Philadelphia English teacher explains why she helped students cheat

This lady says she was worried about their self esteem taking tests they were no way prepared for???? Is that not her job to prepare these same students??????? Amazing way to justify their cheating. What did she teach them by doing that?????

Simple: Do away with no child left behind law. It's stupid and encourages stupidity. Do you get promoted and rewarded in the real world for simply showing up? NO! So don't teach that to kids that have hope for a future. It's no wonder why this country is full of unskilled workers when you don't teach the value of education and skills to begin with.

Question: If institutionalized racism truly were the cause of the continual lack of performance of blacks on test scores, now some 400 years later, why then do non-English speaking immigrants without a bit of familiarity with this country go from foreigner to scoring better than whites if they're, say, Asian.

True self-esteem comes from achievements honestly done by one's own efforts. Wait till these kids get into the real world and can't find a job because they don't know how to follow instructions or think on their feet or even read or write or do simple math.

My sister and I went to an inner city school and lived in the projects with our single welfare mom. She expected us to show our homework daily and get passing grades or we spent summer in summer school without recreational time. That was a big motivator. Most other kids didn't give a flip and as I've read here from teachers, the only involvement they had at school was to come complain that their kid should pass regardless. To top that off paddling had just been outlawed so it only got worse when students realized there were no consequences at school either.

Teachers are under MASSIVE pressure to get students to pass. Some students miss alot of school, some get no help at home, some barely speak English but ALL must pass the standard tests. Teachers are held accountable, parents not so much.

I am a parent of school-age children and I am also a teacher. Here is my perspective. Parents, you are now invited to step up to the plate. Turn off the television, the computer and the cell phone. Require your children to do what you tell them to do, and enforce the consequences when they don't. This is called "discipline". It used to be very popular but it has fallen out of style in recent years. It was replaced in the 1970s by the notion that children must feel happy all the time and parents should be friends with their kids. This has proven to be a poor way to raise children. Parenting is not for the spineless. Please be the parent and not the friend.

This is why I quit being a teacher. It has nothing to do with pedagogy anymore, or teaching children and shaping their lives. It's all about avoiding litigation and instructing kids on how to take standardized tests. This country's education policy is warped beyond repair.

Remember when you were a kid and you got an F, and your parents yelled at you. Nowadays, the parents yell at the teachers

We have to stop being so concerned about the "self esteem" of lazy students and more with them developing responsible attitudes towards their only obligation: to s-t-u-d-y. If bad students were held behind and made to repeat the course it would teach them a hard reality: be prepared in life or fail!!!! If a lazy bum fails, the blame falls with him/herself and his/her parents fault much more that with the teacher!

Gonna be a teacher soon, and already spent many hours in elementary & mid schools. The students influenced by hip hop and gang culture were always having difficulties. Plus, they make life tough for those that want to learn. The bullies and name calling are such distractions, that the whole class dumbs down to avoid being a target. To top it off, the teachers & school officials lack power to appropriately discipline a trouble making student, I really think corporal punishment need to be re-address.

NCLB behind is the worst thing that ever happened to the public schools of the United States. We used to teach to the smart kids. Those who could not keep up were given additional teaching. Now, we teach to the slowest kids. The smart kids are now the ones being left behind.

WHERE ARE PARENTS THESE DAYS?

I have had students who have parents who had no idea what classes their child was taking... they never ask about homework, don't even know who their kid is hanging out with.

When I sent home academic warning for one of my students, the mother was irate and said her boy was a genius and he should have an A. I pulled up my grade book, showed her that her son rarely turned in any work, was failing tests and quizzes, and had an atrocious attendance record. She then proceeding to ask me what class it was that I taught.

My gosh... I remember the days when parents were involved, My parents met every single one of my teachers every school year. They had me getting weekly progress reports to show where I stood in the class, attendance, and homework... They sat down with me at night to get homework, and projects done, and helped me study for tests... both of my parents worked full time as well.

I am appalled by the lack of parenting that goes on today. Everything starts at home... these kids have no guidance, are not pushed nor encouraged, and feel like school is a fun zone to hang out with friends.

How about expelling behavioral problems, teaching NOT to the lowest skill level, but to the minimum skill level designated by the competency tests. How about eliminating AUTOMATIC passes from one grade to another.
If I was a young parent now, there is NOW WAY my kids would be in public school, too many unethical things being taught and too few real skills. When I was a in school a kid caught cheating was SHAMED, the teacher walker over picked up the test, shredded it, the kid went first to the principal's office then HOME with a very angry parent...NOW, the teachers are COMPLICIT in the cheating.
A poorly educated generation is now teaching a generation that will be even MORE poorly educated...meanwhile our country is on it's knees thanks to politicians that cater to the ignorant...
Cheating in Congress, cheating in the senate, cheaters in the cabinet cheaters in the WH...whether it be tax cheats, marital cheats, or cheating by lying promises, all CHEATS...so naturally the best way to get the American public to accept the CHEATS is to be sure they have been taught to CHEAT themselves.

