Tests and Cheating

So Joseph Carruth is getting fired from his job. He's been principal at Charles Brimm Medical Arts High School for only two years, and he gets fired for blowing the whistle on an administrator who asked him to change students' answer sheets on the High School Proficiency Assessment (HSPA). This brings up two very important points. First, the test itself has some serious validity issues. New Jersey's Department of Education needs to take a careful look at what the math section of the test asks of students. It is no coincidence that Carruth was asked to change the math section answers. Many math teachers have said that some of the math questions are unclear, ambiguous, or have more than one correct answer. This needs to be fixed, and fast.

The second point is how much cheating is going on? The Philadelphia Inquirer questioned scores at other schools, and the State Department of Education has launched an investigation. Maybe the federal No Child Left Behind Law, which is behind all of this state testing, needs revising. Districts might not be compelled to cheat if punitive measures weren't used to identify struggling schools.

Let's pause and carefully look at what we want our students to learn. I suspect that if we simply follow the money, we will discover that the overarching objective isn't about student learning, but selling study materials and tests. Too bad that a dedicated educator like Joe Carruth has to learn this lesson the hard way.