Posted on 01/08/2013 4:44:34 PM PST by blam
Public Schools - Crooked Teachers And Lying Principals
Politics / Educating Children
Jan 08, 2013 - 05:56 AM
Walter E. Williams writes: Nearly two years ago, U.S. News & World Report came out with a story titled "Educators Implicated in Atlanta Cheating Scandal." It reported that "for 10 years, hundreds of Atlanta public school teachers and principals changed answers on state tests in one of the largest cheating scandals in U.S. history." More than three-quarters of the 56 Atlanta schools investigated had cheated on the National Assessment of Educational Progress test, sometimes called the national report card.
Cheating orders came from school administrators and included brazen acts such as teachers reading answers aloud during the test and erasing incorrect answers. One teacher told a colleague, "I had to give your kids, or your students, the answers because they're dumb as hell." Atlanta's not alone. There have been investigations, reports and charges of teacher-assisted cheating in other cities, such as Philadelphia, Houston, New York, Detroit, Baltimore, Los Angeles and Washington.
Recently, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's blog carried a story titled "A new cheating scandal: Aspiring teachers hiring ringers." According to the story, for at least 15 years, teachers in Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee paid Clarence Mumford, who's now under indictment, between $1,500 and $3,000 to send someone else to take their Praxis exam, which is used for K-12 teacher certification in 40 states. Sandra Stotsky, an education professor at the University of Arkansas, said, "(Praxis I) is an easy test for anyone who has completed high school but has nothing to do with college-level ability or scores." She added, "The test is far too undemanding for a prospective teacher. ... The fact that these people hired somebody to take an easy test of their skills suggests that these prospective teachers were probably so academically weak it is questionable whether they would have been suitable teachers."
Here's a practice Praxis I math question: Which of the following is equal to a quarter-million – 40,000, 250,000, 2,500,000, 1/4,000,000 or 4/1,000,000? The test taker is asked to click on the correct answer. A practice writing skills question is to identify the error in the following sentence: "The club members agreed that each would contribute ten days of voluntary work annually each year at the local hospital." The test taker is supposed to point out that "annually each year" is redundant.
CNN broke this cheating story last July, but the story hasn't gotten much national press since then. In an article for NewsBusters, titled "Months-Old, Three-State Teacher Certification Test Cheating Scandal Gets Major AP Story – on a Slow News Weekend" (11/25/12), Tom Blumer quotes speculation by the blog "educationrealist": "I will be extremely surprised if it does not turn out that most if not all of the teachers who bought themselves a test grade are black. (I am also betting that the actual testers are white, but am not as certain. It just seems that if black people were taking the test and guaranteeing passage, the fees would be higher.)"
There's some basis in fact for the speculation that it's mostly black teachers buying grades, and that includes former Steelers wide receiver Cedrick Wilson, who's been indicted for fraud. According to a study titled "Differences in Passing Rates on Praxis I Tests by Race/Ethnicity Group" (March 2011), the percentages of blacks who passed the Praxis I reading, writing and mathematics tests on their first try were 41, 44 and 37, respectively. For white test takers, the respective percentages were 82, 80 and 78.
This test-taking fraud is merely the tip of a much larger iceberg. It highlights the educational fraud being perpetrated on blacks during their K-12 education. Four or five years of college – even majoring in education, an undemanding subject – cannot make up for those 13 years of rotten education. Then they're given a college degree that is fraudulent, seeing as some have difficulty passing a test that shouldn't be challenging to even a 12th-grader. Here's my question: If they manage to get through the mockery of teacher certification, at what schools do you think they will teach?
Walter E. Williams is the John M. Olin distinguished professor of economics at George Mason University, and a nationally syndicated columnist.
HOORAY Walter! “Everything about socialism is sham and affectation.” - 23.11 Ch23 Evil; Economic Harmonies; Frederic Bastiat 1801-1850
He is one of my favorites as well. The man knows his Constitution and economics and he communicates them very well. I was sorry to hear of his wife’s passing. I remember the story he told of his Christmas present to her one year...golf shoes so that she wouldn’t slip on the ice while washing his car in winter.
Public school is child abuse.
Then the next year he gave her a snow shovel for the driveway.
I love WW more than any other policy analyst.
Hmmmmm..... do I sense a common thread here?
Ah, government schools.
The jokes write themselves.
I was subjected to some of these idiots. Good thing my parents made sure we were smarter than them. RTR
Yup. She must have been a good woman. RIP.
Walter said that she had done such a good job of polishing his shoes one year that he bought her a riding lawn mower for her birthday, lol.
The unions & school districts couldn’t demand more taxpayer money for its teachers & schools if the test showed their members were dumber than a sack of rocks & were robbing their students of a quality education.
Common thread:
Philadelphia - Michael Nutter (D)
Houston - Annise Parker (D)
New York - Bloomberg (until 2001 D, 2001-2007 R, 2007 - present I)
Detroit - Dave Bing (D)
Baltimore - Stephanie Rawlings-Blake (D)
Los Angeles - Antonio R. Villaraigosa (D)
Washington - Vincent C. Gray (D)
Public school is child abuse.
