Elizabeth pointed out an article in last Wednesday's NYT about a grading scandal at a high school in New York. One teacher (Philip Nobile) had written letters to the school principal about scoring problems on a state test. In particular, he accused an assistant principal (Theresa Capra) of changing scores of some failing students. In response, the administration suddenly changed their tune on his teaching ability from high praise to "unsatisfactory," presumably to give them a reason to fire him:
Well, things did not turn out quite that way. Late last month, the Education Department released a 30-page, single-spaced report by a special investigator chronicling the events and concluding that Ms. Capra tampered with the Regents exams in June 2002 and June 2003, and that Mr. George "engaged in a cover-up of Mr. Nobile's allegations." Those allegations, said the report by Louis N. Scarcella, an investigator for the city school system, "have been proven correct in every detail." ... Ms. Capra resigned last year, during the investigation. Mr. George was recently removed as principal. Mr. Nobile, meanwhile, received a satisfactory rating for his teaching this year, and has also earned tenure. Nobody should mistake this for a happy ending. The exposure of the Cobble Hill scandal qualifies more as a cautionary tale, because Mr. Nobile's experience offers disturbing proof of the pressures that administrators can use to isolate, marginalize and oust internal critics. Moreover, Mr. Nobile's personal crusade against cheating serves as a reminder that in the current system of Regents testing, there is little self-interest in rigorous grading, if rigor means revealing widespread failure."I call it 'affirmative cheating,' " Mr. Nobile said of the grading on test scores. "It turns teachers into liars and hypocrites. They feel a natural sympathy with students and want to help them. And there's a desire of administrators to pump up scores to look good. And most of the teachers - especially the young, untenured, easily intimidated - simply won't come forward to complain without protection."
So yes, public education in this country is screwed up. State testing has a slew of problems, and the organization of schools themselves is not aimed at furthering the education of students, but rather on political manipulations of some teachers.
And people wonder why the US schools (esp. high schools) score behind so many other countries?
Posted by Tom Nugent at July 26, 2005 09:07 AMWhile my stance on labor in schools is well known....here is a great example of why tenure is so critical. Without it, they would have likely released him immediately.
Posted by: Tom at July 26, 2005 12:37 PM