Throwing the Book: Is Prison Too Harsh for Atlanta School Cheating Scandal?

[grumbler]

The solution is centralised exam by a third party authority 

NCLB tests are developed by each state.

I want to know which genius thought it was a good idea to have the teachers proctor their own students.

Some skinflint genius who thought it would be too expensive to hire outside proctors.

[crazy canuck]

They also got not fired, which was apparently the primary motivator.  The scandal is a direct result of No Child Left Alive and the braindead performance targets it forces on schools.  Once you get into the pattern of committing fraud to save your job, it isn't too hard to go a little further and get some bonuses too.

I was unaware that NCLB had a teacher performance aspect.  I thought it was all at the school level.

Which of course begs the question of how any system that rewards good teacher performance and punishes poor performance can be made impervious to gaming/cheating.

I'm certainly no expert, but from what I've gleaned from this thread the problem seems to lie in the fact that the same system is used to both reward/punish teacher performance *and* to make decisions concerning school funding. This seems to me leads to all sorts of problems, particularly if the source of kids performance on the tests is not totally linked to teacher performance in teaching.

For example, assume a teacher cares deeply about the community of kids he or she is teaching, and they do poorly on the tests; the teacher may be convinced (rightly or wrongly) that (1) they are not themselves the source of the poor performance; and (2) if the poor test results continue, the kids will lose funding.

Add to that the issue that they will potentially lose their jobs, this creates a strong incentive to cheat.

Agreed.  I also wonder the extent to which this system is analogous to high level athletes being tempted to take performance enhancing drugs - that they will be doing their schools a disservice by not cheating because, given the system, it is highly likely that others are cheating as well.

[The Minsky Moment]

it was remarkable to him that cheating had led to racketeering charges

State RICO statutes, there's part of the problem right there.

[The Minsky Moment]

That's insane.

Also, a judge blackmailing the defendants into waiving the right to appeal or he will pass a heavy sentence seems like a complete perversion of justice and right to fair trial.

My understanding is anyone who accepts a plea deal waives the right to appeal.

I don't know how this looks like in the US, but in Poland the deal is made between the prosecutor and the defendant and then reviewed by the judge to make sure it is equitable, the defendant is not acting under duress and is not being misled etc. The last element is crucial to a proper plea bargain in my view (and, I assume, under most civilized systems). This is obviously not the case when the "plea bargain" is offered by the judge and there is no oversight.

Yeah something odd here, whether it is a judicial or journalistic problem remains to be seen.

[grumbler]

Yeah something odd here, whether it is a judicial or journalistic problem remains to be seen.

I've heard what is purported to be the judge railing against the defendants on the radio for failing to show enough remorse.

[dps]

This is just insane.  There shouldn't be an offense that carries any jail time--you should just lose your job and pay a fine.

But then NCLB is fucking insane anyway.  There's no legitimate Federal role in education in the first place.

[Razgovory]

This is just insane.  There shouldn't be an offense that carries any jail time--you should just lose your job and pay a fine.

But then NCLB is fucking insane anyway.  There's no legitimate Federal role in education in the first place.

Of course there is.  Without federal oversite Mississippi will be teaching it's kids that the Flintstones is a documentary.

[dps]

This is just insane.  There shouldn't be an offense that carries any jail time--you should just lose your job and pay a fine.

But then NCLB is fucking insane anyway.  There's no legitimate Federal role in education in the first place.

Of course there is.  Without federal oversite Mississippi will be teaching it's kids that the Flintstones is a documentary.

To start with, that's bullshit, and you know it.  And it doesn't address the fact that the Constitution doesn't give the Federal government the authority to exercise oversight of state education systems.

[LaCroix]

To start with, that's bullshit, and you know it.  And it doesn't address the fact that the Constitution doesn't give the Federal government the authority to exercise oversight of state education systems.

why, of course. no state education system is required to follow the federal government.

[jimmy olsen]

This is just insane.  There shouldn't be an offense that carries any jail time--you should just lose your job and pay a fine.

But then NCLB is fucking insane anyway.  There's no legitimate Federal role in education in the first place.

Of course there is.  Without federal oversite Mississippi will be teaching it's kids that the Flintstones is a documentary.

Are you saying it isn't!?

[Berkut]

This is just insane.  There shouldn't be an offense that carries any jail time--you should just lose your job and pay a fine.

But then NCLB is fucking insane anyway.  There's no legitimate Federal role in education in the first place.

Of course there is.  Without federal oversite Mississippi will be teaching it's kids that the Flintstones is a documentary.

To start with, that's bullshit, and you know it.  And it doesn't address the fact that the Constitution doesn't give the Federal government the authority to exercise oversight of state education systems.

Except that it isn't bullshit - the number of examples of local school oversite pushing insanely stupid shit is legion.

And the Feds don't have any authority over state education - they can just not give them funding. If they don't want the cash, they don't have to take it, and can do whatever they like.

[Berkut]

Seven years for racketeering is probably not extreme...but calling cheating on a exam racketeering is just fucking stupid.

[DGuller]

But then NCLB is fucking insane anyway.  There's no legitimate Federal role in education in the first place.

Wow, that went from 100 to 0 in a hurry.

[Martinus]

There's no legitimate Federal role in education in the first place.

Not sure if I understand you correctly, but are you saying there is no legitimate public interest in having education centralised at the federal rather than state level?

If so, this is quite wrong. In the modern day and age what you want to achieve is the possibly highest level of educational convergence and possibility of comparing education obtained from different schools - even in the EU, which after all is made up of countries that are much more different from each other than the US states are, there is this drive, to make sure degrees, grades and test scores are more and more interchangeable - whether you went to school in Poland or in France, for example (of course this is still at an early stage).

Obviously, none of this can be achieved if different schools in different states have discretion as to what they can put on the curriculum. So to say that this should not be an issue within a single nation (even if it is a federal nation) is just mindboggling.

[Berkut]

But then NCLB is fucking insane anyway.  There's no legitimate Federal role in education in the first place.

Wow, that went from 100 to 0 in a hurry.

I don't disagree with him, in theory.

Of course, if you want the feds to have no role, then the feds have to provide no funding, and you make it up elsewhere.

But as long as the feds (or the state for that matter) is providing funds, then of course they are going to provide controls as well. In fact, it would be terrible otherwise. The worst way to do it would be to have different people providing the funds from the people running the schools. No accountability in that case to see that the funds are allocated properly, and you have a system ripe for corruption where you have weak local structures to prevent it.

You can't have your cake and eat it as well, right?