Looks Like 10 Miles of Bad Road

EPISD

The EPISD is a large urban school district located in Texas along the U.S.–Mexico border and situated directly across from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. EPISD enrolled more than 62,000 students in the 2012-2013 school year. Approximately 83% of the students were Hispanic, 11% White, 70% economically disadvantaged, and 25% English language learners (TEA, 2013b). Recently, EPISD and the surrounding school districts in the El Paso del Norte region have been shrouded in controversy. In 2012, former EPISD superintendent Lorenzo Garcia pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy to commit mail fraud in relation to high-stakes test rigging. One significant aspect of the alleged cheating scandal was associated with district administrators and principals inappropriately keeping low-performing students out of classrooms by improperly promoting, holding back, or preventing potentially low-performing students from arriving for the test or enrolling for school (Fernandez, 2012; Weaver & Tidwell, 2013).

U.S. Congressman Beto O’Rourke requested that the U.S. Department of Education and TEA further investigate EPISD and the extent to which the district pushed students out of school so that they would not take the test (Kreighbaum, 2013b). Teachers working in EPISD expressed feelings of anger and distrust for their central office administrators, whereas others felt the attention and investigations would not curb cheating or improve the educational outcomes for their students. An independent evaluation of the cheating scandal (Weaver & Tidwell, 2013) found “systemic noncompliance with both District policy and state law at the campus level” (p. 80) and concluded that numerous district officials either encouraged cheating or looked the other way. Some teachers spoke out against their schools and their administrators in public forums (Torres, 2012). Other teachers suggested that EPISD principals and assistant principals utilized administrative practices that were legal but not ethical or in the best interest of all students.

Accountability related challenges confronted by administrators might have prompted cheating and gaming behaviors. For example, English language learners who had only recently moved to the United States from neighboring Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, and had minimal academic English or Spanish were expected to pass high school level exams within 2 years. Juan Cabrera, a former school law attorney, was hired as superintendent in September 2013 after more than a yearlong transitional period that employed three interim superintendents. Superintendent Cabrera promised he would continue to investigate allegations of cheating at the district and school levels and take steps to ensure cheating did not persist. Early in his tenure as superintendent, it appeared he was true to his word.

Austin High School and Principal Tanner

EPISD’s Stephen F. Austin High School (AHS) is an historic and well-known school built in 1930. The school’s Spanish-style architecture, 100-foot tower, marble floor classrooms, and notable alumni, which include Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, helped set the school apart from other high schools in the district and region. AHS had a student population of 1,566, as well as 95 teachers and 27 additional staff members, in 2012-2013. The student population was 87% Hispanic, 5% African American, 7% White, and 1% Native American. Approximately 15% of the students were English language learners, and 78% were classified as economically disadvantaged. The teaching staff were diverse in terms of experience. Approximately 25% of the teachers had between 1 and 5 years, 6 and 10 years, 11 and 20 years, or more than 20 years of experience. AHS had both strengths and weaknesses in terms of student achievement. AHS scored at or above the state and district average on reading and writing assessments but 28 to 29 points below on mathematics assessments (TEA, 2013a).

John Tanner had been principal at AHS for 4 years and was popular with most teachers, students, parents, and the community. Parents forged important relationships with Principal Tanner and felt that his leadership vastly improved the school and the lives of students. However, Principal Tanner was accused of participating in the EPISD cheating scandal and placed under investigation on two occasions. In April 2013, a district-appointed board investigated him, one of his assistant principals, and several other administrators in the district for various testing irregularities reported in an independent audit on district- and school-level cheating (Weaver & Tidwell, 2013). Principal Tanner and his assistant principal were put on administrative leave, but after a few months, they were allowed to return under the condition that they would adhere to a “growth plan,” or professional improvement plan. Principal Tanner eagerly returned to AHS, and an excited crowd of students, wearing t-shirts that read “The Tanner, the Better” cheered for his return.

