At least not on cheating on standardized tests
The Snooze had a story Saturday about how the Texas Education Agency is looking at firing Caveon, an outside agency it hired to monitor schools across the state for possible cheating on the Texas Association of Knowledge and Skills, the state’s standardized test battery.
Why?
In a nutshell, because Caveon’s method of data analysis for identifying potentially cheating schools was flagging too many rich schools.
And, in a blatant bit of editorializing, the Snooze and reporter Joshua Benton agree, without any factual warrant given, that rich kids really don’t cheat that much.
Here’s what Benton said:
The result is that Caveon flagged a large percentage of the high schools in well-off suburbs – schools where students generally achieve high TAKS passing rates without having to resort to cheating.
No proof that the Highland Parksters of the world cheat less often than students down here in poorer — and darker — Lancaster. Just a statement out of thin air.
I e-mailed Benton and the Snooze’s education editor:
Who says? Do you have proof that students in well-off schools are less likely to resort to cheating? Maybe they are more sophisticated at how they cheat, for all you and I know, unless you have some other proof.
Beyond that, which I forgot to mention last night, rich high school students have more incentive and pressure to cheat, if anything.
Not to slight the majority of students at poorer districts, but taking reality as it is, the temptation and the pressure to cheat to get into Harvard or Yale might be a bit more than to get into a local junior college.
Yet, the Snooze assumes just the opposite.
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