Montgomery County Public Schools Superintendent Joshua Starr defended a Silver Spring elementary school against allegations that cheating — rather than real progress by low-income, immigrant students — bolstered students’ test scores. The article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution “not only represents irresponsible journalism, but it fosters the very stereotypes that have dogged public education for too long,” Starr said Monday. “The underlying message is that schools comprised of mostly African-American, Hispanic or poor students cannot achieve at a high level unless they cheat. We know that is not the case and are disturbed by the inference.”
The Atlanta newspaper highlighted Silver Spring’s Highland Elementary as an example of a school where a dramatic turnaround won the campus a National Blue Ribbon Schools Award, the federal government’s top education honor. Schools in which 40 percent or more of students come from low-income households and make some of the state’s highest gains in test scores can qualify.
In 2005, Highland was on “corrective action status” from Maryland, meaning it needed to improve its scores or the state would take over the school. Former Superintendent Jerry Weast brought in a retired, high-performing principal who emphasized math and reading, focused on data-driven reforms, and drove out teachers who didn’t like his agenda.
In Ray Myrtle’s first year at Highland, 16 percent of fifth-graders scored “advanced” on Maryland’s reading exam. That number climbed to 24 percent in 2007 before hitting 80 percent in 2008, 94 percent in 2009, and 86 percent in 2010.
But the first full year after Highland won the blue ribbon award, the number of fifth-graders in the advanced rung dropped to 42 percent. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution suggested that cheating, not student improvement, was behind the Blue Ribbon win.
A spokesman for the Maryland State Department of Education said there have been no allegations of cheating at Highland Elementary, and the county said it had received no such reports.
Starr said budget cuts forced Highland to rid its staff of specialists who had helped students bring up their scores, something he said he told one of the newspaper’s reporters “numerous times.”
“He fails to mention that the percentage of fifth-grade students scoring at proficient or higher on the reading exam was above 95 percent, where it has been for three consecutive years,” Starr said.
The Journal-Constitution also implicated schools in Brooklyn, N.Y., and Dallas.
In Atlanta, at least 178 teachers and principals at 44 public schools corrected students’ tests to increase their scores, going so far as to hold “cheating parties” to cook the books together, according a Georgia state report in July.
