Cheating Is Not A Test Security Issue
3 min read
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has done a review of cheating on tests in school districts across the country. The results aren't pretty.
A tainted and largely unpoliced universe of untrustworthy test results underlies bold changes in education policy, the findings show. The tougher teacher evaluations many states are rolling out, for instance, place more weight than ever on tests.
And, cue the folks who miss the point entirely:
Daria Hall, director of k-12 policy with the nonprofit The Education Trust, said education officials should take steps to ensure the validity of test results because of the critical role they play in policy and practice.
“If we are going to make important decisions based on test results — and we ought to be doing that — we have to make important decisions about how we are going to ensure their trustworthiness,†she said. “That means districts and states taking ownership of the test security issue in a way that they haven’t to date.â€
No. This is not about test security (read: another unfunded mandate for schools to enforce a system of assessment that has never worked all that well, even before it was pushed front and center into education policy. Read: another "growth opportunity" for "educational services providers" who will supply a that guarantees your tests are completely, totally secure).
This is about designing assessment that can't be cheated, and about not tying pay - for both teachers and administrators - to performance on flawed, oversimplified assessments. Portfolios come to mind as an option that would reflect the experience of learners within their class, provide a clear and accurate representation of growth and learning.
However, the argument against portfolios would have us believe that they are just too expensive and time consuming.
But what's more expensive? Running a good portfolio system that works, or paying for tests that are imprecise measures of a small subset of what people actually learn.
What's more time consuming? Running a good portfolio system that works, or dedicating class time to teaching the test, taking the test, and trying to catch the cheaters after the fact.
To all the people who get a lot of attention for saying that our educational system is broken: please stop, and consider that our assessment system is broken, and is getting in the way of student learning.
You're not saving money or time when what you buy is broken. You're not assessing more efficiently when people can sidestep your efficiency measures. You're not measuring good performance when people cheat their way to the top.
Image Credit: "What the hell is a cheater pen anyway?" taken by DigitalCellulose, published under an Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives license.
