EDUCATION
NYC teachers caught manipulating test scores
According to a new working paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, New York City teachers have been inflating test scores to help students graduate high school.
The paper found 40 percent of scores near a proficiency cutoff were inflated by teachers. Students who would have barely failed were helped substantially by the score inflation: It made them 22 percentage points more likely to graduate from high school.
“The manipulation [is] being driven by teachers’ desire to help their students receive these benefits of passing an exam, not the recent creation of school accountability systems or formal teacher incentive programs,” the paper says.
Percentage-wise, the impact of the manipulation has been fairly small. For instance, “the overall graduation rate would have decreased from 76.6 percent to 75.3 percent without test score manipulation.” The paper also says fewer African-American students would graduate if not for the manipulation.
New York students take standardized tests called Regents Examinations in core high school classes to earn a special diploma signifying various degrees of college-readiness. The paper was authored by Thomas Dee with Stanford, Will Dobbie with Princeton, Brian Jacob with the University of Michigan and Jonah Rockoff with Columbia. — Jason Russell
AIR TRAVEL
TSA staffing woes ‘our No. 1 problem,’ airline says
Long security lines are already causing thousands of passengers to miss their flights, and it’s only going to get worse in the peak travel months of summer.
The Chicago Tribune reported that long lines can be blamed on the Transportation Security Administration’s incorrect assumptions about how many people would sign up for expedited security screening, heightened security measures and higher-than-expected increase in air traffic.
“TSA is our No. 1 problem right now, and it’s only going to get worse,” Leslie Scott, a spokeswoman for American Airlines, told the Tribune. Last month, 1,000 American Airlines passengers missed their flights at O’Hare due to “excessive” TSA lines, Scott said.
TSA has reduced its screening staff in recent years, from 47,630 workers in 2011 to about 41,928 in 2016, according to Department of Homeland Security budget reports.
The agency says the global threat of terrorism is the major problem and that it has a “robust plan” to deal with the increasing level of travel “including more canine use, encouraging pre-check enrollment [which costs $85], overtime, accelerated hiring and more.”
Miguel Southwell, manager of Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta, sent a letter to TSA officials on Feb. 12 threatening to bring in his own private contractors for checkpoints if the agency didn’t get its act together.
TSA is asking for more officers from Congress and has made a big publicity push to get people signed up for PreCheck. Fliers who qualify do not have to remove shoes, belts and light jackets, or remove laptops or liquids from bags, allowing for a faster process. It is valid for five years. — Joana Suleiman
ACCOUNTABILITY
Federal financial reporting ‘unreliable,’ says comptroller
The government’s financial report doesn’t get nearly as much attention as the budget, Comptroller General Gene Dodaro told a Senate budget committee this month, but “it’s really needed to provide a total perspective on the government’s financial condition and position.”
Improving the way the federal government reports its finances would help reverse the current fiscally unsustainable course, said Dodaro. The report should provide “insight into accountability over the money that’s been spent already, and the proper sterwardship over the assets that the government owns.” However, it’s unreliable.
Despite improvements in financial management over the last 20 years, Dodaro said, significant problems remain. He pointed to three barriers that stand in the way of sound financial reports: financial management issues at the Department of Defense, intergovernmental transactions and problems compiling agency financial statements.
Even though the DoD represents 30 percent of the government’s total assets and 15 percent of the government’s net costs, the 2015 audits conducted by the Army, Navy and Air Force were for a single year instead of multiple years. Auditors made more than 900 recommendations, but the Pentagon doesn’t have the talent needed to get it done, Dodaro said.
Other problems stem from agencies working with the Treasury Department “where there are hundreds of billions of dollars of activity among the federal agencies that can’t properly be eliminated.”
Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., asked about improper payments, which totaled $136 billion, according to the Government Accountability Office report, and which Dodaro said was linked to Medicaid. He said states don’t have the systems in place to verify eligibility.
“Those things need additional guidance. Otherwise you will get information that will not be helpful,” Dodaro told Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., who asked about reporting standards related to the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act, the nation’s first legislative mandate for data transparency. — Joana Suleiman
