State Sen. Andrea Stillman
Allegations of widespread cheating on tests - by teachers and administrators rather than students - has triggered major investigations inGeorgia, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania.And now similar charges are being probed at an elementary school in Waterbury.
But don’t worry, state education officials insist there’s no reason to think that sort of crap is going on at any other schools in this state. (Of course, that’s also what education officials in Georgia and Pennsylvania insisted for years before the current scandals broke.)
“We’ve found nothing to lead us to believe there is a broader problem in Connecticut,” says Mark Linabury, spokesman for the state Department of Education.
He called the alleged misconduct at Waterbury’s Hopeville Elementary School“unprecedented” because it apparently involves multiple individuals rather than isolated teachers.
So far, something like 17 teachers and administrators at the Hopeville school have been placed on administrative leave while the state investigates charges that test answers were tampered with to make students appear to be doing better academically than they really were.
The investigation was triggered by abnormally high results on the Connecticut Mastery Test at the school, a test which is supposed to measure the progress of students and determine how well their school is doing. The federal “No Child Left Behind” program bases a lot of its school funding on the results of these tests, which is the presumed motivation behind these cheating scandals.
Linabury says state officials haven’t received any reports or indications in recent years of similar misconduct at any other Connecticut schools.
There have been other Connecticut cases where teachers and at least one principle were disciplined or fired for messing with test answers to improve student scores. One famous incident happened in 1997 when officials noticed an unusually large number of erasures on tests from the Stratfield Elementary School in Fairfield.
State Sen. Andrea Stillman, a Waterford Democrat and co-chair of the legislature’s Education Committee also says she’s not that worried that widespread teacher cheating in happening in this state. “Obviously, I’m hoping we won’t find anything more,” she says.
Stillman says Connecticut has a law that allows a teacher’s certification and license to be revoked if it’s proven he or she altered answers on a student’s test.
But don’t worry, state education officials insist there’s no reason to think that sort of crap is going on at any other schools in this state. (Of course, that’s also what education officials in Georgia and Pennsylvania insisted for years before the current scandals broke.)
“We’ve found nothing to lead us to believe there is a broader problem in Connecticut,” says Mark Linabury, spokesman for the state Department of Education.
He called the alleged misconduct at Waterbury’s Hopeville Elementary School“unprecedented” because it apparently involves multiple individuals rather than isolated teachers.
So far, something like 17 teachers and administrators at the Hopeville school have been placed on administrative leave while the state investigates charges that test answers were tampered with to make students appear to be doing better academically than they really were.
The investigation was triggered by abnormally high results on the Connecticut Mastery Test at the school, a test which is supposed to measure the progress of students and determine how well their school is doing. The federal “No Child Left Behind” program bases a lot of its school funding on the results of these tests, which is the presumed motivation behind these cheating scandals.
Linabury says state officials haven’t received any reports or indications in recent years of similar misconduct at any other Connecticut schools.
There have been other Connecticut cases where teachers and at least one principle were disciplined or fired for messing with test answers to improve student scores. One famous incident happened in 1997 when officials noticed an unusually large number of erasures on tests from the Stratfield Elementary School in Fairfield.
State Sen. Andrea Stillman, a Waterford Democrat and co-chair of the legislature’s Education Committee also says she’s not that worried that widespread teacher cheating in happening in this state. “Obviously, I’m hoping we won’t find anything more,” she says.
Stillman says Connecticut has a law that allows a teacher’s certification and license to be revoked if it’s proven he or she altered answers on a student’s test.
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