MiShawna Moore denies cheating, blames kids and oversight

The sign in front of Charleston’s Sanders-Clyde Elementary school read “where every child is more than a test score.”

As state police continue their investigation of systematic accountability test cheating at the school, former Principal MiShawna Moore has gone on record denying the charges.

In a recent interview with the Post and Courier‘s Diette Courrege, Moore  (lawyers by her side) complained the investigation had greatly inconvenienced her.

Moore even suggested that the dramatic drop in scores after her departure and the arrival of outside oversight was the result of some children taking their behavioral medicine immediately before the tests, not earlier in the day.

She also complained that “teachers weren’t allowed to give students encouragement, snacks were prohibited, meals were skipped, and breaks were limited.”

(Re)Name the new “PASS” Test contest!

PASS: “Palmetto Assessment of State Standards” or “Pleased About Slipping Standards?” Submit your own test title and win!

Education bureaucrats and partisan journalists are worried about the shameful PACT cheating scandal that continues to enrage parents across the South Carolina.

To distract attention from the cheating at schools and the awkwardly low-standards some have tried to steer the political dialogue toward the replacement test that will succeed PACT as the public school accountability tool.

Their “focus on the future” strategy is really the same old tired spin that ever-more-money will fix South Carolina’s failing public schools. At its heart, this is nothing more than a distraction from the push for real educational options and equality for all children.

Toward that end, the public servants PR staff at the State Department of Education recently held a contest to choose the name of PACT’s replacement, a test with even lower standards than its high dollar predecessor.

The “winner” was “PASS” which stands for “Palmetto Assessment of State Standards,” a sadly ironic name because the law authorizing the test actually lowers the already-low standards, reducing student performance categories from four to three.

In the spirit of competition (something public schools don’t face) the Voice for School Choice is announcing its own reverse acronym contest for the new PASS test.

EOC: South Carolina’s $1.8 Billion Barney Fife

South Carolina Education Oversight Committee (EOC) full-time staff are the keystone cops that let State Superintendent Jim Rex get away with all his crazy high-dollar antics!

South Carolina’s monolithic public schools are home to some of the lowest test scores and highest drop out rates in the entire country.

Even the “best” public schools in the state are totally uncompetitive with similar schools in other states.

This despite years of chaotic but massive funding growth, with total per-student spending now over $11,400.

But the the famed “Educational Accountability Act” (EAA) of 1998 was supposed to change all that. When the EAA was passed it was portrayed as a model of high standards and transparency, and was considered by some as influential in the passing of the subsequent federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law. The basic function of the EAA was to create the Education Oversight Committee (EOC), a new government bureaucracy to serve as the “watchdog” of student achievement standards.

Cheaters Prosper at Sanders-Clyde Elementary

The media-focused PR machine at the State Department loved Sanders-Clyde Elementary School in Charleston.

While public schools serving low-income and minority children across South Carolina had long been stagnant, Sander-Clyde looked like a brilliant exception.

In press release after press release the Department hailed the uncharacteristic gains in student performance at Sanders-Clydde, suggesting that public schools might break from decades of stagnation and a widening race and poverty gap.

The Department heaped awards, recognitions and distinctions on Sanders-Clyde, and in a short time the school jumped from an “F” to a “B” in absolute ratings, and earned an “A” for its improvement pace.

But it was all a big lie. The principal was cheating by altering the students’ annual PACT tests.

More on the Charleston PACT Scam

It looks like the “Charleston Pact Scam” is not going to be allowed to slink quietly out of the public eye.

Following up on a story in The Charleston Post and Courier about a Charleston administrator altering PACT scores to falsely inflate performance, FITSNews has unlimbered their much-dreaded pen to rip further into this story of lies and corruption.

It’s safe to say that FITSNews has effectively unloaded both barrels of truth and justice on the status quo education bureaucracy yet again.

Also, check out Randy Page’s editorial “Honesty is the Foundation of Improvement” in today’s Times and Democrat.

