From the Washingtonpost.com:
Several Prince William County teachers, some of whom were placed on administrative leave, will have to undergo retraining after giving students inappropriate help on state-mandated exams, and students were required to retake tests, according to a school official.
County schools spokesman Phil Kavits said the teachers, who were supposed to interact minimally with students during testing in the spring, were overzealous in offering assistance
Twenty-eight students had to retake tests, Kavits said. He could not say exactly how many teachers were involved.
The testing problems were first reported Tuesday in the Washington Examiner.
Many of the problems occurred during a third-grade test at [an elementary school] in Dumfries, according to a report by the Virginia State Board of Education. A third-grader told a teacher at recess that the teacher who administered the history and social sciences test had changed some answers on students’ exams .
The teacher denied changing answers, but interviews with students led investigators to conclude that “inappropriate assistance was provided to students,” according to the state report. Investigators weren’t sure whether the teacher’s actions helped or hurt the students’ scores, but they said the 24 students should be tested again to be sure.
At other schools, a math test was given again to a student as a result of the inquiry, and three students had to retake a science test because of problems with the way it was administered.
Kavits said that the teachers involved will be retrained and that the incidents will be a part of their evaluations.
Other schools also had testing irregularities. The names of the schools involved were redacted by this editor. I don’t feel that adding to their woe is helpful. What kind of pressure must these teachers be under for kids to do well on SOL tests to risk their professional reputations? Something is seriously wrong. Teachers aren’t innately dishonest.
Something is seriously wrong at the federal, state and local levels for this to be happening. Let’s start with the reality that not every child will pass all SOL tests by 2014. All learners are not equal, regardless of how much bullsh!t Prince William County hands out about all children can learn. That is a bumper sticker. That’s all.
Some children have a very difficult time learning and those kids are often piled up in large classes with inexperienced teachers or with teachers who are struggling. This county has not given enough money to the schools to create classes sizes that are best practice. Children are not divided equally. Too often the “good kids” are given to Mrs. Jones (pick a name) because everyone’s parents like Mrs. Jones. Mr. Johnson is often stuck with the ” not so good kids”, the learning problems and those with special needs. It happens all the time.
What is wrong with the state of Virginia? Most teachers are in there day in and day out, trying to work miracles with kids who must learn the most boring state curriculum in the world. Joy of learning? Oh dear God, only to sadists. There is darn little joy of learning. In the state of Virginia, our moronic legislators have now mandated that part of the teacher evaluation, 40%, I think, be based on test scores. That’s great if you get the teacher pleasers in your class. What about those classes that aren’t divided up evenly? You think that teacher has a fair shot at things? I can tell you right now. he or she doesn’t.
What’s wrong with Prince William County? They can only do what is kicked down from the feds and the state. What they can do is make absolutely certain that classes are divided up evenly. They can also try to make certain that the older schools serving the older communities have some kids in there from the newer communities. Schools should be much more equal than they are. Chop up some of the neighborhoods that are known for kids who struggle in the classroom. Send them to two different schools.
Take it easy on the teachers. Good teachers don’t cheat on tests. Desperate people cheat on tests. Ask why they are desperate. It might be the monster Prince William County created.
Have I mentioned how much I HATE SOL’s?
I got angry last night writing it. I am angry on behalf of those teachers who felt compelled to do whatever it is people think it is that they did.
I don’t mind SOL testing if and only if it is used appropriately, rather than the engine driving the entire train. I mind there being no leeway in the curriculum. I mind that all kids, regardless of ability, are asked to learn the same thing in the same amount of time in groups of thirty. I mind that teachers are held accountable and blamed when they are unable to do that which is not possible in many cases.
I mind when educrats try to tell us that all kids, regardless of learning ability, homelife and motivation will master all objectives in a year. They know it isn’t possible and I am tired of hearing about those doing the real work (the teachers) being badgered to death.
Some kids are smart, some kids not so smart. Some are motivated, others not motivated at all. Yet some teacher is supposed to make all kids accomplish the same thing. Dream on, PWC.
For all the national yelling and screaming over schools, I find it strange that no one ever comments when we have school topics up.
Where are all the people who were decrying the math program? Where are all those people who clapping for the math books that cost the county thousands more dollars than the ones selected by the math professionals?
I find it funny that all the parent experts now have nothing to say. Shall I poke another stick in the sacred zone? That can easily be done.
I’m glad to be DONE with the PWCPS!! Sorry, I no longer have a dog in the fight. Therefore, it’s not on my list of top concerns.
I do hate the fact my daughter was educated completely under NCLB!! Talk about BS.
The title, “PWC teachers in big trouble over SOL testing”, implies that the teachers were fired or punished in some other way for their actions. But in reality they “will be retrained and that the incidents will be a part of their evaluations”. But had this not made the paper or a blog, would any action had been taken at all?
