APS Cheating Scandal

Cheating has become very normal to students on tests or quizzes. Students don’t consider the consequences of cheating on a test (Source A). If you just walked into a classroom, most probably you would see students cheating on their classwork or quizzes. Measures should be taken to reduce the amount of cheating on tests or quizzes

Based on her knowledge as a teacher, with 30 years of experience, Julie Roger-Martin believed that she had established a framework by which students could achieve excellence in the classroom and with standardized tests (Frysh, pp.1-10). Even though she was comfortable with her capabilities, her students did not perform as well as others students. Teachers with mediocre school children were excelling in test scores, while their classroom work did not mirror this increased knowledge. Julie Roger-Martin, confused by the test results, was unaware of the underlying reasons for the improvement. The Atlanta Public School System was cheating in order to obtain good scores. Teachers made the decisions that truthfulness was a value that could be sacrificed in order to attain higher salaries and federal funding.

In the contemporary American education system high-stakes standardized testing has resulted in a focus on extensive test preparation, as well as a large increase in the numbers of teachers cheating by alternating their students' test scores. Both these phenomena are a direct consequence of the incentives and punishments directly linked to standardized test results.

Cheating can be a common routine in a classroom—from copying work on homework to copying answers on a test. “Cheating by teachers and administrators on standardized tests is rare, and not a reason to stop testing America's children” (Standardized Tests). This statement is proved false by the fact that thirty-seven states have been caught cheating by

The first part of the chapter is about teachers that cheat, and the incentives that they have to cheat. In 1996, Chicago Public Schools started to require their schools to administer high-stakes testing every school year. A school with really low test scores would face

A vital individual when it comes to initiating change is the person willing to take action in order to construct something different. A person willing to own the outcome and lead the change is the critical element in producing change. Without the leader of change stepping up and accepting responsibility, all others have is an awareness of the problems that exist, therefore, change doesn’t transpire. There are countless people who are constantly eager to share all of the items which they believe need to change, with anyone who will listen. There are far fewer who are willing to step up and lead that change. Teacher leaders have the vision to generate change in their schools, and are a vital asset to change. Catalytic leaders are needed throughout schools in order to make change happen. Leaders with an expertise in the area of change are authentic, initiative, and influential.

Leadership is an essential component of a schools’ success or failure. Learning By Heart, by Ronald S. Barth provokes teachers and administrators to reflect on their practices and contributions to their school. Roland Barth offers us different viewpoints on educational reform from his own experiences in education from being a public school teacher and principal to being a Harvard University faculty member. He mentions how school improvement and restructuring will come from within every teacher and administrator not from any program because “schools are not capable of improving themselves”.

Standardized Testing is not as reliable as many would like to believe, especially since recent legislation has turned the annual event into high-stakes testing. These high-stakes tests are used to evaluate learning and teaching in the classroom, identify students for special programs or grade promotion, and hold accountable educational institutions, with the consequences ranging from holding a student back, to a teacher losing their job, to an entire school closing down (StateUniversity, n.d.). Standardized testing has become an unfair "one size fits all" approach that has opened the door to unethical practices that ultimately render these tests invalid for the purpose of evaluating an educational institution as a whole. Variations to the standardized

However, it seems that all money being poured into this specific industry is a waste, because there is no method to determining whether the child has a genuine understanding of what he or she is being tested on, or if his or her knowledge is enhanced by a form of cheating. In March of 2013, the National Center for Fair & Open Testing issued a report claiming that 37 states nationwide were noted to be cheating on standardized tests. The cheating not only comes from students who feel pressured to excel academically, but also from teachers who want to reap the benefits of their students who perform well on the tests. The added bonus that teachers receive encourages them to help students achieve a certain grade on the standardized tests. In 2015, a major standardized cheating scandal came to light when an Atlanta jury convicted 11 teachers of helping students cheat on their tests. Through this specific example, it is evident that the scores of standardized tests are often enhanced, making them pointless when using them to help decipher a child's

This article discusses the various effects that high-stakes testing has on different schools throughout the country. This article focuses mainly on the negative aspects regarding high-stakes testing; however, the article also has a few positive aspects regarding high-stakes testing as well. A few examples of effects that occurs with high-stakes testing are things such as the following: cheating (in many different forms), misinterpretation and misrepresentation, pressure amongst students and faculty, as well as many other examples. This article discusses how not only the students were being caught cheating, but the teachers and even the administration in the school. Most of the staff would just turn their head and overlook the

