From the article:
This appears to be the largest of dozens of major cheating scandals, unearthed across the country. The allegations point an ongoing problem for US education, which has developed an ever-increasing dependence on standardized tests.
On its face, the investigation tarnishes the 12-year tenure of Superintendent Beverly Hall, who was named US Superintendent of the Year in 2009 largely because of the school system’s reported gains – especially in inner-city schools. She has not been directly implicated, but investigators said she likely knew, or should have known, what was going on. In her farewell address to teachers in June, Hall for the first time acknowledged wrongdoing in the district, but blamed other administrators.
Ten states now use test scores as the main criterion in teacher evaluations. Other states reward high-scoring teachers with up to $25,000 bonuses – while low scores could result in principals losing their jobs or entire schools closing.
All one would have to do.. is replace a few select words… RPH= teacher … DPM= administrator …. VP operation = superintendent …
As as long as people required to “make the metrics” or told or lead to believe that you “do whatever it takes to make the metrics” … people will find “ways” to get the job done… Until the people get caught and the finger pointing starts at the “upper levels of management”..
From the article:
Even as the number of scandals grows, experts say it remains fairly easy for teachers and principals to get away with ethical lapses.
One has to ask the question… why do these teachers and principals feel that they find it necessary to have “ethical lapses”?
AND… we RPH’s must ask ourselves everyday… how many “ethical lapses” am I going to have today… in order to meet “the metrics”…
When you put things in perspective… teachers have seldom killed anyone by producing a less than properly educated student…
What could be the collateral damage(s) of RPH’s having “ethical lapses”… and who is going to start the finger pointing when it happens ?
Filed under: General Problems
Yes, the numbers can usually be manipulated. There is one store in my district that always has an outstanding on-time rate..98%. In other words, 98% of the time they get the customers rx’s filled in 20 minutes. There is no way this store can do this. They are manipulating those numbers. If I wanted to spend the extra time, I too could manipulate the numbers at my store. But, I just don’t give a rip about the numbers and will not play their metric game. Then, there are all the customers we are suppose to phone to tell them their meds are ready. Who knows if we call or not?
The schools have become a mess because of bureaucracy. The poor teachers are caught in a web of metrics and paper work. What is lost is the core job of teaching students, just as the core job for pharmacists is filling rx’s…it is not about meeting metrics. But, you try to tell these idiots at these corporations, and you are wasting your time. They just love metrics. Those folks at the top live in a two dimensional world dominated by numbers. When you walk into the pharmacy area, you see a three dimensional world. You see the layout of the pharmacy. The reaction of customers. You see the cold section and items out of stock. You see boxes of items that need putting on the shelf. There is a vast difference between looking at numbers on a computer and a real life situation. I am wondering how long it will take these corporations to ever realize this…if they ever do.