Totally agree with your statement, “Take it easy on the teachers. Good teachers don’t cheat on tests. Desperate people cheat on tests. Ask why they are desperate. It might be the monster Prince William County created.”
It is disturbing that this story JUST became public. The PWCS was aware of this immediately after the SOLs were given. Were parents notified? How many other students would have shared information on the “assistance” they received if only an adult knew to ask them the question? Were counselors notified? Were there meetings with staff members? What immediate actions were taken?
If the reporter had not investigated reported this, it would be reasonable to believe that the public would have never been told and the teachers involved never would have received “retraining”.
It is not the first time information was withheld and it will not be the last. Thank goodness for reporters and bloggers.
Welcome, Our Schools. Thank you for your input. I believe the article I read said that one or more teachers were on administrative leave.
What disturbs me the most is the untold amount of pressure that is being placed on hard working professionals. Additionally, the “retraining” term makes me uncomfortable…almost like a big brother type novel where people are sent for ‘attitude adjustment.’
You ask a good question about how many students would have shared information on the assistance they received. What caught my attention is that most of the children involved were what, 8 years old? On the other hand, perhaps PWC was targetted by the state and they had testing compliance officers in specific buildings. I would be curious to know how the cat got out of the bag.
Someone was looking for something.
Meanwhile, I stand by my statement that good teachers don’t cheat, desperate teachers cheat. Its high time PWC started talking some reality here.
Thanks Moonhowling. I enjoy reading your blog.
SOLs are high pressure testing for teachers. Fear of being judged or even released for scores can make a very good teacher make a poor decision. Not all students are the same and neither are all classrooms. The question should not be the score but the growth of the individual students and whether this growth was consistent with that students actually ability.
PWCS seems to intimate teachers. Teachers do report that they are being bullied. Moral being negatively impacted and this is unacceptable.
Have you read Freakonomics? In the book teachers and sumo wrestlers are compared in relationship to cheating. Sumo wrestlers are very proud and considered extremely honorable but when push comes to shove, literally and figuratively, they will cheat. Same with teachers, and all of mankind, it is a protective mechanism. We are all only human.
Check out this article http://beetqueen.wordpress.com/2007/07/10/freakonomics-catches-teachers-and-sumos-cheating/
Thanks for the reading recommendation, Our Schools. I will try to check it out.
Now that 40% of an evaluation is about test scores, I expect we will see more of this behavior. You stated:
The question should not be the score but the growth of the individual students and whether this growth was consistent with that students actually ability.
That is very fair but I seriously doubt that is what will really happen and that is a shame. There is entirely too much emphasis on test scores and on all children learning the same amount in the same amount of time. It literally smacks in the face of everything teachers are taught about child growth and development.
Did I read that the teachers’s evaluation will reflect these incidences?
“The spokesman tells the Examiner that five teachers out of 5,400 in the school system will go through further training in test administration.” http://www.wjla.com/articles/2012/07/some-prince-william-county-students-must-retake-standardized-tests-78125.html
“The five teachers are being retrained in test administration, and some may be forbidden from participating in the future.” http://washingtonexaminer.com/prince-william-teachers-helped-students-on-standardized-tests/article/2502933
“Kavits said that the teachers involved will be retrained and that the incidents will be a part of their evaluations.” “Twenty-eight students had to retake tests, Kavits said. He could not say exactly how many teachers were involved.” This is the article that also said that some teachers were put on administrative leave. http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/prince-william-teachers-disciplined-after-giving-students-help-on-tests/2012/07/24/gJQAKR1v7W_story.html
You are right, a fair and accurate evaluation of student performance will probably not come about. And lets not even consider a fair evaluation for teachers, that will never happen! Isn’t it funny that common sense rarely prevails. Maybe if it had a catchy name and a hefty price tag…call it investigative testing or STEM testing and require all new textbooks, just a thought.
Five doesn’t sound like nearly as many as reported by the WaPo.
Thanks for leaving the links. Since you are new, it is fine to leave links. If you leave 3 or more your comment ends up in moderation. If you don’t want to wait to get out, make a couple comments and don’t put more than 2 in a comment. Glitch of the system.
We are forever trying to outsmart it.
Hi Moon. I’m one of the math people – one who actually served on the math textbook adoption committee and has actually looked at the textbooks the committee review. I’m thrilled beyond belief that the school board chose a different text because now our children might actually learn Arithmetic in Math. No, it won’t be easy, and undoing the damage done by 6 years of Math Investigations will take time, but that’s a topic we’ve agreed to disagree on that isn’t relevant to the current cheating scandal in PWCS.
I haven’t commented on the cheating scandal, here, because I’ve had family obligations. But I will now.