School leadership has become an increasingly difficult and pressure-packed role in recent years due in large part to a new climate of accountability and measurement stemming from Federal educational policies such as the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLBA) and continuing with the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). With increasing pressure to raise student test scores and subsequently overall school performance ratings, administrators and teachers in some schools and districts have unfortunately begun using strategies, which are not ethical (and sometimes illegal) to increase student achievement. This paper is in response to a fictional case study based on the article entitled, “Looks Like 10 Miles of Bad Road: Cheating, Gaming, Mistrust, and an Interim Principal in an Urban Texas High School,” written by David E. DeMatthews of The University of Texas at El Paso, which was published in the Journal of Cases in Educational Leadership in 2014. This paper will briefly introduce the background of the fictional case, before identifying the relevant Educational Leadership Constituent Council (ELCC) Standards and the manner in which they could be applied to create a plan of action for the administrator referenced in this scenario. Next, will be a discussion of the difficulty associated with competing realities faced in this case, before a final discussion of how this case study and similar scenarios relate to the preparation of effective school leaders.

The NCLB’s testing policy has led to unethical behaviors from school administrators and teachers. One form of the behavior is cheating on standardized tests. “School administrators [are] erasing incorrect responses on students’ answer sheets and substituting correct answers; teachers [are ]allowing more time than test instructions require; [and ]teachers [are] supplying students with hints about which answers are correct; and test preparation sessions using test items” (Spring, 2010. 233). To give an example of eroding teacher professionalism, look at the recent cheating scandals in Georgia and Southern California. Because states reward their schools and teachers when their students score well on standardized tests, teachers in multiple states are being forced to alter test answers in order to keep their job or to receive a better bonus in their salary.

For students of all ages across the United States, standardized testing has become a common routine part of their school year. Many laws have been passed over the years, requiring countless standardized tests throughout a student’s educational career for every student.This educational norm has been implemented for the past eighty years for the purpose of allowing comparisons to be made among schools in regards to student achievement, ensuring accountability for teachers, and informing instruction for educators; however, the flaws and limitations of this testing system do not allow standardized testing to achieve this purpose, and, in fact, do exactly the opposite. Daniel Pink, in his book, Drive, claims that “. . . rewards can often produce less of the very things they’re trying to encourage . . . extrinsic motivators can have another unintended collateral consequence: They can give us more of what we don’t want.” (Pink 47). Because standardized testing is required amongst all students, which is unfair among genders, ethnicities, regions, and students with special needs, and is often a determining factor on a teacher’s pay and job stability, teachers often resort to immoral behavior, forging their students’ test scores, to meet state standards. Standardized testing is not an accurate measurement of skill and does not improve education, by fostering unethical behavior, such as cheating, amongst

There are many things people believe they can fix in our school systems. Many topics that everyone seems to feel they can change to further our education system. From the classes we take, the requirements we need to meet, our lunch systems, the price of education, and teachers pay. Out of all those things I could write about; I choose to go with something I did not list there, high risk test-taking. another common topic in education changes. Test taking has become a necessity in every school curriculum. “Educators are under tremendous pressure to ensure that their students perform well on tests.” (Amrein-Beardsley) Also according to Laura-Lee Kearns, “Interviews with youth indicate that the unintended impact of high-stakes testing is more problematic than policy makers and educators may realize.” (Kearns) Of course there are positives and negatives to having tests that are a big part of your grade. This article though will focus on why high risk test taking is not beneficial in our education system. Also included will be my solutions to this problem.

The Sandusky scandal at Penn State affected many organizational functions for the esteemed university and the impact covering illegal activity was intensified. The crisis negatively affected the organization and its functions. Graham Spanier, Gary Schultz, Timothy Curley, and Joe Paterno had an obligation to disclose the crimes of Sandusky (Crandall, Parnell, & Spillan, 2013). These four men were in management/leadership roles and their actions affected their respective departments, as well as other organizational functions throughout the university. Another function that immediately comes to mind is human resources, as human resources is responsible for human capital. The loss of key staff and the knowledge that goes with that personnel must be replaced. Furthermore, human resources must step in along with other members of the crisis management team to attempt to contain and limit the damage.