Education: Should cheaters prosper?
Some of those watching the Oscars on Sunday probably pined for the good old days of hosts Bob Hope and, later, Johnny Carson.
Not me, though. (OK, full disclosure, I didn't actually watch the Oscars; I had the Knicks-Heat game on.)
But I was reminded of Carson on Monday morning, when reading The Times’ story on Crescendo charter schools.
One of Carson's famous bits on "The Tonight Show" was to appear as Carnac the Magnificent. Carnac was given answers (in sealed envelopes); he then "divined" the questions.
Turns out that a better name for Crescendo would've been Carnac charter schools.
According to The Times story: "Last year, administrators and teachers at the six schools south of downtown Los Angeles were caught cheating: using the actual test questions to prepare students for the state exams by which schools are measured."
In the academic world, cheating is usually frowned on. On Wall Street, of course, it's called business as usual. Hedge-fund managers who trade using insider information earn millions in salaries and bonuses. Sometimes they go to jail, but their money doesn't.
Still, you might expect the folks at Crescendo to be horrified about the cheating.
Not exactly. Like mortgage bankers, NASCAR drivers and baseball players, they used the "rules are made to be broken" gambit.
"While such a breach was not authorized or condoned, the fact that regulations exist to address such breaches suggest they do happen," then-board president Leah Bass-Baylis wrote to L.A. Unified.
Aha! You put rules in to stop cheaters, so you must know people are going to cheat. Just call that the "Catch-23" excuse (which is not the answer to question No. 6 on the test, "What is the name of Joseph Heller’s famed antiwar novel?")
However, I'm on the fence on this issue. Absolutely, cheating is wrong. But if we're going to measure academic success by standardized test scores -– forcing teachers to "teach to the test" -– why beat around the bush? Why not have students study the actual questions? They’ll certainly do better. Their parents will be happy. Administrators at all levels will be pleased. Money will flow.
It could be a sea change for education, sort of like "new math."
Heck, we might even stop hammering the poor teachers.
Of course, there may have to be some adjustments made when these students hit the work world.
For example, here's a staff meeting at Acme Plasma & Computer Chip Co. in 2025:
"OK, folks, sales are down, and we don't know why. Something has to be done. Smithers, you're in charge of sales; what are we doing?"
"Well, boss, here's what we've come up with so far:
a) Keep trying what we're trying.
b) Try something else.
c) Do nothing.
d) All of the above.
e) None of the above."
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-- Paul Whitefield
if the teachers are cheating, what about the kids, what are they learning?
Posted by: glenn grab | February 28, 2011 at 11:44 AM
f) for, this article "f"ails
Why digress with Johnny Carson, Bob Hope and hedge fund people? Get straight to the point.
I know it's philosophical and platitudinous, but cheaters eventually get caught, or it catches up to them later in life and they pay the price. Academics nowadays is nothing but rote memorization anyways. This is futile because it trains one to memorize via repitition aka a "perfunctory learning" experience, but not understand the concepts.
Posted by: Urbane Thinker | February 28, 2011 at 11:48 AM
Plenty of people cheat on tests, and plenty of cheaters justify the behavior. I have one question for them: Do you want the cheaters to build the bridges you drive on or provide medical care to your family?
Posted by: Robert | February 28, 2011 at 11:56 AM
Dear (Sub)Urbane thinker: So you trust that "eventually", the cheaters will get caught. It sounds like you don't really mind the substandard bridges or poor quality medical care they provide until that wonderful day of reckoning, or the honest people they displace while they hold their ill-gotten positions.
Posted by: Robert | February 28, 2011 at 12:02 PM
@ Robert, I majored in electrcial engineering at USC Viterbi, and the academics were set up so that cheating was near-impossible. I, like many of my peers there, achieved a sub-3.0 GPA. The academic curves of the classes and the way the material was presented were set up so that rote-memorization alone wasn't enough to do well.
You also implied that people cheat their way to med-school. Well, from what I know, SC's pre-med program only admits the top 8%; in other words, it is extremely difficult to achieve a competitive GPA. Even high school valedictorians with near perfect SAT scores fall on their faces, and they high tail it to easy BA majors that don't rely on math and science courses.
Physicians are "incompetent" because so many of them are sleep deprived. Bridges are botched because the Cal Trans workers only know how to perform mechanical functions, but lack the scientific understanding of engineering.
Posted by: Urbane Thinker | February 28, 2011 at 12:32 PM
We test on what we want students to know.
They aren't learning "1 A 2 B 3 C 4 D", they are learning about Catch-22 and Red Badge of Courage.
So, by teaching the test, we are teaching the students what we want them to learn. That's the way it is supposed to work.
The only downside is that they may not be learning some of the extra stuff. The way to fix that is simple: test on it.
Posted by: Chris | February 28, 2011 at 12:44 PM
@Urbane: Glad to hear that cheaters can't get away with it in your experience at SC. Part of my concern with the cheating is that a lot of it occurs during the years that GPA's are established for that top 8% or so that get accepted into pre-med program or other competitive programs. I question the ethics of those who find cheating acceptable in order to "get over" the competition.
Posted by: Robert | February 28, 2011 at 12:52 PM
One wonders how many of the "worst" teachers in The Times value-added survey were "ethical" but had students with a cheating teacher the year before.
Posted by: George | February 28, 2011 at 01:01 PM
The person who wrote that education is "rote memorization" has obviously never examined the modern curriculum. Today it emphasizes "thinking skills" built on a weak foundation of knowledge. Without a firm foundation of knowledge, and ethics, a student's thinking skills don't mean much. These people that glorify "thinking skills" at the expense of basic knowledge literally have no clue.
Posted by: California Sun | March 03, 2011 at 04:23 AM
It's a question everyone should ask themselves regarding if cheaters should prosper...how lower should they lower their (and the child's) standards and dumbing down the people? This country is going down the tubes and it's just a matter of how fast do the people want to go.
Ignorance is never bliss.
Posted by: Kittybarfola | March 06, 2011 at 05:42 PM
@CA Sun, you state platitudes. They're broad and vague, yet you can't offer a practical solution.
Succintly put, you don't know what you're talking about.
Posted by: Urbane Thinker | March 07, 2011 at 08:19 AM