The teachers who cheated ought to be ashamed of themselves. No one forced them to cheat and the only people they have to blame are themselves.
However, the articles in the Post and Examiner don’t tell the full story, at least in one instance.
At Cedar Point the Examiner article mentions a teacher who made an audio tape of the exams while the Post article mentions that a student had the terms mean and mode defined for him / her (that student retook the exam). These are two different situations.
The teacher who made the audiotape has come forward. She’s a special ed teacher, didn’t realize it was against the rules, and made the audiotape to provide her students with incentive to remain silent during the exams, as her students tend to read out loud or shout during exams. Her approach worked as none of her kids had a outburst during the exams and her audiotapes were of silence. She has accepted full responsibility for breaking the rules, and I don’t think her actions could be considered cheating by anyone.
I don’t know anything about the inappropriate advice given at Cedar Point or assistance given at Swans Creek, Vaughan, Woodbridge Middle School, or Kerrydale. According to the articles, which cite named sources within PWCS and the VA DOE, the allegations of cheating at these schools resulted in an investigation by the VA DOE, with 28 – 30 students retaking the exams, and two teachers placed on administrative leave. One of the cheating cases allegedly involves a teacher providing non-verbal humming cues to students that indicated correct or incorrect answers.
If true, these are pretty big deals. No matter how much we all might hate the SOL exams, cheating that rises to that level can’t be explained away as a harmless attempt to modify student behavior. I can’t imagine any reasonable person thinking that providing humming cues to indicate correct or incorrect answers would be acceptable and not considered cheating.
Having said that, there is pressure on teachers for their students to pass the SOL exams, and that shouldn’t be the focus. Two moths of test prep at the end of the year, for each subject, is ridiculous.
Compounding that, many of the Principals and school based administrators in our school system are such poor managers that they freak out and put freakishly intense pressure on teachers and students to pass the SOL. This year you could feel the pressure at my children’s school, and I blame the Principal for that. If we’re going to retrain teachers then we darn well better train Principals and school based administrators to chill the heck out about the SOL exams, or maybe give them some basic human management training (micro-managing is not a good behavior!).
Unfortunately, education bureaucrats at the state and federal level love love love love love testing. Getting rid of the SOL exams means convincing the state and federal government that these tests are doing more harm than good. And with the money involved from testing companies and the influence they’ve bought at the state and federal level, that’s never going to happen.
Hello Kim. I expect different kids responded differently to Investigations. I know of kids who blossomed and kids who dived. My main concern is that the school board chose the text books rather than professionals. If I had kids in Prince William County Schools, I would not have gone quietly. But I do not. My kids are grand kids so I doubt if I have standing. So on to the present—
Good luck retraining those principals. I would just as soon try to retrain a galloping mule. On the other hand, they are under the same pressure as the teachers if not more. They have to have decent test scores and they have less control than even teachers. I know of at least 5 of them that went to that great text book counting in the sky at the Hill because their scores didn’t meet standards. In other words, they no longer were principals of their schools. That’s a real career breaker. Many weren’t lucky enough to get to camp out at the Hill until retirement.
I actually don’t want to do away with all SOL testing. I just want the results to be used to improve curriculum and instruction. The curriculum is far too rigid as it stands now, especially at the elementary level. The real guilty party, however, is NCLB. It has unrealistic expectations, undefinable goals, especially when evaluating components like AYP, and too much power is removed from local jurisdictions. NCLB should be repealed but politicians lack the nads to do what is needed. Right now, we only have some limited relief. The entire Act should be repealed and flushed.
I don’t know the specifics on the teachers accused of cheating. I deliberately left out reporting their schools. I didn’t want to pile on misery. It doesn’t matter if some teacher think their methods are better or not. Those kids have some sort of different testing environment and thatmakes the playing field unlevel. Creativity during SOLs or any other formal testing is not rewarded nor should it be.
I suppose I will go with shame on everyone. There is always someone who thinks they can build a better mouse trap. The testing environment probably isn’t the best place to test it out.
So meanwhile, what is everyone doing with their time now the dreaded Investigations has gone the way of the dinosaur?
One or two comments on Investigations–probably there is no good test on mathematical understanding. SOLs would never measure that adequately since its pretty much memorize and do. I would be interested to learn down the road, that some of the kids who took investigations had some basic understanding of math that those who took only traditional courses based mostly on learning algorithms did not have. If See/Say/Do really is the best approach to all learning, there has to be something to be said for the kids who manipulated 7 bumble bees in some way while other kids just added 7 plus 3. I guess we will never know.
Perhaps the Montessori learning model just really isn’t a good match for the current Virginia curriculum.
Thanks for you input.
