European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - September 10, 1989, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 6 the stars and stripes sunday september 10.1989 cheating on Standard tests reported educators help hike scores Stu cry says new York a pressure to achieve rapid school Reform is prompting some educators to help students cheat on standardized achievement tests a report charges. The problem is worsened by totally inadequate test Security in nearly every state concluded the study called the Lake Wobegon report How Public educators cheat on achievement  the report said cheating contributes to misleadingly High scores on the most widely used standardized achievement tests in Grade schools making it seem in thousands of districts As if All the children Are above average As in author Garrison Keillor s mythical Minnesota town of Lake Wobegon. The cheating includes teachers and principals coach ing students on test questions giving students More than the allotted time to take tests and even altering answer sheets. The associated press obtained a draft of the report which was conducted by friends for education a watchdog group headed by an Albuquerque n.m., doctor. John Jacob Cannell. The act Turing family foundation in Dayton Ohio financed the study with a $25.000 Grant. All but two states Louisiana and Arizona Are re porting above average scores according to the 50-state Survey. Those states recently started using new tests. Eighty three percent of 5,143 elementary school districts and 73 percent of 4.501 secondary districts surveyed arc reporting standardized achievement test scores above National norms the report said. High achievement test scores have misled Many into believing that although the nation s schools May be at risk their own schools Are improving each year the report said. Many states have added new standardized test requirements in recent years As part of the school Reform Effort. In some states educators careers can now be made or broken and school districts can even be subject to state takeover partly on the strength of test scores. The report placed the blame for cheating not so much on teachers or principals but on the pressures for educational Quick fixes by parents politicians and the Media. These tests that were once used Only As instruction Al aids now assess class achievement school achieve ment and District achievement through student s  the report said. As such the class results then become the teacher s score the school s results become the principal s score and the District s results become the superintendent s  Cannell said in an interview Friday that besides gathering test data from All 50 states he placed an and. In the May 3 Issue of the Trade journal education week inviting educators to reveal test cheating. Cannell said he received More than 300 letters from teachers College professors who once taught Grad school and school administrators admitting they or colleagues had tampered with tests or helped students improperly. All demanded anonymity. A Tennessee teacher wrote that teachers in his it appears that there Are teachers in every school now who cheat. The most common Way is to teach the  a Tennessee educator school spent the morning teaching the test and the afternoon giving  it appears that there Are teachers in every school now who cheat the teacher wrote. The most com Mon Way is to teach the  National education association spokesman Howard Carroll whose organization is the nation s largest teacher Union said the Nea had t seen the report and could t comment on it directly. We would certainly deplore any cheating by teach ers Carroll added. We Don t feel it s widespread. But the report certainly indicates this obsessive pres sure on schools by the marketplace to increase student scores on standardized tests. And we deplore  Scott Thomson executive director of the National association of secondary school principals said Wedo have educational malpractice let s not kid our selves just As we have medical  but he added that it s not improper for schools to use old versions of a test to help students prepare for answer version and that it was possible some teachers were incorrectly identifying that practice As cheating. Faa to order engine checks As result of july dc-10 crash Washington a the Federal aviation administration will order exhaustive inspections of All dc-10 engines As a result of a july crash in Sioux City Iowa that killed 112 people an Agency official says. Anthony Broderick Faa associate administrator said in an interview Friday that the Agency expects within a few weeks to order inspections of the Metal in All general electric engines such As those in the dc-10 that crash landed july 19 in Sioux City. Broderick said the expected Faa ordered inspections would take 40 hours each and could cause some flight disruptions. However officials say the investigation into the crash is being hampered because a Large Section of the Tail engine of United right 232 has not been found. With 8-foot Cornstalk and 4-foot soybean plants obscuring much of the ground in the flight path authorities in Washington and Iowa said Friday they Hope the Harvest season will uncover parts vital to investigation. Be has offered a total of $279,000 in rewards for All the missing parts of the Tail engine. Investigators have said they believe the Middle engine disintegrated severing Hydraulic lines that control flight. Pilots relying on engine thrust guided the plane to a crash Landing in which 184 people survived. Both the