High stakes testing - John Merrow -- a sign the media is turning on the ed deformers

Because I spent three years chronicling the tenure of Michelle Rhee in Washington, DC – another city with a spate of thus-far-unexplained 'wrong to right' erasures on standardized tests — I am interested in this story. ---- John Merrow


There was a time not long ago when Merrow seemed to go along with all the sins of ed deform. Then he started talking to teachers.
Here he realizes that it is not about the physical act of cheating - which until the heat got turned up the people running school systems winked at - as did many principals -- and many still do.

But the focus on phys cheating when your job is threatened puts the teachers under the gun. "If you may take my job anyway if I don't cheat what's the worst that could happen if I do?"

As Merrow is beginning to realize it is the collateral effects of high stakes testing that is the root.

Merrow was full of praise for Rhee and Vallas in New Orleans.
Now the late returns are coming in.


A Trifecta Of Sins

A comprehensive report in late March by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution provides strong evidence that adults in as many as 200 school systems have been cheating on their students' standardized tests.

We looked at this for NewsHour in 2011:

Because I spent three years chronicling the tenure of Michelle Rhee in Washington, DC – another city with a spate of thus-far-unexplained 'wrong to right' erasures on standardized tests — I am interested in this story. I'd like to know if anyone cheated in the DC schools. If so, who and why?

But a teacher I correspond with occasionally brought me up short recently. My focus on actual, literal cheating — physically changing answers or giving kids answers in advance — is too narrow, this teacher wrote.

More at: http://takingnote.learningmatters.tv/?p=5681

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On way to 3020a hearing. If possible will post and tweet from there.