I would love to see some sort of testing that honestly evaluates whether the necessary level of knowledge has been attained so that intervention can be provided where necessary, and students who are ready to move ahead can do so. Unfortunately the SOL exams don’t come anywhere near that level. When the grade level standard says students must master multiplication and division facts through the 12’s and the exam only has 2 or 3 questions that require multiplication facts and none on division facts, as the 3rd grade SOL exam does, then the exam is inadequate. If we truly want to move towards data driven instruction, then the means by which we gather that data needs to be a lot more comprehensive and in depth than the SOL exams currently are.
A few years ago the Superintendent for Fairfax County Schools had an interesting proposal to take the bite out of the SOL exams. Fairfax, along with a consortium of other counties in Virginia, proposed that SOL testing be conducted several times over the course of the year, starting at the end of the first semester. The theory was that kids who fail would continue to receive grade level instruction until they passed, while kids who passed would complete their grade level instruction at a faster pace and then move on to above grade level instruction.
I kind of like that idea. The details would need to be flushed out a bit, but a plan like that would take the high stakes out of the SOL exams because kids would be given multiple opportunities to pass the exam and kids who pass would get to move ahead.
Unfortunately, the VA Board of Education rejected the idea without a hearing.
@Kim,
Was the plan to split the testing up into smaller chunks, more like the county based testing used to do under Ed Kelly?
I don’t mind that it doesn’t test all the facts. Randomly, if you don’t know 8×7 or 3 x 5 then I guess you don’t know them all. I am one of those wretches who believes in just learning them. Some kids don’t though and they suffer.
I would probably look at the testing from the other end…the curriculum. I would be all in favor of teaching less better. How long can you live if you don’t know how to calculate surface area of a pyramid? Most people –a life time. How long can yo ulive without knowing how to guess-calculate the number of unit cubes on some 3-D shape? That really isn’t a mathematical life skill most people need. I am probably singing the praises of more consumer math and less crap no one will need or use.
I think far too much time is wasted teaching things that just aren’t critical to a person being educated. Junk info exists across the curriculum but is easier to illustrate with math objectives.
I am going to be an even bigger pain and say that not all teaching/learning needs to be data driven. “Data driven” is a way that education has thought up to pretend its running with the big boys. It isn’t really. A great deal of teaching will always be an art. The fact that we now pretend it isn’t might be an explanation for a huge drop out rate. All kids aren’t going to college, regardless of how badly education pretends they are. There are plenty of skills needed that are relevant to just being a well rounded person. Those seem to have fallen off by the way side. I am thinking of general knowledge that addresses critical life skills again. Finding Europe on a map, Knowing where the middle east is, knowing the Candadian provinces, Distinguishing fact from opinion, knowing that 100% simply means all.
Sorry…I got carried away.
I totally agree with you, Moon. At the K – 6 level our focus should be on providing kids with the foundational skills they need to do whatever they want to do with their lives. In Math that means add, subtract, multiply, and divide whole numbers, fractions, and decimals quickly and easily. It means being able to tell the difference between a square and a triangle, between parallel and perpendicular, and knowing the difference between perimeter and area and volume and how to determine all three for various standard shapes. It means knowing basic units of measure – inches in a foot, feet in a yard, etc.
We could probably toss all of the Data and Statistics standards from K – 6 without any ill consequences. We could easily toss the standards on the properties (commutative, distributive, etc). yes, kids need to understand how those properties work (like 125 x 4 = 100 x 4 + 25 x 4), but they really don’t need to be able to identify an example of each property.
Once the kids have a firm foundation in basic Arithmetic and Geometry, then, based on their interests and abilities, they can move into programs that are more or less math dependent. But the objective of K – 6 education should be to keep as many doors open to kids as possible so that they are able to move towards what they want to do.
“Data driven” is just the latest trend in education, started, I’m sorry to say, by bureaucrats who don’t hold teachers in high esteem and want data to substantiate what teachers observe in their classrooms regarding student behavior. Now, instead of just using data for inclusion in specialty programs, they want the data to drive instruction, while at the same time mandate what teachers teach, when they teach it, and how they teach it!
Honestly, the best thing we can do for our children is to give their teachers the best materials and content based training possibly, and let their teachers teach.
Many future jobs involve statistics and probability….however I am not sure they need to start at 3rd grade. Most importantly, has anyone ever seen a stem and leaf plot or a box and whisker whatever outside of the classroom? Just asking. Those might be great ways to teach place value or how to quarter things up but it seems to be all consuming.
If I were the math king for America I would spend much more time on consumer math for everyone. We both left learning to tell time off our list. I would also include military time and by middle school include various time zones with an emphasis on UT. People have access to the entire world and should be able to adjust their thinking accordingly. Might as well start young. Its a life skill.
I forgot all about all that measuring. distance, capacity, weights….that is time consuming. Yup…definitely teach less better.
@Kim