Failed Test
State exams
Teachers in New York have been systematically manipulating students' scores on high-stakes testing.
High school students must pass the New York State Regents Examination to graduate. But when a team of researchers led by Stanford's Thomas S. Dee looked at scores in New York City, they found that from 2004 to 2010 the decentralized grading system made it easy for teachers to nudge students' numbers upward. At some schools, teachers inflated scores across the board—likely looking to improve their own performance reviews. At others, teachers tended to bump students who appeared to have underperformed on the test compared to subjective assessments, GPA, and behavioral measures.
All this fiddling with test scores may have closed the black-white achievement gap by as much as five points, as well as pushing many students who would not otherwise have graduated over the finishing line. The study, from the National Bureau of Economic Research, found that teachers altered nearly 40 percent of scores that were right below the cutoff, a group that is disproportionately black and Latino. At the same time, white and Asian students who fell just short were more likely than their black and Latino counterparts to see their scores fudged, suggesting that the racial implications of score manipulation cut both ways.
This article originally appeared in print under the headline "Failed Test."
Hide Comments (0)
Editor's Note: As of February 29, 2024, commenting privileges on reason.com posts are limited to Reason Plus subscribers. Past commenters are grandfathered in for a temporary period. Subscribe here to preserve your ability to comment. Your Reason Plus subscription also gives you an ad-free version of reason.com, along with full access to the digital edition and archives of Reason magazine. We request that comments be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment and ban commenters for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.
Please
to post commentsMute this user?
Ban this user?
Un-ban this user?
Nuke this user?
Un-nuke this user?
Flag this comment?
Un-flag this comment?