“Educators” Cook Books at Charleston School

Amidst all the self-praise among Department of Education bureaucrats for the “wave of progress” in South Carolina’s last round of PACT testing, rumors of fraudulent test results are raising questions with parents and educators.

According to The Charleston Post and Courier, SLED has begun investigating the administration of a Charleston elementary school after PACT results for the low performing school suddenly skyrocketed up over state averages in record time. Suspicious of the unusually high jump in achievement, people started looking in to the school’s testing process and found an unusual number of sketchy eraser marks on the documents.

This from the article-

“By 2007, the school outscored state and district averages, far exceeding the progress of schools with students from similar backgrounds. Educators hailed Moore as a model for other principals, the community showered her school with praise, and federal and state awards went to the school in recognition of its achievement. Moore was so successful that she was asked to lead a second downtown school, Fraser Elementary, to duplicate her accomplishments.”

In 2008, the school district monitored the PACT testing process and got very different results.
Here are some numbers from the elementary school’s 2008 PACT scores.

PACT Scores Point to Flaws in Department of Education Reporting

South Carolina’s last–ever release of PACT scores came with moderate increases in academic achievement, and predictably immoderate hype from the South Carolina Department of Education.

According to the SC Department of Education, “South Carolina students rode a wave of progress in Proficient and Advanced scoring across the board in 2008.”  In reality, 2008 PACT scores show a disturbingly low number of students who scored “Proficient” or “Advanced” in this year’s round of testing.

For example: Of the 51, 252 third graders taking the PACT in 2008, only 56.6 percent scored “Proficient” or “Advanced” in English Language Arts.  For eighth graders, the percentage of students meeting the standard is even lower, with only 27.9% scoring “Proficient” or “Advanced” on the reading and writing portion of the test.

Math scores are even more troubling.

Bureaucrats owe parents honesty

Great guest column from last weeks’ Times Examiner and Greenwood Today:

Honesty is the foundation of improvement

A problem has to be identified before it can be solved.

This bit of common sense wisdom has been lost on the public school establishment.

Last Tuesday, Jim Rex’s State Department of Education announced details of a statewide jump in SAT scores. Rex described a two-point gain by South Carolina students and reiterated the Department’s signature “stay the course” and “sustained improvement” message.

A handful of policy experts, reporters and bloggers were skeptical. By week’s end a clearer picture had emerged: Jim Rex and his communication director Jim Foster had played fast and loose with the numbers. They relied on dramatic private school score gains to hide a drop in public school scores.

Journalists frustrated with public school failures

Across South Carolina, newspaper editors and reporters are voicing their frustration with the sustained failure of SC public schools. Here are a few recent highlights:

“PACT with excuses for sad test scores” by Andrew Dys of the Rock Hill Herald.

…Certainly, when the old [PACT] test was a failure, the best recourse is to change the test. The old name had to go, too. The Palmetto Achievement Challenge Test, the old bugaboo that told us every year our kids weren’t doing as well as they should, was clearly at fault.

Not the schools. Not you. Not me.

PACT was sent packing along with all those bad scores. If you change the name and the test, nobody will ever remember all the times the scores tanked, right?

Why has standardized testing failed in South Carolina?

Nationwide, K-12 student achievement is up since 2002, the year No Child Left Behind (NCLB) was adopted. South Carolina has bucked the trend. Why?

A new OpEd in Greenville News considers the problem:

Getting rid of PACT a small first step

Elimination of the time-consuming and ineffective PACT test is great news for parents and teachers. While PACT was considered innovative when first introduced, it had become a burdensome and expensive measurement tool, unable to provide today’s educators with the detailed feedback they require.
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This might have been corrected earlier, had not bureaucrats at the state Department of Education sat by idly as the ever-growing PACT spiraled out of control. Replacement of PACT is a start, but does nothing to answer the larger problem: Why has the use of standardized testing done so little for student progress in South Carolina?