Honor and Excuses
It’s pretty sad, I think, when folks make excuses for teachers cheating. Teachers as a group should be outraged at the suggestion that the pressure of having students do well on standardized tests somehow makes cheating, if not acceptable, at least understandable.
The NYT reports numerous instances of teachers and administrators in a number of states cheating, either by providing students answers as they take tests or adjusting their incorrect answers afterward.
How sad that there even is a term for the process of slipping copies of the state exams out of their wrappers so ne’er-do-wells can peek at the questions in advance. It’s called “tubing it.”
No one would argue that No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is perfect legislation. But it’s fair to say, I think, that the legislators who passed the law assumed that teachers and administrators would act honorably.
