http://www.economist.com/node/18958685 Atlanta's public schools 亞特蘭大的公立學校 Low marks all round 全面低分 The city’s school system has cheated its pupils. Now it must clean up the mess 這城市的學校系統曾欺騙了它的學童，現在必須收拾殘局 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，就像許多醜聞一樣，有一樣簡單的東西：紙上面的橡皮擦屑。太多錯被擦掉，改寫進對的答案。這個被質疑為何學童分數能有如此顯著進步的標準化考試，最早是十年以前開始在亞特蘭大公立學校體系(APS)舉辦。上週經由政府官員Nathan Deal發表的亞特蘭大公立學校系統作弊調查報告，發現不是學童而是教師們在作弊，同時監管機關與政府不是鼓勵就是在睜一隻眼閉一隻眼。 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所亞特蘭大的中小學裡就有44所發現有作弊，且至少有178名教職人員密謀串通，其中包含38位校長。(且報告中警告，有遠超過此人數的教育工作者涉入作弊行為與其他不適當的舉止，無法一一在報告當中列出姓名)。在部分教室的答案卷中發現錯的答案擦掉改寫入正確答案的次數遠高於全國平均20到50個標準差之多。負責為此專案報告分析考試分數的Gregory Cizek表示，如果不是蓄意安排的話，這種情形發生的機率極低，就好比在喬治亞巨蛋(有七萬個座位的美式足球場)，看台被七萬名觀眾塞滿，而且每位觀眾正巧都有七呎(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. 有些老師給學童答案，有些老師自己填寫考試答案，有些老師則在站在學童桌邊時指出正確的答案。其他老師則讓低分的學童坐得靠近高分的同學且抄其答案。有一群老師則在週末舉行考試交換派對。 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，報告發現系統性失職可以往前追朔到2001年。在No Child Left Behind Act〔不讓孩子落後法案〕生效後，所有學校都要在考試分數上有所進展，達到〔令人滿意的年度進步〕。如果學校沒有在兩年內達到此要求，就必須允許學生轉學到分數表現更好的學校。若持續沒有進步則可能造成學校關閉，政府接管並且解雇教師與行政人員。這樣制裁性的威脅看來已經吸引了許多亞特蘭大教師的注意：一位國小校長不只要求教師作弊，還命令學生考試低分的老師在教師會議中在桌子下匍匐爬行前進。 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. 報告指責前任的亞特蘭大學校主管官員Beverly Hall與其行政官員，〔過度強調考試結果，且對於這種排擠誠實正直與道德的行為竟公開讚揚〕。在Hall女士11年任期中，公眾的讚美從四面八方大量湧入，許多基金會大量捐款給亞特蘭大的學校系統，她在2009贏得全國教育主管官員大獎，歐巴馬總統指名她進入全國教育科學委員會。據悉Hall女士在這份報告出爐的當天人在夏威夷度假，她宣稱在聽到其中的事實時感到〔震驚〕。 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. 她暫時的替任者Erroll Davis已將他的工作進行安排。除了作弊醜聞餘波盪漾，目前亞特蘭大證明合格的高中仍有風險。(此系統不過是5,000個受威脅學區當中八個由學校認證顧問AdvancED，監管的學區中的一個)。Davis先生已經解雇四名行政官員且承諾會〔改變文化〕。報告中提及也有涉案的Toomer小學家長教師協會的會長Keirsten Alexander表示〔因為大家的憤怒夠強烈所以改變很快就會來臨了。〕最好是這樣：新學年在一個月內馬上要開始了。 --

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