My kids attended a school that was once deemed to be "failing." It actually had nothing at all to do with the teaching. My kids have received an exellent education, perfect and near-perfect scores on the standard testing (no cheating; I'm an involved enough mom to know what my kids have learned). But the school still risks being seen as failing. Attend that school and you learn fast the failures and falacies of NCLB. To help explain, I'll repeat what I put in a reply to another post:

Where I live, schools with difficult to teach populations border those with easy to teach ones. Let's be real: it is easier to teach kids with smart, successful parents who have the time to help the kids at home. Statistics show that the single best indicator of student success is the level of the mother's education. Smart, successful parents tend to cluster together in wealthier neighborhoods, and send their kids to schools that benefit from higher property taxes, higher parent donations, and more resources overall. Those schools shine on these tests because everything is stacked in their favor; the teachers can do a poor job and the test scores still look good. And then those schools get MORE financial rewards because of the wonderful test scores. It is much more difficult to teach populations where many kids speak a different language at home, or where the kids have to follow their parents to work because childcare is unaffordable, etc. Those kids have the same theoretical potential, but it IS more difficult to teach them. My children went to a very diverse school that did well with it's challenges, but it takes resources, and we always had less resourses than the homogeneous, "life is easy" school a few miles away. But we have to take the same test, and meet the same standards, and face penalties every single time one of our kids tests lower than one of their kids. It has NOTHING to do with the quality of the teaching; our school has the BEST teachers I have EVER met. AMAZING. Actually able to teach to those diverse populations and keep everyone engaged, learning and excited about school. Both of my kids are GATE students and neither was ever bored; their individual test scores were stellar. But if all you saw were the school-wide test scores, you would think this school was falling far behind that other one. Which is an absolutely FALSE conclusion. That school just got the easier to teach kids. In fact, families with special needs kids were LEAVING the top scoring, prize winning school down the road and coming to ours because the TEACHING was better, and their kids had a better chance of success with us. Test scores do NOT tell enough of the story to have so many high stakes attached to them. If we stopped believing that falsehood, then maybe fewer schools who have it tough would feel driven to cheat. We were lucky to have a principal not in the least bit afraid of sanctions or being fired, and who could send out those "didn't meet AYP" letters without feeling shame, and parents who believed in the school enough to not only stick by it, but sell it, so that the school now has a wait list of well-off families eager to get in, but that takes a level of dedication by everyone, teachers, administrators and parents, that borders on super-heroism, and that cannot be a model for schools or families nationwide; it isn't sustainable. Tests won't solve the problems, they just add to it. I've been engaged with the schools, and with "failing" schools, enough to know that as a FACT.

I find several points of this article very disturbing.

1) "taking tests they were in no way academically prepared for".

Why is that? If the kids weren't taught the material in class, they shouldn't be tested over it. However if the kids simply don't give a flying flip - they should fail. The problem here is that teachers are not being judged by how well they teach, they are being judged by how well their students learn. Say what you like, if a kid has decided that the class is not relivant to him or her, you cannot teach them. The kindest thing you can do is let the kid fail now - they will learn from their mistakes. Now or later, they will learn from their mistakes...

2) "Schools with low scores must improve by a certain amount each year to avoid federal sanctions set forth by the No Child Left Behind law."

No Child Left Behind is one of those things that looks good on paper, but just doesn't work in the real world. The problems it was intended to solve are trumped by the problems it causes.

3) "The prevailing message was, 'We have to make AYP this year, or they're going to shut our school down and you're all going to lose your jobs.' ..."

Basically, you are holding a gun to the teacher's head and saying "Make thes students learn." Have you ever heard this one: "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink." Well, "You can lead a kid to knowledge, but you can't make 'em learn." ...

4) "Teachers in some districts are being paid bonuses for their students' performance on state tests, and many others have their performance evaluation tied to those scores."

Not only are you putting a gun to the teacher's head, but you are holding a carrot up too. Problem is the teacher is the messenger. What happened to the times when we held the "gun" to the student's head, i.e. failure, and tempted them with the "carrot" of acedemic success?

5) "Secretary of Education Arne Duncan says that the emphasis on tests does not encourage cheating. In fact, he sees it as the only way to ensure schools are adequately teaching their students."

Testing is measuring how much the students have learned. OK, if you've read this lengthy rant this far you probably know what I'm gonna say... So I'll try to put it another way.

The best machinist in the world, working with the best equipment in the world, cannot make a high quality part using substandard steel.

The best horse trainer in the world cannot make a champion race horse out of a donkey.

And the best teacher in the world cannot teach students who do not want to learn.

I'm a middle school teacher and my principal used to say, "It's all about the test scores." I would always respond, "No. It's all about providing the students a well-rounded education." Sadly it fell upon deaf ears and I was forced to spend two weeks on test prep.

As a student, I can't stand NCLB. I live in Texas, where we take TAKS. I can almost tell you the pre-TAKS speech teachers are required to give verbatim. I spend about an hour a year being taught how to bubble in answers on a ScanTron. Teachers are told to "teach the test", so we never learn anything other than what is usually on the test. Education in the US is terrible and No Child Left Behind is leaving everyone behind.

How about we stop focusing on teaching kids how to take standardized tests, and put the focus back on teaching them how to read, write, and do math!

The gorgeous cheerleader walked into the professors' office and said:
"I'll do anything for getting a passing grade on this test..."
"Oh, really..." the professor said somewhat surprised.
She went down on her hands and knees and made her way over to the professors' desk and said.
"Yes, I'll do anything..."
"Really... Anything???" said the professor.
"Anything..." she said with a seductive voice while fluttering her eyelashes.
"Would you..." the professor said.
"Anything!" the beautiful cheerleader said while licking her lips.
The professor asked "Would you... Study?"