There's no Accounting for Public Schools

A news story today reports that 75 public school teachers in California have been found guilty over the last several years of cheating on state tests in order to give the impression that students knew more than they actually did.

Incidents include teachers who gave hints by drawing on the blackboard or leaving posters on the wall, told students the right answers and changed the students' responses themselves, the Los Angeles Times reported, referring to documents obtained through a Public Records Act request....

Some educators said temptation to cheat soared under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, which can take away funding or reassign teachers in schools with consistently low test scores....

"Some people feel that they need to boost test scores by hook or by crook," said Larry Ward of the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, a watchdog group that has criticized many standardized tests. "The more pressure, the more some people take the unethical option."

Union officials said cases of possible cheating soared after the statewide testing began. Since 1999, the California Teachers Association has defended more than 100 teachers accused of cheating, compared to one or two a year before that, chief counsel Beverly Tucker said.

Though state officials say the teachers found guilty of cheating represent a tiny fraction of the total teaching workforce, it isn't clear that their system for detecting cheaters is truly comprehensive or effective. I recall having looked at the test fraud detection policies of several states a few years ago, one of which was California, and none were especially thorough. You can easily see why.

The real problem here is that parents have little choice but to keep sending their children to the same public schools in which this fraud went on. Despite the commonly heard protestation that private school choice programs are "unaccountable," it is the present system of automatically assigning children to government monopoly schools that provides the least redress for dissatisfied parents.