History of IDEA
Jeannie Oakes, Founder and Former Director
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Past Educational Opportunity Reports
Don't ditch testing after Atlanta cheating, boost test security
- 07-14-2011
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Opinion by Chester E. Finn/CNN
Chester E. Finn Jr. is a senior fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution and president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.
The latest shock to hit American schools and education reformers is the revelation that teachers and administrators have been fiddling with test scores in Atlanta and, evidently, in Washington, Baltimore and half a dozen other locales. In Georgia, where a state investigation implicated 178 individuals in the Atlanta public schools for cheating on or allowing cheating on the 2009 round of state assessments, Gov. Nathan Deal declared that "When test results are falsified and students who have not mastered the necessary material are promoted, our students are harmed, parents lose sight of their child's true progress, and taxpayers are cheated." In Washington, Education Secretary Arne Duncan said he was "stunned" by the revelations of a "culture" of cheating in the Atlanta schools, and that it "is absolutely inexcusable." (more...)
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