Biggest Cheating Scandal in US History Revealed in Atlanta

Biggest Cheating Scandal in US History Revealed in Atlanta

Atlanta — The Georgia Bureau of Investigation unravels what was believed to be the greatest principal and teacher cheating scandal on standardized tests ever, involving at least 178 teachers and principals in Atlanta public schools.

Chairwoman of the Atlanta school board, Brenda Muhammad believed that the discovery of this incident is absolutely devastating and mentions that, “There is no doubt that systemic cheating occurred on a wide spread basis in the school system.”

The said event is allegedly a result of the rewards and gains that teachers, principals and the school may receive when the test scores on standardized tests, in this case the Criterion Referenced Competency Test are high. This may clearly have sent additional pressure for them to do everything by hook or by crook, including manipulating the test answers, just to get the test scores they need.

Suspicions on the alleged cheating rose when the Atlanta Journal Constitution and other state investigators saw a pattern of irregularity in test scores.

Testing expert, Thomas Halaydana from the Arizona State University also confirmed an “abnormal pattern” of erasure data in six states.

Reports also say that, the bigger problem in the investigation is the uncooperativeness of the district to take responsibility for the cheating.

Maureen Downey, Atlanta Journal Constitution education columnist wrote that the scandal is alarming because even the teachers and school administrators are losing faith on the capabilities of the students, resorting to cheating despite the improvement plans, reforms and trainings.

Posted by James Fried on Thursday July 07 2011, 7:35 AM EST. Ref: Yahoo news. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under Featured News, World. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0