Cheating on School Tests

Cheating on school tests has always been a problem, but now, because states are beginning to treat test results more importantly, and will now include tests as one measure of educational progress, we’re seeing more and more incidents of serious cheating by teachers and students. In Atlanta, Georgia, dozens of teachers are being investigated for altering test results in order to make their effectiveness appear better than it actually was. Teachers spent evenings in back rooms erasing wrong answers and filling in correct ones. At other schools poor students were seated next to well performing students to facilitate cheating by copying. And in Long Island, half a dozen high school students in a prestigious school district were found to have hired a college student to take SAT exams in their place.

What is most problematic, however, is that New York students, and indeed all US students, are falling lower in key science and math tests when compared to other industrialized nations. And this is so in spite of NY and our nation spending far more per student than other nations. The biggest factor explaining this is the fact that most other industrialized nations provide parents with the right to choose their child’s school. Here in our country, most parents are forced to pick the government run school or pay extra for a private school. This is especially harmful to low and middle income students.