Do your teachers cheat?
Several states have reported with increased frequency that teachers are cheating by assisting students on exams. Why? In most cases it is because their jobs hinge on student performance. This raises an interesting question: Should merit pay for teachers be eliminated?
Many schools seem to have linked the performance of their students to an increase in teacher pay or worse, keeping a job. Is this really the way to encourage teachers to perform at their best?
Public schools are not the only schools under pressure. Many private schools -that depend on parents paying for their child's education -are demanding results. In New York, a state that requires a regents exam (a state wide subject test) the temptation to cheat, or at least accept answers that might not otherwise be accepted, is now a reality. It's simple math: private schools need students to survive, and given the economy today, every body counts.
In the public school arena, where schools post their percent pass rates in the local paper, parents are demanding results as the approve, or in many cases vote down, the school budget. Again, the pressure to have students pass at all cost is there.
While it is important to have standards, and teachers need be accountable for their teaching, merit pay is clearly not the answer. Like any job, if you think the person doing the job is not performing to the best of their ability, fire them. Perhaps we need hold parents accountable for their children not performing to the level they would like. Of course that's a bit more difficult. Parents can't be fired.
posted by Nickie's Blog @ 10:58 PM
7 Comments
7 Comments:
Well I don't personally believe that a teacher is cheating if they help out a student on a test. That is why they are there right? To help us. I have had many times where a teacher was able to answer my questions with out just giving me the answer. They made me think it through and just pushed me in the right direction.
Some teachers also have sympathy, perhaps if they see their students struggle on the same question, maybe they didn’t explain it in the notes very clearly or it needs to be taught in a different way. Then I can see a teacher saying, "Alright many people missed this question, I am dropping it for the test and we will go over it again today". Assuming that a teacher will give students the answer to make the teacher look better is ridiculous because the next teacher they have the following year will say, “why don’t you know this, what teacher did you have”? The chain will break at some point for those types of teachers.
i agree...
I do not think teachers cheat. I think they just feel sorry for us so they give us a little nudge but they don't just blurt out answers. It's really looks bad when you have gym coaches getting bonuses just for making sure a student walks around a track and then you have a math teacher who is trying to help a student with equations. You tell me, which one is harder? To me their shouldn't be bonuses for how many students pass your class. You went to school to be a teacher because you wanted to help students and teach or maybe inspire them to do something with their life. If teachers are just looking for the money, then I feel they studied in the wrong field because everybody knows unless you are a college professor, you do not make much money.
I've seen it happen, and have experienced it, in much simpler terms. For many of my classes, before a quiz, or even a major test, teachers would go over all of the material that kids are going to be taking the next day, or in some instances, only 15 minutes later. Not only did it bore me, but it made me wonder who exactly who it was that the teachers were addressing in class. Or I get annoyed that they're treating us like we're back in elementary school...
- i dont think a teacher is cheating by helping kids out on tests and such things but they should have a limit o everything dont do the whole test for them just help them out alittle. some test teachers give or others can be very confusing and some questions the students dont understand!!!!!
In my high school we'd have about 300 Questions in Math class to do in 90 minutes, and in English around 200 give or take 15 (based on the teacher) in the same amount of time and History exams with 400+ questions in the same amount of time. Now in the Math class we were only going to be graded on the ones we finished after the first 150 we did. (I found this fair because it forced you to try and gave you a chance to skip some problems at the end, that you may have forgot) The incentive for completing at least 75% of the exam was a 25% extra credit bonus to your final Class grade (Not Exam score). The English test had multiple questions setups like 6 question for question one and you get to pick any three to do. (That one was easy) Finally, the history, Honestly we were able to use one sheet of notes we took front and back on the Exam. But we ended up using all of our notes for those who kept them(Which honestly increased my grade and I forgot more than half of what was on that Exam) So teachers are using methods to make students do better on Exams, in other words "Cheating", but if it wasn't for there negligence a lot of students may have failed or not gotten the scholarships they needed for college.(Not saying I'm one of those but you know what I mean)
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