The Mirage of Scores

With the threat of school closures when students fail to perform, is it any wonder the lengths a school must go to in order to stay afloat? The manipulation of grades is nothing new in public schools, but does a last-chance charter school have no other option but to falsify their scores?

Houston ISD lied a few years ago that they had zero drop-outs that year in order to win the prestigious Broad Prize Award. Teachers' jobs are at stake if their students don't get high enough passing rates on their TAKS tests, while the ones that have students from good homes and parental involvement get pats on the back and bonuses when their students pass. My family knows firsthand that schools deny special ed status to kids in need because it damages their percentages. The better the school's statistics, the better their rating and the more government money they get. It's all about bragging rights in the public school system.

But Charter Schools may be a different issue. Or maybe it's all schools that have lower-class students. If the students don't perform, the teachers and administrators are doomed, no matter the herculean effort they put forth. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. No matter what you bribe them with.

This particular school takes in kids that have been kicked out of all other institutions. They remain open because parole officers and social workers bring their clients here in order to fulfill the law that minors stay in school till age 18. But a school where kids refuse to cooperate would close down if they were to expose their Lord-of-the-Flies-vulgarity. How can such an institution remain in existence if these scoundrels are dead-set on failing? It's not that they want to intentionally undermine the establishment; they just don't care. But before their apathy can even be penetrated, their failures must be masked in order prevent shutdown. The gates would close before any progress could be made.

It feels like cheating when teachers feed students answers on assignments and give tests that should be aced if the kids paid any attention to the answers the teachers had just given. "Padding grades" is common even in prestigious schools. But here, it seems even dirtier when grades are submitted by teachers and then changed by the administration before posted on record. And we wonder about the validity of TAKS scores. When grades mean nothing, it seems pointless. But in my opinion, it is no different than the political leader claiming all is well to calm public fear when the threat continues to remain. In such environments, I don't believe it has anything to do with trying to look good. I think it has more to do with survival. And not necessarily for selfish or greedy reasons so blatant in most institutions. I believe it could just be a decoy to keep the wolves at bay in order to buy enough time to help the kids that have already been swept under the rug by NCLB, even if the help given is not quantifiable or proven by test scores.

I never believed in situational ethics until we were down on our luck. I never thought deception could be justified until I saw the deviousness of the system. If honest people want to do good, sometimes they must outsmart the beast at their own game by using amoral rules. That sounds pretty bad, but nothing is black and white. And certainly not in the highly charged arena of Education.