Atlanta Public Schools Teaching Scandal

By now everyone around the world has heard of the Atlanta teaching scandal concerning teachers and administrators changing answers on tests to improve their school’s overall rating. First I will say that it was wrong of these trusted individuals to commit this lack in judgment and should be held accountable. Just as I feel the Atlanta School Board should be held accountable for their actions which almost cost the school system its accreditation. However, none of us should have been surprised of the test scandal, as I will bet other school districts around the United States have engaged in the same. It was just Atlanta’s unfortunate luck to get caught in this brazen act.
But can you blame these individuals without blaming the system that created the circumstances? What I find amusing about the situation is that school systems are still adopting guidelines that create this very predicament. Many people in leadership cannot fathom the idea that the public school system does not and will not operate like private schools. Let me explain what I mean. Private schools can be selective in the children accepted for enrollment. Their funding is not tied to government and state mandates in the same manner as public schools. Private schools receive extremely more parent involvement; students actually do homework; and parents influence their children to participate in activities and achieve academically. Students in private schools (although they have their problems, compared to the public school system) are better behaved and come prepared to learn. In such circumstances, it is less stressful to teach and requires little to discipline students in the classroom.
In public schools, principals cannot select the students they allow to enroll; and in some school systems, a poison of indifference toward education is the rule of the day. Teachers have very few means of providing discipline. While I believe in positive reinforcement, I also believe there should be penalties for those students who are consistently selective of when they will benefit from positive reinforcement. Let us examine discipline used in the past outlawed in many school systems: standing a child facing the wall; copying pages from the dictionary; staying in for recess; detention during lunch for elementary students, before and after school for middle school students; etc. You get the picture. Now teachers do contracts with kids to behave, complete class and homework assignments, and wear uniforms properly, contracts kids honor when it pleases them. Principals cannot suspend students as in the past because funding is determined by the number of days kids are actually in school and the fact that principals are reprimand if they have a high rate of suspensions. In addition, most public schools do not get the parental involvement necessary to make them competitive to their private counterpart.
The comparison between private and public schools can continue but I believe you get the gist. The differences in public schools and the guidelines established to overcome them creates an environment with emphasis on test scores set the stage for cheating. When jobs, pay increases, bonuses and school funding are determined by standardized test scores, it establishes a recipe for disaster. Let’s face it, even the worse teacher can teach bright students who come to school ready to learn. Parents of bright students actively involved in the education of their children will employ tutors if necessary to ensure academic success. On the other side of the coin are the teachers assigned students ill prepared, possibly with behavior problems (excluding the Special Education students in the class). These teachers must be extremely flexible, more creative, extremely patient, and work more off the clock hours to teach their students. The affected teachers could be amongst the best teachers in the school, but do not engage in the politics that take place within the facility, yet their jobs are in jeopardy with the present guidelines. If the school system itself is overrun with students who place low value to an education, it affects the overall funding for the individual schools and the school system; henceforth, the recipe for disaster.
Were the teachers and administrators wrong for their involvement in the cheating scandal? Yes, I agree they were and should face the consequences of their actions. But this should be a wake-up call to government, school boards, administrators, teachers and parents across the nation. Until students and parents are held responsible for their part in the education of their children, discipline (excluding corporal punishment) is allowed back in the classroom and misbehaved students are removed from classes, the public school system will continue to be the merry-go-round that does not prepare students for life beyond the twelfth grade.
My suggestion: Public schools should invest in a distance education program which allows students to home school when they cannot behave in the classroom, but test within the classroom when appropriate. This will allow students who want to learn the opportunity to do so without the constant interruptions which demand teachers’ attention. End of chapter/unit tests within the classroom will ensure the students are completing the online classes and allow them to interact with other students from time to time. When the child and parents understand the importance of proper classroom behavior, the child can rejoin the students in the classroom. The distance education classes can serve in lieu of suspension and counted for presence in the school, if the child participates in the online classes daily for a specified period of time.