http://www.economist.com/node/18958685 Atlanta's public schools 亚特兰大的公立学校 Low marks all round 全面低分 The city’s school system has cheated its pupils. Now it must clean up the mess 这城市的学校系统曾欺骗了它的学童，现在必须收拾残局 Jul 14th 2011 | ATLANTA | from the print edition AT ITS heart—as in so many scandals—lay a simple thing: the friction of rubber on paper. Too many wrong answers were erased, too many right ones inserted. Questions about dramatic improvements in standardised-test scores taken by children in Atlanta’s public schools (APS) were first raised a decade ago. They were thoroughly answered last week when Governor Nathan Deal released a report that found cheating throughout Atlanta’s school system, not by pupils but by teachers, with the superintendent and her administration either encouraging it or turning a blind eye. 事件的核心，就像许多丑闻一样，有一样简单的东西：纸上面的橡皮擦屑。太多错被擦掉，改写进对的答案。这个被质疑为何学童分数能有如此显着进步的标准化考试，最早是十年以前开始在亚特兰大公立学校体系(APS)举办。上周经由政府官员Nathan Deal发表的亚特兰大公立学校系统作弊调查报告，发现不是学童而是教师们在作弊，同时监管机关与政府不是鼓励就是在睁一只眼闭一只眼。 Cheating occurred in 44 of the 56 Atlanta elementary and middle schools examined, and with the collusion of at least 178 teachers, including 38 principals. (And the report cautions that “there were far more educators involved in cheating, and other improper conduct, than we were able to establish sufficiently to identify by name in this report”). Answer-sheets in some classrooms found wrong-to-right erasures on test sheets that had standard deviations 20 to 50 times above the state norm. According to Gregory Cizek, who analysed test scores for the special report, the chance of this occurring without deliberate intervention is roughly the same as that of the Georgia Dome, a 70,000-seat football stadium, being filled to capacity with spectators who all happened to be over seven feet tall. 在56所亚特兰大的中小学里就有44所发现有作弊，且至少有178名教职人员密谋串通，其中包含38位校长。(且报告中警告，有远超过此人数的教育工作者涉入作弊行为与其他不适当的举止，无法一一在报告当中列出姓名)。在部分教室的答案卷中发现错的答案擦掉改写入正确答案的次数远高於全国平均20到50个标准差之多。负责为此专案报告分析考试分数的Gregory Cizek表示，如果不是蓄意安排的话，这种情形发生的机率极低，就好比在乔治亚巨蛋(有七万个座位的美式足球场)，看台被七万名观众塞满，而且每位观众正巧都有七尺(210公分)高。 Some teachers gave pupils answers. Some filled in answers themselves. Some pointed to answers while standing over pupils’ desks. Others let low-scoring children sit near—and copy from—higher-scoring ones. One group of teachers had a test-changing party over the weekend. 有些老师给学童答案，有些老师自己填写考试答案，有些老师则在站在学童桌边时指出正确的答案。其他老师则让低分的学童坐得靠近高分的同学且抄其答案。有一群老师则在周末举行考试交换派对。 Nor was it just in 2009; the report found “systemic misconduct” dating back to 2001. All this was done to raise scores on tests that determine whether schools make “adequate yearly progress” as mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act. Schools that fail to meet them two years running must offer students the chance to transfer to better ones. Further failures can result in school closures, state takeovers and the firing of teachers and administrators. The threat of such sanctions seems to have grabbed the attention of many Atlanta teachers: one elementary-school principal not only directed teachers to cheat, but also ordered low-scoring teachers to crawl under the table during faculty meetings. 也不只在2009年，报告发现系统性失职可以往前追朔到2001年。在No Child Left Behind Act〔不让孩子落後法案〕生效後，所有学校都要在考试分数上有所进展，达到〔令人满意的年度进步〕。如果学校没有在两年内达到此要求，就必须允许学生转学到分数表现更好的学校。若持续没有进步则可能造成学校关闭，政府接管并且解雇教师与行政人员。这样制裁性的威胁看来已经吸引了许多亚特兰大教师的注意：一位国小校长不只要求教师作弊，还命令学生考试低分的老师在教师会议中在桌子下匍匐爬行前进。 The report blamed Beverly Hall, former superintendent of Atlanta’s schools, and her administration for “emphasi[sing] test results and public praise to the exclusion of integrity and ethics.” During Ms Hall’s 11-year tenure, public praise rolled in from far and wide. Foundations showered Atlanta’s school system with grants; she won a national superintendent of the year award in 2009; Barack Obama named her to the National Board for Education Sciences. Ms Hall, who apparently went off on holiday to Hawaii the day the report came out, claimed she was “shocked” by the facts contained in it. 报告指责前任的亚特兰大学校主管官员Beverly Hall与其行政官员，〔过度强调考试结果，且对於这种排挤诚实正直与道德的行为竟公开赞扬〕。在Hall女士11年任期中，公众的赞美从四面八方大量涌入，许多基金会大量捐款给亚特兰大的学校系统，她在2009赢得全国教育主管官员大奖，欧巴马总统指名她进入全国教育科学委员会。据悉Hall女士在这份报告出炉的当天人在夏威夷度假，她宣称在听到其中的事实时感到〔震惊〕。 Her interim replacement, Erroll Davis, has his work cut out. In addition to the cheating-scandal fallout, the accreditation of Atlanta’s high schools remains at risk. (The system is one of just eight of 5,000 districts overseen by AdvancED, a schools-accreditation agency, to be so threatened.) Mr Davis has sacked four administrators and promised to “change the culture”. Keirsten Alexander, head of the Parent-Teacher Association at Toomer Elementary, which was implicated in the report, said that “people are angry enough that change is just around the corner.” It had better be: the new school year starts in less than a month. 她暂时的替任者Erroll Davis已将他的工作进行安排。除了作弊丑闻余波荡漾，目前亚特兰大证明合格的高中仍有风险。(此系统不过是5,000个受威胁学区当中八个由学校认证顾问AdvancED，监管的学区中的一个)。Davis先生已经解雇四名行政官员且承诺会〔改变文化〕。报告中提及也有涉案的Toomer小学家长教师协会的会长Keirsten Alexander表示〔因为大家的愤怒够强烈所以改变很快就会来临了。〕最好是这样：新学年在一个月内马上要开始了。 --

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