Dive Brief:
- Nashville schools, once failing, are now having the veracity of their success questioned due to allegations of cheating.
- Whistleblower teachers are telling local news outlets that the worst-performing students aren’t being included in test results.
- District officials admitted approving a policy to let schools “pull” students who failed the fall semester of a class to give them remedial help in the spring, but the whistleblowers claim even students who were passing with low scores were left out.
Dive Insight:
Some of the teachers who are speaking out also claim that the same thing is happening in other Nashville metro schools, signaling that the directions may have been handed down from someone higher up in the chain of command than their own principals.
Cheating scandals beget questions over whether the stakes related to standardized testing are too high. By tying scores to teacher evaluations, educators can sometimes be terminated when failing student performance leads to failing school designations and subsequent closures. Many educators and experts have lamented that “current testing policies have created a climate where high scores must be acquired in any way possible.”
At least 40 other states have faced similar problems with testing scandals. In Atlanta, a highly publicized cheating scandal resulted in the April indictment of a dozen educators found guilty of conspiracy for changing student test scores. Over 20 additional teachers were found guilty of lesser charges.