Cheating teachers.It is shameful shame·ful adj. 1. a. Causing shame; disgraceful. b. Giving offense; indecent. 2. Archaic Full of shame; ashamed. that a small minority of teachers feel the need to help their students cheat on tests ("To Catch a Cheat," Research, Winter 2004). The issue says something larger about our society that is very hard to fathom fath·om n. Abbr. fth. or fm. A unit of length equal to 6 feet (1.83 meters), used principally in the measurement and specification of marine depths. tr.v. and is simply unacceptable. Brian A. Jacob and Steven D. Levitt should be commended for their excellent work in analyzing this problem and for their concrete recommendations of ways to prevent it. I am pleased that the authors believe that the problem "is not so widespread as to call into question the integrity of the nation's educators," because our teachers really are America's unsung heroes. It is a travesty and an outrage that the few rotten apples in this study may be used by opponents of educational accountability, like the reforms of the No Child Left Behind Act The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (Public Law 107-110), commonly known as NCLB (IPA: /ˈnɪkəlbiː/), is a United States federal law that was passed in the House of Representatives on May 23, 2001 , to charge that testing should be eliminated because the pressure it brings causes cheating. If someone cheats on his/her job application, we don't blame the form. Cheaters get caught. The authors themselves say that their results "show that explicit cheating by school personnel is not likely to be a serious enough problem by itself to call into question high-stakes testing A high-stakes test is an assessment which has important consequences for the test taker. If the examinee passes the test, then the examinee may receive significant benefits, such as a high school diploma or a license to practice law. ." They astutely as·tute adj. Having or showing shrewdness and discernment, especially with respect to one's own concerns. See Synonyms at shrewd. [Latin ast point out that extreme cheating is rare and that it would be easy and cheap to eliminate. With testing and accountability, schools have a powerful tool to monitor the progress of their students. Tests that evaluate students' progress are the key to serving them. There are some who think accountability won't work. They are wrong--of course it will. ROD PAIGE Roderick Raynor "Rod" Paige (born June 17, 1933), served as the 7th United States Secretary of Education from 2001 to 2005. Paige, who grew up in Mississippi, built a career on a belief that education equalizes opportunity, moving from college dean and school superintendent to be U.S. Secretary of Education Washington, D.C. |
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