Georgia Investigates Abnormal Test Scores

Upon reviewing Georgia test scores there are fears that they have been altered by administrators and teachers who are afraid of sanctions. This is an example of some of the trouble that comes from such high pressure being placed on test results. This analysis shows that 1 in 5 students have abnormally high test results in contrast to previous years. This is reported in around 119 schools. (Fausset, 2010) This high level of abnormally high test results is startling but what's even worse is that in one school the percentage of high changed answers is up to 89% of its classes. (Fausset, 2010)

The information coming from state officials says that no one has been accused of cheating, yet it is highly unlikely that the results are a "freak of math". (Fausset, 2010) In fact the investigation was very generous in its allowance of statistical anomalies. A similar type of investigation last year found a small number of officials in a few schools that had changed answers, in response to the high pressures of testing. (Fausset, 2010) This previous investigation was much less intensive than the one preformed this year.

What precisely the investigation was looking for was for the number of answers that were marked incorrect then erased and marked correctly. (Fausset, 2010) In any schools in the 1^st through the 8^th grade with an unusually high percentage of these such answers, they were flagged as irregular.

58 schools in the Atlanta Public School District are under review. The district head says that the explanation for the answers may be that students are taught to mark an answer, review when completed and then erase and change their answers if they think they have come with a better answer after reviewing. (Fausset, 2010)

If indeed the schools were to have been proven cheating this would be the biggest scandal since the passage of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), another pressure is a Georgia proposal to tie teachers pay raises to test results. (Fausset, 2010) When test results become so all important educators feel more pressure to achieve the results. Some people believe that the amount of cheating found is related to the amount of effort spent trying to find it. (Fausset, 2010)

Some say that if the results were changed that the students are being robbed of the tutoring that they would have been able to get under NCLB, (Fausset, 2010) but they don't mention what the teachers are trying to avoid in the form of sanctions.

I feel that this article shows just how damaging basing so much on the results of test scores can be. It has been proven time and time again, that test scores can be unreliable. Tests are biased against English learners, people from diverse backgrounds and have lots of cultural biases as well. Another thing is that if a student happens to be having a bad day on the day of the test they may perform other than their usual. When the test results become so impacting things are going to happen that should not occur. Due to students, teachers and administrators worrying about life changing results from the answers to these tests, somewhere in the line of command the possibilities for someone to take drastic measures to save their selves becomes much greater. I feel that the answer is to take some of the pressures off of the test results themselves and that people will not feel the same pressures that are causing people to feel the need to take such drastic measures as cheating on a state test.

References

Fausset, R. (2010). Georgia investigates abnormal test scores. LA Times , Retrieved from latimes.com