How Do They Expect Us To Prosper?

I've been in the teaching biz for a full thirteen years now and I've become very good at certain things while I still have plenty of room to improve in other areas. In the eyes of the state, I am a "highly qualified teacher." This tag allows me to remain employed when a number of my fellow educators who have not completed this test or that required class may have been let go. As I endeavor to learn the best way to teach kids to read or to help them understand fractions, I am also honing my skills at finding gum chewers and mediating disputes about who gets to take the ball out for recess. I have also become quite proficient at spotting cheaters.
The first thing to keep in mind is that everyone is tempted, now and again, to look at someone else's paper. It's reassuring at best, and at worst it is outright theft. I remember other kids pleading with or threatening me to give them my answers. I was told they would either be my best friend or be pummeled in exchange for the correct response. Back in the olden days, that was supremely powerful motivation. I caved a few times, being desperate for friends or terrified for my health, but mostly I hunched over my paper and guarded my answers like they were gold.
It wasn't until I became a teacher myself that it became apparent to me just how important it is to keep each student's responses separate and discrete. That test is a measure of what a student has learned, and if they don't do well, it tells the teacher a lot of different things, not just how much the kids know. It can also say a lot about how the information is getting to them. If everybody fails the test, it could be that the teacher needs to do a better job. Or maybe that was the day right after everyone in the class stayed up late to see the Spongebob Squarepants special. If everybody passes the test, that's a good thing, but if everyone gets all the answers right, a good teacher will be suspicious.
That's why the bells went off here in Oakland this past week when the scores for one elementary school fell under scrutiny. A district investigation found that a teacher reviewed the answers on students' state reading and math tests, checked off incorrect answers in pencil or on sticky notes and returned the booklets to the children to fix. There was another incident at a high school where students were allowed to use their biology textbooks to repair their state science tests. The inquiry determined that the high school sample was not big enough to affect their overall Academic Performance Index, while elementary school's scores will be invalidated.
As a teacher, I know why my colleagues might have thought they were doing the right thing. There is an unbelievable pressure to deliver good standardized test scores. They affect funding for the school, the district and even the state. The federal measure of Adequate Yearly Progress, along with their state API, are the things that most schools use to display a school's success. For most of us, it all comes down to a couple of weeks in April or May when we cover up everything in our rooms, make sure the kids get a good breakfast, and then turn them loose in the silence for hours at a time filling in bubbles to show how much they have learned in the previous seven months. Then we hold our collective breaths.
It would take a little of the pressure off if the kids got to use their books or had a chance to change their answers. That would be cheating. That makes everybody else's job harder. Maybe they should have spent more time at the beginning of the year teaching fractions, or trying to catch those kids who were chewing gum. As long as we continue to put all of our educational eggs in the basket of high-stakes testing, we probably shouldn't be shocked to find out that cheating is going on. It's a part of the Desperation Index, the one that doesn't show up on any school's web site.