What a sad statement about the value that we all place on education. We would have people cheat out of fear or some other misguided idea. I have said often (*every year since I started in fact) that I would rather go down honestly than pass by cheating. I hear the stories - kids who come to our school and when testing comes around they ask, "Aren't you going to write the correct answers on the board?" or, "When we finish can we bring you our test so you can point out the ones we got wrong?" My saddest is the kid who literally could not write his name in 6th grade who somehow scored advanced in 5th grade. Makes everyone look bad.

I wonder why there isn't an investigation BEFORE awarding the blue ribbon status.

Every time I see results that are too good to believe, I don't.

The fact is that the work is hard, the challenges great, the mess long in making and so to the solutions. Anyone who thinks that there are some magic shortcuts clearly doesn't understand what really happens in schools. Anyone who demands immediate results is fooling themselves and asking for cutting corners.

I will say that AAA sent a strong message this year about screwing around on the tests. I would love for the Sun to find out how much is/was spent on monitoring (people, tape, time) for MSA's. This is money my teachers and students won't get to spend.

And we don't believe this is also the BCPS story?

What a shocker! Just wait until test scores are tied to teacher compensation. By the way, isn't it cheating if you proctor the msa each year, see the test and then have your students practice questions "just like the ones on the test" all year instead of teaching a rich and engaging curriculum?? By the way - if student scores go down, does the gym teacher get a cut in pay? What's really sad is that the MSA's have gotten to be so predicatble and the bar is so low, its hard to believe that any school isn't making AYP.

@realteacher: The test company cycles through a bank of questions, so there's no way to predict what questions will be given from year to year. The MSA has had some of the same questions, but each year the tests have been pretty different. Also, the test booklets themselves are pretty different, so students are doing different questions/ problems.
Some schools are teaching a rich and engaging curriculum not based on test prep, and if in fact you are actually a "real" teacher (as opposed to....?), I'm a little surprised that you haven't considered that there may be other reasons that students aren't passing the MSA aside from "teacher forgot to cheat."

@ anonymous
Yes - I am a "real" teacher - 20 years. Of course the questions change; however, "test savvy" teachers, departments, schools and entire systems devote hours of classroom instruction to answering questions that have similar formatting, incorporate visuals in a similar way and questions that require students to explain answers using formulatic writing (CR's and ECR's). Early on, they recognized that many students miss questions because they are not familiar with the test format, types of questions, response grids ...etc. There are entire areas in Baltimore County that are required to shut down instruction and conduct practice reading and math testing several times during the school year - monthly in schools that have failed to make ayp. Department chairs waste huge amounts of time creating entire assessments and answer booklets that look just like the MSA. The hope is that they are predictors of future test performance and give kids practice at staying on task for extended periods of time. These "assessments" go above and beyond the time used to administer benchmark and short-cycle assessments that are part of the regular curriculum.

As for the test booklets, you are wrong. They are color coded and are very similar and in many cases have identical questions. Generally speaking, the questions are similar in format and rigor. They only differ enough to validate new questions each year and to make it tough for kids to copy off of each other. If they were completely different, the test would yield invalid results.

Here's my stab at why kids aren't "passing" the MSA tests. By the way, the lingo is why they are "basic" - not that they didn't pass, which leads to my first thought:
1. Kids can "fail" MSA and "pass" the class and grade. What's the incentive to do well?
2. Kids do better in schools with better educated parents and communities and not necessarilty better teachers. I'd give you specific examples but would probaly lose my job. My kid has had horrbile math teachers but has scored at an "advanced" level each year because my wife and I work with her and make sure that she's prepared.
3. Kids who live in chaotic environments and who don't get their basic needs taken care of could care less about test scores. They dont get to bed early, they didn't go to the MSA website and practice lke it says to do in the "parent letter," and they didn't eat a good breakfast.
4. Despite the extra period of math, extra period of reading, extra hour after school doing worksheets some kids come from a culture that simply doesn't reward or value academic achievement.