Studer Community Institute

No school is immune to grade tampering

April 15, 2015
/ Reggie Dogan
/ education

Like many schools in our modern age, Newpoint Pensacola Academy and High School has an interactive webpage loaded with snazzy pictures and pertinent information about the charter school’s mission and purpose. A blurb among the sliders on the webpage says, “Our School Culture is Focused on Respect and Responsibility”. From most accounts, Newpoint is meeting its goal to offer a choice for parents who want a quality public education for their children. But in recent weeks the school’s mission and methods have come into question amid allegations of grade tampering. The Escambia County School District and the State Attorney’s Office are looking into the alleged grade tampering that have put Newpoint administrators and teachers in a negative light. Just last month, Newpoint was among 22 Escambia County schools to share nearly $1.5 million in Florida School Recognition Program funds. The charter school during the past three years received more than $60,000 of state funds awarded to high-performing schools. The program gives financial awards to schools where students have maintained high grades or shown much improvement, according to the Florida Department of Education. But documents that surfaced alleging grade tampering to boost student test scores and the school's grade highlights a growing problem facing schools across the U.S. The investigation of grade tampering at Newpoint comes in the midst of what’s being called the nation’s largest cheating scandal in Atlanta. Earlier this month, a jury convicted 11 educators for their role in a standardized cheating scandal that tarnished a major school district’s reputation and raised broader questions about the role of high-stakes testing in U.S. schools. Over the past year a former superintendent of El Paso, Texas schools was sent to federal prison, and five teachers and four principals were arrested in Philadelphia for tampering with tests and scores. In 2013, a teacher was fired and another suspended after an investigation by Miami-Dade schools police uncovered cheating at a district-managed charter school. The Newpoint allegations, the Atlanta convictions and the other cheating scandals unfold at a time of pushback against what some see as the excesses of standardized testing. Those who oppose testing also argue that the exams force teachers to narrow their lessons and may not represent what students learn. The allegations locally and the cheating scandals across the country come amid a political groundswell against academic standards known as Common Core and increasing debate over testing and its role in education. In The Atlantic magazine this month, “When Teachers Cheat" raises poignant questions about how pressure to tamper with school test scores attest to the dangers of high-stakes testing. According to Bob Schaeffer, FairTest’s public education director and harsh critic of standardized testing, evidence of adults cheating on kids’ test has been found in some of the largest school districts across the U.S., an alleged trend he says underlines the flaws of test as an accountability measure, The Atlantic reports. “Pretty much every major city in the country (has had cheating) because those are places where test scores are likely altered as they have the most poor and immigrant students,” Schaeffer says. “They are under the most pressure to logically boost scores.” Read The Atlantic report on cheating scandal here.

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No school is immune to grade tampering

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