Cheating Teachers

Frances Mejia
University of Southern California

LOS ANGELES - (CNNSB) Nine California teachers face allegations of helping students cheat on standardized tests, continuing a pressure-spawned trend that's stretched from New York, Connecticut, Texas and Arizona.

The teachers, who face tremendous pressure to produce high scores on state academic achievement tests, come from two California high schools.

A teacher from Cerro Villa Middle School in Southern California was placed on paid leave April 6 for allegedly giving students study sheets with questions taken from the actual Stanford 9 California standardized test. Eight teachers at Woodland High School in Northern California returned to work last month after five days of administrative leave amid allegations that they shared Stanford 9 questions with their students.

Earlier this year, the Los Angeles School District disciplined 13 teachers at Banning High School for similar actions.

The Stanford 9 tests students in grades 2 through 8 in the basic skills of reading, spelling, written expression, and mathematics. Students in grades 9 through eleven are tested in reading, writing, mathematics, history-social science, and science. The test was started under Governor Pete Wilson two years ago as a way to hold teachers and schools accountable for student learning.

California Teachers Association spokesperson Tommye Hutto said using students' scores on the Stanford 9 to evaluate teachers and schools places a lot of pressure on educators. "The Stanford 9 is a high stakes exam," said Hutto. "There is high stakes accountability. Schools are ranked in deciles (from the top 10% to the bottom 10%) and there is money attached to that."

Since last April under Governor Gray Davis, students' scores on the Stanford 9 have been used to establish schools' Academic Performance Index (API), a score used to evaluate school and district performance. Each school has been assigned a target API improvement for this year. Schools that meet their targets can receive financial rewards. Schools that fail to reach their goals could face sanctions ranging from state audits to school closure.

California is not the only state where teachers face pressure related to standardized testing. Every state except Iowa requires its public schools to administer some standardized academic exam. In the past several years, teachers in Connecticut, Virginia, Arizona, Maryland, Texas, and Louisiana have faced allegations of helping students cheat on these tests.

Last December, 32 New York schools were implicated in a cheating scandal that involved dozens of teachers and two principals. At least nine educators were fired from New York City public schools.

In California's Cerro Villa Middle School case, Superintendent Barbara Van Otterloo told the Los Angeles Times, "As a district, we are tremendously disappointed in unethical conduct." Orange County Teachers Union President John Rossmann said the suspended teacher, who is new, misunderstood regulations and did not mean to cheat.
The Woodland Joint Unified School District is still investigating whether teachers copied actual test questions from the 10th grade science section of the Stanford 9 test booklet for classroom preparation for the test.

California forbids teachers from preparing students with material from the actual Stanford 9 test and from using material that is too similar to the test. But some educators say the state does not make it clear what material they can use. California Teachers Association President Wayne Johnson said in a Los Angeles Times article that the Stanford 9 "is not even aligned to our state's new rigorous academic standards, school curriculums or textbooks."

Johnson said that having teacher accountability depend on one test creates tremendous pressure on people. The pressure could get worse.
This month, the Los Angeles Board of Education has approved a labor contract offer with merit pay for instructors who improve their students' performance on the Stanford 9.