More on The Dallas Morning News, Caveon, Texas Education Agency and rich kids cheating

I blogged yesterday about the impression The Dallas Morning News gave that rich kids don’t need to cheat on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, the state’s standardized test battery.

I talked with reporter Joshua Benton about the story and that particular line.

He defended it by saying that, because rich schools all have no problem because “on the TAKS, passing and failing is all that matters — no one cares if you pass by a little or pass by a lot.”

I partially but not totally conceded the point. And Benton himself discussed a study at Canada’s premier McGill University where a professor found that in chemistry class, top students were more likely to cheat than average ones. Why? Many of them were pre-med and had that extra pressure of competing for admission to med school.

To put my countering e-mail in a nutshell:

First, you don’t just get a pass/fail on TAKS — you get an actual score. Now, while that, as compared to SAT/ACT, is not a primary part of college admissions, it could be a part. This would apply more to applicants at state universities than, say, the Ivy League, but, for someone wanting in a prestigious program, such as, say, pre-med at The University of Texas, to riff on Benton and McGill, actual TAKS scores could be at least semi-important.

Related to that and riffing on McGill more, rich high school students obviously have the incentive to cheat on the SAT/ACT. (In my day, I know neither of them had assigned seating nor tests with variable question order, things used at McGill to fight cheating. Cheating, like other violations of the social order, has social pressures against it. Once the dam is first burst, those pressures fade away, lowering the bar for repeated violations.

Throw in two psychological factors, too. One is the thrill of rule-breaking, especially with the adrenalin rush of potential exposure. Two is a possible feeling of entitlement due to wealth.

Second, rich school districts have incentive to cheat. No, not to get the district and its individual schools to the “academically acceptable level” but to “exemplary” or even the level above that. Keeping that rating, especially for the district as a whole, attracts new home-buying parents with more money, more investiture in the school district, etc.

From the TEA point of view, it’s similar to that of rich school districts — it doesn’t want an image problem affecting schools. And, despite Senate Bill 1, the state still has a partial Robin Hood, so rich districts can speak louder. Don’t doubt that folks at places like Highland Park school district rang up Education Commissioner Shirley Neeley as soon as Caveon started flagging them.

And why? Well, the above facts, plus, riffing on Benton, the idea that “rich schools/students don’t cheat because we don’t need to! How dare Caveon assume otherwise.”