Public School Test Cheating: Extend and Pretend?

“Atlanta: Award-winning gains by Atlanta students were based on widespread cheating by 178 named teachers and principals, said Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal on Tuesday. His office released a report from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation that names 178 teachers and principals – 82 of whom confessed – in what's likely the biggest cheating scandal in US history.


This appears to be the largest of dozens of major cheating scandals, unearthed across the country. The allegations point an ongoing problem for US education, which has developed an ever-increasing dependence on standardized tests.”

‘The Atlanta cheating scandal also offers the first most comprehensive view yet into a growing number of teacher-cheating allegations across the US, reports of which reached a rate of two to three a week in June, says Robert Schaeffer, a spokesman for the National Center for Fair & Open Testing, which advocates against high-stakes testing.

It's also a tacit indictment, critics say, of politicians putting all bets for improving education onto high-stakes tests that punish and reward students, teachers, and principals for test scores.

"When test scores are all that matter, some educators feel pressured to get the scores they need by hook or by crook," says Mr. Schaeffer. "The higher the stakes, the greater the incentive to manipulate, to cheat." ‘ (1)


Testing is a High-Stakes Political Bet that Punishes or Rewards?

Sounds very straight forward does it not? That tests are too monumental regarding rewards and punishments and hence cheating occurs. That the system and processes themselves causes the problem. Open and shut case: remove the testing rewards and punishment and hence remove the cheating.


The Counterintuitive Proposition

Public school K-12 education is a late stage collectivist model delivered through monopoly. Late stage collectivist models, by their very nature, suffer from rampant shirk, enrichment of the power purveyors, and abysmal results. Its the nature of the beast.

The beast has become a magnet for reports regarding its many, many problems. The mounting number of reports threatens the continuation of the collectivist model delivered through monopoly.

Given there is no way to reverse rampant shirk due to the base collectivist model in its late stage, and there is no way to reverse abysmal results due to the nature of late state collectivist models, and monopoly delivery is the only way to protect enrichment of the power purveyors……the natural result is final late stage collectivism and the process of making-up results.

The cheating or made-up results, rather than being a school system or teacher reaction based upon reward/punishment, may well be an entire model reaction. Stated alternatively, the US public school model, being a last stage collectivist model delivered through monopoly, in reaction to criticism and constant finger pointing, must raise results or else the model finally gets replaced by a free enterprise model with monies assigned to students [voucher proposition] rather than monies assigned to institutions.

Hence in order to extend, one must pretend.

Below is a link to an additional report: Investigation into APS cheating finds unethical behavior across every level - Atlanta Journal Constitution

http://www.ajc.com/news/investigation-into-aps-cheating-1001375.html

Notes:

(1) America's biggest teacher and principal cheating scandal unfolds in Atlanta - Christian Science Monitor


http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Education/2011/0705/America-s-biggest-teacher-and-principal-cheating-scandal-unfolds-in-Atlanta/(page)/2

Grocery School - Don Boudreaux, George Mason University, department of economics‏

One should consider heading over to the blog Cafe Hayek and read the post Grocery School.

"Suppose that we were supplied with groceries in same way that we are supplied with K-12 education."

http://cafehayek.com/2011/04/grocery-school.html

Public school education system dismal output: a counterintuitive proposition.

When researching the dismal output results of the public school education system in the United States one finds that over the past 40 years a 200% real dollar increase in spending on public school education (K - 12) has occurred. Yet the quality of output has remained constant or slightly declining.

Applying economics to the dismal results, given the massive increase in funding inputs, yields the conclusion that one is merely finding, viewing, experiencing the classic attributes produced by a late stage collectivist model delivered through monopoly. Hence the economic conclusion is that the increase in inputs have not increased quality of output due to the general output attributes of late stage collectivism.


However, here is a counterintuitive proposition: what if the 200% real dollar increase was never intended to be output related?

Skip by the concept of a collectivist model delivered through monopoly suffering declining output in its later stages and move to the more insidious concept of direct enrichment of the collectivist players. Set aside the output issue for a moment and concentrate on the input. Has the 200% real dollar increase (input) caused a maximization of the wage/benefit of the members of the collectivist model? Yes. Was the enrichment a blanket enrichment to all players in the collectivist model or was the enrichment skewed within the model toward the central planning power purveyors within the collective (administration/bureaucracy hierarchy)? Yes.

If the 200% real dollar increase is the more insidious concept of direct enrichment of the collectivist players, why and how would it happen? The "why" is related to politicos using taxpayer dollars to build a dependent political constituency. That is, politicos found that by increasing funding to public school education they built a political constituency that they could depend upon to vote for, campaign volunteer, and make political campaign contributions to the particular politico or group of politicos.

Directly related, the now dependent political constituency (dependent on the flow of taxpayer dollars) obtained leverage with the particular politicos or group of politicos to further accelerate the flow of tax payer dollars. The "how" is that the flow of taxpayer dollars, increasing at an increasing rate, was never intended for output it was intended for political constituency building. Hence the recipient of taxpayer dollars enriched themselves as the dependent political constituency of the politico. That is, the politico or group of politicos sending ever increasing taxpayer dollars to strengthen and solidify their dependent political constituency were in fact sending the money for the enrichment of their particular constituency and had no intention to send the money as an output related item.


If the counterintuitive proposition is correct then politicos have funded a dependent political constituency at no direct cost to them by merely funneling taxpayer dollars to a recipient class. The recipient class aka the dependent political constituency then enriched themselves with the flow of tax payer dollars. The flow of taxpayer dollars never reached, arrived at, nor are associated with educational output.

Detroit: a poster child for late stage collectivism?

Seeing is believing

Take ten minutes and watch the video above. You will see a video documentary regarding a third world country by the name "Detroit".