********************
Another perspective: Public school is teacher abuse.
Every time he told one of those stories about "Mrs. Williams", I had an image of her sitting at home laughing her rear end off. From what I've read, they were a very happy, loving couple, and it probably amused her to no end to hear his comments.
No child left behind? Most of them SHOULD be left behind because “they’re dumber than hell”.
“It highlights the educational fraud being perpetrated on blacks during their K-12 education. Four or five years of college – even majoring in education, an undemanding subject – cannot make up for those 13 years of rotten education. Then they’re given a college degree that is fraudulent, seeing as some have difficulty passing a test that shouldn’t be challenging to even a 12th-grader.”
If white Americans knew how much this was being done to their children they’d be livid; at one time it was an urban thing, but I know from personal experience that it has spread far beyond that (probably because of the accountability under No Child Left Behind). Parents tell me what great students their sixth graders are, and then I hear them read aloud on a second grade level...
They'll teach at predominately black schools - and the same horrid 'system of failure' will start over for a new generation...
First, the super gets an impressive pay package, including some benes that never are reported.
Then they hire a posse of lieutenants, all making over $100K. These folks then create a massive bureaucracy, removing competent long term assistants to bring in family members. Nothing ever gets accomplished except a lot of awards for “enlightened” education.
In a few years they all get booted out and the cycle starts all over again.
Google “Lancaster ISD TX Larry Lewis scandal” as one small example of the process.
Much like the federal government bureaucracy, these progressives are like a hive people who never get fully rooted out.
A 2009 survey of almost 30,000 high school students nationwide found that 30% admitted to stealing from a store within the past year (19 percent who attend religious schools). 23% said they stole from a parent or relative. More than 83% stated they lied to a parent about something significant. 42 confessed that they sometimes lied to save money (up from 395 in 2006). 64 percent had cheated on a test in the past year (up from 60 percent two years earlier) and 38 percent had cheated more than once. More than 36% had used the Internet to plagiarize. 26% also confessed to lying on at least one survey question.
However, 93% agreed, “I am satisfied with my own ethics and character,” and 77% affirmed , “When it comes to doing what is right, I am better than most people I know.” - Josephson Institute http://charactercounts.org/programs/reportcard/
A survey of 6,000 academic psychologists resulted in 10% reporting they had falsified research data; 67 per cent selectively reported studies that “worked”; 35% said they had doubts about the integrity of their own research. - Leslie John, George Loewentstein, and Drazen Prelec in Psychological Science, December 2011
After two years of college, 45 percent of college students hadn’t significantly improved their critical thinking and writing skills; after four years, the proportion was still 36 percent. The study was based on a test taken by 2,400 students at 24 schools. - “Academically Adrift,” by sociologists Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa; http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2012/05/29/lets_drop_the_college-for-everyone_crusade_99690.html
Over 50 percent of students at four-year schools and more than 75 percent at two-year colleges lacked the skills to perform complex literacy tasks (unable to interpret a table about exercise and blood pressure, comprehend arguments of newspaper editorials, compare credit card offers with different interest rates and annual fees, or summarize results of a survey about parental involvement in school). - American Institutes for Research Ben Feller, Associated Press | January 20, 2006
Almost 80% of seniors at 55 of our best colleges and universities earned a D or F grade on a high-school level American history test a 1999 survey showed. - USDE 1992 National Adult Literacy Survey tests
The National Center for Education Statistics reports that only 31% of college graduates can read and understand a complex book. - Walter E. Williams , professor of economics at George Mason University. http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=336612797889002
62% more students are going to college than did in the 1960s”. - Bill Fitzsimmons, dean of admissions at Harvard.
The District of Columbia leads the nation in the proportion of college grads. - http://www.epodunk.com/top10/collegeDiploma/index.html
Extensive surveys by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, conducted in 2006 and 2007 of 14,000 college freshmen and seniors at fifty colleges nationwide, indicated that college education results in little advance in knowledge of American history and institutions, which is already poor among non-college graduates, but an often significant increase in favoring liberal ideology was seen over those who were not college graduates. In addition, those with the highest degrees were the most liberal. Intercollegiate Studies Institute, ‘’The Shaping of the American Mind.’ - http://www.americancivicliteracy.org/2010/major_findings_finding1.html
More: http://peacebyjesus.tripod.com/revealingstatistics.pdf
The last thing the government wants is a student with language, critical thinking, scientific and historical skills that enable them to detect a liar.
“The current purpose of public schools is to produce serfs easily controlled by a socialist tyranny. The last thing the government wants is a student with language, critical thinking, scientific and historical skills that enable them to detect a liar.”
That may be the outcome of the schools, but it is not the purpose; the main goal of public schools is to take taxpayers’ money and funnel it to the Dem Party through the owners of said party, the teachers’ unions. Even producing serfs isn’t working, because at least a serf would toil in the fields; our current students have little practical use in any workplace. It is all about money...
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