search and investigation arc focusing on the Large titanium fan disk which Broderick said prob ably broke into two or three pieces. Rewards total $50,000 for the whole 300-Pound disk. Be United and american airlines already have begun testing some engine fan disks for flaws. Each test involves sophisticated technology using Low frequency sound Waves to probe for cracks the size of a Pinhead Broderick said. Microscopic flaws in the Metal s Crystal Structure were detected in one disk. Broderick said. The disk had been used on 10,000 flights and the flaws had to have been there since it was manufactured he said. Broderick said there was no proof that such flaws caused the Iowa crash but that it was prudent to Checkal the engines for any problem that might have caused the revolving disk to break apart in flight. We Haven t found anything yet that leads us to say aha " he said. And we Don t expect to until we find that  be spokesman David Lane said the company had been Low key in announcing the Reward because it does t want to cause problems for Farmers along the flight path. An aug. 31 deadline for collecting Reward Money has been extended indefinitely he said. As the Farmers gel out into the Fields with com Bines and tractors we Hope More parts will turn up he said. Sheriff Chuck Eddy of Buenavista county Iowa said in a Telephone interview that Fields Over a 16 Square Milc area where the search has been concentrated arc too Muddy for much of a search this week end. Only seven aircraft parts have come in since the Reward offer Eddy said. Meanwhile the air transport association announced that a special government Industry task Force on monday will announce results of a yearlong look into aging Mcdonnell Douglas airliners. The group is expected to make recommendations for mandatory sen icing and modification of older dc-8s, dc-9s and dc-1  said the recommendations would focus on structural and other problems associated with aging aircraft not on potential engine problems. Cannell first documented that students in All 50 states were scoring above average on commercial achievement tests in 1987. His first report later verified by a study sponsored by the . Department of education asserted that scores on such Norm referenced tests designed so that Only half the students taking it should score above the 50th per Contile were artificially High largely because the norms were not being updated often enough by test publishers. Those tests include the California achievement test the Stanford achievement test the metropolitan achievement test the science research associates test the comprehensive test of Basic skills and the Iowa test of Basic skills. Test publishers have argued that it s expensive to re Norm tests As frequently As critics such As canned de Mand and that the tests arc useful tools to identify Pupil or group strengths and weaknesses. Few states randomly audit test scores to uncover improprieties the latest report said. California one of the few that docs caught 50 schools cheating during the last three years on the statewide achievement test ing program. According to the report Only 16 states forbid test administrators to receive tests earlier than the Day they Are to be Given. Four others arc instituting such guidelines. Six states forbid teachers from Reading test Book lets seven others plan to. Only a dozen states require that test booklets be scaled. Drafts of the report were reviewed this summer by a dozen testing authorities child psychiatrists and educators including Chester finn jr., former assistant . Education Secretary. Finn an education professor at Vanderbilt univer sity in Nashville. Tcnn., called the report a constructive and useful piece of work and said he agreed with Cannell that reporting Rosy local scores has contributed to a sense of unwarranted Contentment at the local and state  if Cannell is right and his track record is such that he probably is states Are so lax and Sloppy in organizing test Security that it s like letting Exxon Monitor water Quality in Prince William sound finn said alluding to a massive Oil spill from an Exxon Tanker in alaskan Waters this year. Stateside overworked court says no to no frills weddings Centreville Mich. A St. Joseph county s District court administrator said Fri Day that he stopped performing $10 no frills civil marriages because of an overburdened and underfunded court. David Recher said he usually performs about 100 weddings a year prompting weary court personnel to refer to the ceremonies As the county s 1,000-a-Ycar  personnel shortages and an increasing Crimi Nal caseload have forced More than one love struck couple to Cool their ardor on folding chairs in the court s lobby while Richcr attended to criminal  now on Recher said couples will have to take their rings to neighbouring counties. City decides not to junk imitation of stonehenge Alliance neb. A Carven go May not survive the Ages but life has been extended at least temporarily for the Circle of junked half buried cars in an imitation England s prehistoric stonehenge. In an Effort to Salvage the tourist attraction the Alliance City Council voted 3-1 thursday to pursue a change in zoning Laws allowing car henge to remain  argue it should be torn Down because it is unsightly. But Council members decided to review the special use permit granted to its Cre Ator James cinders of Houston after he bought the land. Cinders a former Alliance resident contends the Monument is a work of Art though some critics have described it As nothing More than a junkyard