More Atlanta

4 Replies to “More Atlanta”

1. The “serious” thing to do is to avoid the satisfying-but-mostly-self-serving distraction of delivering moral judgment. This frees us to think about more policy-relevant questions like 1) how do high-stakes testing regimes alter the incentives to cheat and 2) what, if anything, is worth doing to minimize the cheating.

2. Meanwhile, back in Rheeville:

   Sanford’s memo warns its intended recipients to “keep this erasure study really close (sic) hold. No more people in the know than necessary until we have more conclusive results.”
   The memo suggests, “Don’t make hard copies and leave them around. Much of what we think we know is based on what I consider to be incomplete information. So the picture is not perfectly clear yet, but the possible ramifications are serious.”
   At the time, many D.C. schools, as well as those nationwide, were struggling to meet the federal government’s “adequate yearly progress” (AYP) levels, which required year-to-year test score gains. Agencies such as OSSE were pushing for improvements.
   “If all 70 schools wind up being compromised AND OSSE wants AYP blood,” the memo warns, “the result could be devastating with regard to our reported gains in 2008.”

3. From my fellow researcher:

   DHume1
   4/11/2013 6:24 PM EDT
   It is rather interesting that people like Feuer believe that his opponents are writing about who to blame for the cheating. Blame, however, is not what Ayers is writing about. Ayers and many like him were writing about policy–about bad policy–about a policy that continues to exist. They are very aware that the policy does not cause others to cheat and it certainly does not absolve “Ms. Hall and her colleagues of their own ethical and professional lapses.” However, the poorly conceived policy does create an environment that attracts/invites people to take advantage of the situation. It is a slight difference, but it does show that Feuer is misrepresenting his opponent’s argument.

4. I’m just disgusted by the whole thing. How does this help our children? The administration has acted extremely selfish, only concerned about the careers, their salaries.

   Disgusted!