The allegations of standardized-test doctoring at Sanders-Clyde Elementary have finally worked their way up to get a bit of a national spotlight, appearing in The New York Times on page A15 of Friday, October 31's edition.
They wrote about the suspicions that former Principal MiShawna Moore had somehow overseen doctoring of the tests:
“They say we cheated — that’s kind of disrespecting us,” said Syllia Davis, 16, who was one of Ms. Moore’s students.
“The kind of community we live in, they just don’t believe we could be that smart,” said Ms. Davis, now a student at the public Garrett Academy of Technology, peering from a doorway in the old low-rise housing project behind the school. Down the street, police officers were stopping drivers for what they said were routine license checks.
“She’d do anything for us,” Ms. Davis continued. “She’d buy clothing, food baskets. I wish she’d come back. She worked hard for us. For us to see her on the news and get antagonized like that, it’s not nice.”
Still, the paper notes, even some parents were suspicious of the gains:
Another parent, Tanika Bausley, recalled, “It was hard for me to believe the scores that my daughter had, knowing the struggles she was having,” adding that her child had a “borderline learning disability.”
It's a good write-up that really roles in what the atmosphere of the school was, and what Moore did beyond the testing scandal. So, go read it.
When we last left the Sanders-Clyde saga, Moore had finally spoken about the allegations, and the school's teachers had complained that the test monitoring disturbed students.