could be simply the ‘most cunning.’ ”

None of the accused teachers contacted by The Times were willing to be identified. For the most part, even their colleagues declined to be interviewed, saying that any comments about their schools would only continue the ignominy.

But in off-the-record comments or reports filed with school districts, the accused have spoken of their motivations, their errors or their innocence. Many talked about the devastation that the cheating cases have wrought on their lives and their schools.

“I am losing my sleep over it,” the Los Angeles teacher said in an interview. The teacher, 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 du 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. A teacher in San Francisco gave students hints during the exams. In La Quinta, a teacher violated rules by reading test questions and passages aloud.

The teacher at Virgil Middle School was accused of scanning the test and using actual exam questions to prepare students.

The number of alleged cheaters is minuscule compared with the 300,000 teachers in California. For the vast majority, cheating remains unthinkable.

“I can’t for the life of me understand why a teacher would risk their job over this stuff,” said Tina Andres, a middle school math teacher in Orange County.

Mais, she added: “Bien sûr, many of them probably feel that they could lose their job if they don’t.”

It’s a bind that teachers struggle with in the face of declining resources and students who often lack support and resources from home.

“The current system sets it up so students and teachers must succeed on a multiple-choice test, but it does not provide the resources to do so effectively,” said one administrator who did not want to be identified.

“Both the system and the cheaters are wrong.”

Such a combination can lead in rare cases to a dangerous logic, said Palo Alto High School English teacher David B. Cohen. Some teachers “might even feel that since they and their students have been treated unethically by ‘the system’ … that they might as well try to game the system in order to lessen its impact.”

“With my own students,” at-il ajouté, “si je donne les affectations de sens qui ont un impact significatif sur les catégories et sont faciles à tromper, Je n'aurais jamais tolérer la tricherie, mais je ne peux pas prétendre être surpris si cela se produit.”

Certains enseignants ont insisté pour que leur faute était d'aider leurs élèves dans les rapports de l'état obtenu par The Times par le Public Records Act.

Franklin primaire à La Quinta, par exemple, l'enseignant a admis qu'elle avait violé les règles en lisant les questions d'examen et les passages aux étudiants.

The teacher “a dit qu'elle avait de bons élèves” et “les voulaient bien faire,” selon un rapport envoyé par le district scolaire au Département d'Etat de l'Education.

L'enseignant au primaire Chavez à San Francisco a donné une explication semblable pour laquelle elle a donné aux étudiants des conseils.

“The teacher reported that the students were very needy and had many questions” that made the teacher “mal à l'aise,” 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.

L'année dernière, The Times published “value-added” ratings of teacher performance, basé sur les résultats des tests, pour des milliers de L.A. Les enseignants dans les classes unifiées trois à cinq. Le système scolaire par la suite produit son propre critère similaire, qui a été publié seulement aux enseignants, croissance appelé académique au fil du temps. Les administrateurs seront en mesure de voir que les données dans les prochaines semaines.

Le district scolaire a également lancé un programme pilote - sans conséquences d'emploi pour les participants - qui teste un nouveau système d'évaluation, y compris une mesure étudiant croissance. Le syndicat des enseignants a recours aux tribunaux pour bloquer.

L'accent mis sur les résultats des tests peuvent être trouvées dans tout l'État. Le partenaire d'un enseignant dans un comté rural de la Californie a déclaré il ya une préoccupation malsaine avec les résultats des tests à l'école de son conjoint - une obsession, même.

“Vous n'avez aucune idée,” le conjoint dit.

L'enseignant chevronné, qui avait été honorée récemment que l'enseignant de l'année de l'école, a été accusé d'avoir aidé de façon inappropriée les étudiants pendant les essais. L'enseignant a contesté l'allégation.

Il ya des récompenses tangibles et des peines pour les écoles, dépendent les résultats des tests. Des scores élevés peuvent gagner prestige et augmenter la valeur de la propriété de quartier; scores faibles ou pas du tout - l'État ne peut invalider le classement d'une école si la tricherie a eu lieu - peuvent conduire à la perte des fonds, la suppression de la faculté ou administrateurs, et même la fermeture d'un campus.

Sur tous les campus, une allégation tricherie déchaîne crise qui n'est pas facilement calmé.

Parents à court Avenue Elementary à Los Angeles se sont ralliés à trois enseignants accusés de tricherie ou de fautes moindre, remettre en cause la preuve contre eux et affirmant que l'on ne doit pas nier épisode carrières exemplaires. Les trois instructeurs ont des décennies d'expérience, et personne n'a contesté leur capacité à enseigner.

Les parents ont également exprimé leur préoccupation au sujet de la remise en cause de leurs efforts pour soutenir l'école et de construire sa réputation comme le meilleur endroit pour les parents locaux à envoyer leurs enfants.

“Il ya un risque en ce moment que nous allons tout perdre,” parent James Zucker déclaré lors d'une réunion des responsables et des parents du district scolaire

Source: L.A. Times