MSAs underway with extra eyes and ears in the Baltimore
Maryland students in third through eighth grades began the Maryland School Assessments this week, and Baltimore city schools began testing Tuesday with hundreds of monitors in buildings across the city. In a story today, the school system confirmed that they had hired and trained at least 157 extra monitors this year to ensure the integrity of the testing this year, after two highly acclaimed schools were found and suspected of testing improprieties last spring. The school system also deployed central office staff to schools, and staff from the CAO and Accountability offices will be responsible for coordinating assessments of several schools.
One of those schools that made headlines last year was George Washington Elementary, a school that has bounced back in the last two years under new leadership. A state investigation found that the school's 2008 test booklets had been extensively tampered with. But, last year, the school had more than a dozen monitors and still made its yearly academic targets. Most recently, George Washington has generated positive buzz for an MSA rap video that has become a small YouTube sensation. Check it out, if you haven't.
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Comments
$300K to make sure people don't cheat. What? Am I the only person outraged that we spend our school funds this way?
Posted by: sad day in bmore | March 8, 2011 2:31 PM
I've been wondering if the Sun would report on this. It's about time. And as for what the city is doing... it's about time, or at least a step in the right direction. Putting one monitor at a large school isn't going to do very much, but I'm frankly just glad that Dr. Alonso is finally open to considering the possibility of systemic cheating in many many many schools. It's more than just a handful.
Posted by: Anonymous | March 8, 2011 8:47 PM
I think the entire community has taken all the North Avenue propaganda about improving student performance with more than a grain of salt. The NAEP data shows that Baltimore students are about as good as Detroit's. Of course there is rampant cheating in city schools. This is a CEO who fires principals immediately if they don't come up with big gains. The kids haven't changed. There's no academic program. Big gains can only be manufactured one way. The regret is that it's going to take a lot more than a single monitor per school to convince anyone that this year's scores are real.
And why was the principal at George Washington singled out and punished differently from others? Didn't the principal at Abbottston do even worse things? What's the real story?
Posted by: Guide for the Perplexed | March 9, 2011 9:03 AM