cheat your children well

se you're actually creating a situation where the only sane thing to do is cheat. "Of the 56 schools that were examined, cheating was discovered in 44 of them — that’s more than 78 percent — and 178 teachers and principals were found to have cheated on standardized tests." nor are schools run by michelle rhee immune. the assessment instruments are completely external to the process; the goal is not built into the activity, but imposed. the assessment regime is mechanized; it requires no agency. it's not particularly invented or administered by anyone; no one is really responsible for its content; there's no one holding people accountable; people are just enacting routines. the regime does not have a human face. it's like stealing from exxon-mobil; how bad do you really feel? and people's livelihoods depend on it. if you thought another school was cheating and was going to take your money, you'd cheat too; it actually has nothing to do what anyone's actually learning. anyway, i think it's likely that the whole thing could crash, based not on its palpable pedagogical bankruptcy, but on cheating administrators.