It Makes a Difference to the Sheep

IS NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND TURNING TEACHERS INTO CHEATERS?

Teachers not only preach the social contract, they also are supposed to live by it like everyone else. High-stakes testing may be a bad idea, but the law was passed by our elected representatives. Teachers who don't like the law might consult the moral theory of civil disobedience to figure out what to do. That theory, in a nutshell, holds that it's okay to violate an unjust law - as long as you've taken every step within the system to change the law and as long as you publicize your violation of the law. Secretly falsifying test score data doesn't meet that test.

Yet if all this sounds like a compelling case for why cheating by teachers is indefensible, consider the real world.

Say you are a principal at a terrible urban high school. Most of your kids are ill-equipped to learn. Many live in poverty with one parent; others don't speak English as a first language. Nearly all went to bad elementary and middle schools. Some of these kids get over the bar on standardized tests. But a good number do not, and the odds run against turning this around. You don't have enough teachers for smaller classes and your best teachers leave for higher paying jobs in the suburbs. You lack up-to-date textbooks and computers and, sometimes, even chalk for the blackboard.

Now along comes a new law that tells you to improve test scores. But it doesn't pony up enough cash to improve your school or mandate key reforms, like allowing you to easily fire incompetent teachers. The law stipulates that if your student body does badly on standardized tests you'll be punished by a reduction in funding. In theory, the law gives students the option to get out of your failing school and into another school. In practice, this is a joke. Most of the other public schools also stink, and many of the kids' parents don't have the initiative or savvy to take advantage of the law anyway.

Maybe you agree that high-stakes testing is a necessary part of any long-term education reform agenda. Still, as you see it, honestly reporting your school's test scores can only lead to one result in the near term: An even worse education for your kids. You don't like to lie or cheat -you believe that educators must be role models -but you don't see any other good choices.

I find this to be somewhat compelling, but in the end I agree with the following:

If Gandhi were in the principal' shoes, he wouldn' fabricate test scores. He would leave his job to fast in front of the White House, or chain himself to the front door at the Department of Education.

And if I were the principal? I would tell the truth and write my elected representatives. The bottom line is that educators simply cannot turn into big-time cheats. We can't our destroy our schools to save them.