Welcome to academic fraud season

Schools are cooking the books to ensure unqualified students pass their classes.

Originally published in the Moultrie News.

My 15-year-old nephew has been lazy all year. His parents kept saying, “If you don’t do the work, you’re gonna fail." He failed every quarter. Now, at the end of the year, the school has him on a computer program to boost his grade to passing. His parents are annoyed because they hoped he’d learn a lesson. He did … just not the one they expected.

Little-known fact: May is academic fraud season in schools across the country.

It’s the time when principals are looking at their schools’ failure rates (September would’ve been better) and deciding that it simply won’t do. Consequently, they’re cooking the books to reduce the numbers.

Understand that we’re not talking about kids who struggle intellectually. Yearly failures are generally caused by failing effort, not intellect. Students who show up, pay attention, and do their work usually pass, even if they struggle with the material. Remember, 60 percent is passing, so it isn’t that hard.

We’re also not talking about kids who are within a point or two of passing on their own. Teachers generally provide opportunities to bump up borderline grades.

Most students whom principals suddenly seek to rescue are those who don’t even try to pass, though they’re perfectly capable. They ignore homework. They sleep or play during class. They don’t study. Usually, they have not just failed; they have failed regularly and miserably.

What might these fraudulent rescue operations look like? Here’s a sample:

• Minimum grades — Where principals mandate quarterly grades of 50 or 55, even if a student has earned all zeroes. This ensures that if the student wakes up for the final weeks of school, he can still mathematically pass.

• Backfilled assignments — In which principals require teachers to let students make up missed or failed tasks, even those from the beginning of the year.

• Catch-up packets — In this scheme, kids are thrown into a room for several days with a packet of worksheets or an online program to complete, which is credited to them as sufficient work to pass. It’s sometimes euphemistically called “credit recovery.”

• Grade enhancement — Whereby teachers simply replace failing grades with passing ones in their gradebooks.

Some people may shrug and say, “What’s wrong with that? Kids make mistakes. We’re just helping them overcome them.”

Not true. We learn from mistakes by enduring their uncomfortable consequences. Grade fabrication ensures there are no meaningful consequences, thereby eliminating any chance to improve the child’s self-destructive patterns.

Principals often hide academic fraud under the mask of “helping kids succeed.” But if an aspiring athlete is too lazy to finish the race, dragging his collapsed body across the finish line does not “help him succeed.” It makes it more likely that in his next race, he’ll collapse even earlier. And when other lazy runners see his “success,” they’ll join him. That’s why failures usually increase year over year.

Such counterfeit “success” makes a mockery of the real thing by completely bypassing the hard work and perseverance that are vital components of it. Why would kids bother with those traits if they can get the same rewards without them?

“Even so,” someone may say, “giving somebody a hand isn’t ‘academic fraud.’”

This isn’t giving someone a hand. This is manipulating grades to knowingly pass a student who did not meet the course requirements. It’s misrepresenting the student’s actual achievement.

That is the very definition of academic fraud.

Another reason I know it’s fraud? Because if a teacher or principal did any of the things we’re talking about on a student’s end-of-year state standardized testing, they would certainly be fired and probably arrested.

Grade manipulation undermines the integrity of our educational system. It leads to unqualified students progressing to higher-level courses or earning diplomas without the required knowledge or skills. Its unrestrained use has climaxed in our present situation, where graduation rates have risen while achievement scores have fallen.

If left unchecked, the system’s indifferent attitude toward grades as a reliable indicator of achievement will corrode much more than the significance of a high school diploma. It will corrupt the value of education itself.

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Jody Stallings has been an award-winning teacher in Charleston since 1992 and is director of the Charleston Teacher Alliance. To submit a question, order his books, or follow him on social media, please visit JodyStallings.com.