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: The Buck Stops Here

Testing is Bad Because People Cheat?

By Stuart Buck, Esq.

There's an . . . interesting argument being circulated in the education world, to the effect that because a handful of schools or teachers are motivated to cheat on standardized tests, the real blame should be laid on the fact that we have tests in the first place. Here's Diane Ravitch (formerly a staunch defender of testing), speaking at the American Enterprise Institute on March 10: There's a front page story in the Chicago Sun-Times Today about thousands of test scores being erased and altered to raise them. This is what the pressure for proficiency has created: institutionalized fraud. Similarly, there's this from a March 5 article on possible cheating in Houston: ?Cheating on tests has been rampant,? said Tom Haladyna, professor emeritus in the College of Teacher Education and Leadership at Arizona State University...continue to full post

Full post as published by The Buck Stops Here on March 12, 2010 (boomark / email).