Confession of a cheating teacher

Almost always, says Schaeffer, those involved say they broke the rules because they felt pressured to generate unrealistic test score gains and avoid sanctions under the federal No Child Left Behind Act.

My point in a nutshell. Teachers feel pressured and I don't blame them.

My entire 7th grade year, I got fed the line "We are doing things this way because this is how they're done on the MAP test." (MAP is our state assessment test) I honestly felt that the only reason I was doing anything was to do well on the MAP test. I mean really, state assessments do nothing for the students directly. I could have bombed the entire thing if I felt like it, and guess what? Not a single repercussion on my grade. It does affect funding which you could argue would have an impact, but meh.

They need to do away with testing and observe students themselves. Testing just doesn't work.