1 in 5 Chicago Public High School teachers say they felt pressure to change grades last year

Portage Park teacher Jeronna Hopkins said teachers were told repeatedly not to give less than a C to special ed students. She believes it was an attempt to avoid giving kids more special ed help.
(Al Podgorski/Sun-Times)


8-29-09

ROSALIND ROSSI & ART GOLAB

Nearly a third of Chicago public high school teachers say they were pressured to change grades this past school year.

One in five report they actually raised a grade under such prodding.

And dozens of teachers -- elementary and high school alike -- say they believe someone changed their grades last year without their approval.

Those are the results of an unprecedented survey of more than 1,200 Chicago Teachers Union members conducted by the CTU and the Chicago Sun-Times in June and July.

The findings raise serious questions about whether some of the data used to judge Chicago public schools has been inflated, artificially manipulated -- or in some cases outright altered.
The responses pulled back the curtain on the stress many teachers feel every time they sit down to issue grades.

"I am giving grades. Kids aren't earning them," said math teacher Bonnie Kayser.
'It's in the culture'

Teachers reported pressure from principals, "upset'' parents and even other CPS employees who were parents of their students. They said the squeeze was put on them to pass failing students, to give ill students a break or to help athletes. Some felt prodded to goose up grades to help kids graduate, avoid summer school or get into an elite high school.

(Excerpt) Read more at suntimes.com ...

Comment: Obama chose the Superintendent of Chicago Public Schools to be Secretary of Education and no one objected? This man should not be anywhere near the Education Department or does he plan more dumbing down of our students by giving them grades they didn't earn in the whole Country not just in Chicago? That policy doesn't help any student be successful -- hard work does. Now we know that the Annenberg Project of Ayers and Obama where they spent millions on Chicago schools was an abject failure. As a parent and former reading tutor, this disgusts me to no end to read children that need help cannot get it and ones that don't do the work get good grades because they don't want to make Chicago schools look bad. Is this more of the "Chicago Way?"