In August 2013, Tanner and his assistant principal were again put on administrative leave, but this time without EPISD immediately providing any explanation to the public. A retired EPISD principal became the temporary principal, followed by a former assistant principal from another school in EPISD. A letter from Superintendent Juan Cabrera reportedly detailed that Principal Tanner manipulated student enrollment data to eliminate the positions of two teachers who participated in the previous investigation against him although Tanner’s lawyer refuted these allegations (Kreighbaum, 2014). In December, the EPISD Board of Managers held a public meeting. Several community members spoke on Principal Tanner’s behalf before the board went into a closed discussion and returned with their decision. A parent with two students enrolled at AHS told the board, “We have a good man. We have somebody who is devoted like no one . . . Like nobody we’ve experienced” (Kreighbaum, 2013a). The board unanimously voted to begin the termination process for Principal Tanner and his assistant principal.

After the board meeting, a parent told a local journalist, “I feel the board betrayed us . . . The students started the school year. Dr. Tanner was gone. Everybody was heartbroken and no one knows why . . .” (Kreighbaum, 2013a). A student added, “He will always be in my heart, and he will always be a father figure that I will always look up to.” It appeared that the interim principal would be the principal for at least the remainder of the school year. Many parents, teachers, students, and community members were upset by the board’s decision and complained that the school was not the same without Principal Tanner. The cheating scandals and fraud surrounding EPISD created distrust and outrage in the school and community. Social media communications stoked anger and efforts to organize in protest. Some parents and teachers believed that many students became interested in transferring to other schools because of the fiasco. Ultimately, Principal Tanner resigned his position as part of a settlement with EPISD (Kreighbaum, 2014).

The newly appointed superintendent Juan Cabrera stated that principals,

need to be great customer service people and take care of their community. So, the principal has to do two things very well: be great at customer service and take care of our customers—which are the families and their children. (Halpern, 2013)

Superintendent Cabrera expected test scores to rise in schools. Yet, the current principal was an interim appointee and had not been a principal before or been through a similar set of circumstances. Despite his lack of experience, he needed to (a) ensure all administrators, teachers, and staff were following appropriate testing procedures and behaving ethically; (b) remain calm and rebuild trust with his school and community; and (c) ensure students were learning and being well prepared for the upcoming state-mandated assessments in March and April.

Fictional Scenario

The following is a fictional scenario based on the context provided from the EPISD and AHS cheating scandal, but it places emphasis on the gaming of accountability policies rather than instances of blatant cheating. The reader should consider referring to the EPISD case study to add detail and context not provided in the fictional scenario. The fictional scenario begins with newly appointed Superintendent Alvarez naming Joe Matta the interim principal of Bush High School (BHS) in mid-September, approximately 3 weeks into the new school year. Mr. Alvarez informed Principal Matta that he believed certain teachers in the school participated in cheating with the recently fired principal, but that the formal investigation had concluded without any additional charges. The idea that some teachers at BHS potentially engaged in cheating bothered Mr. Alvarez, but he was also ready to move beyond the cheating scandal and focus on instruction. Mr. Alvarez met with Principal Matta when he was appointed to BHS, and Mr. Alvarez shared his goals for the school. The first goal was to improve each tested area by approximately 5 percentage points, except for writing. Writing scores would need to improve by at least 10 percentage points because the school was significantly behind the rest of the district and state. The second goal was to ensure they eliminated cheating at the school and reestablished public trust. The meeting concluded with Mr. Alvarez hinting to Principal Matta that the principalship would be his if he could meet these goals.

Principal Matta decided that he would spend the first few weeks observing classroom teaching and professional learning communities (PLCs) before making any decisions or changes. After 2 weeks, he found that BHS teachers were generally competent and well prepared, although he was concerned about what he observed in certain PLCs or overheard in informal conversations. BHS had three types of PLCs: (a) grade level team meetings where teachers discussed grade level issues and concerns, students struggling academically or behaviorally, and upcoming events and activities; (b) student support team meetings where teachers and staff discussed students who continued to struggle behaviorally, academically, or emotionally; and (c) data team meetings where teachers looked at data from common assessments given every 2 weeks or from unit assessments every 4 to 6 weeks to make decisions about how future lessons would be modified, what aspects of lessons needed to be retaught, and how students would be grouped. He concluded that most teachers were smart, utilized data to inform decisions, and focused on student achievement; however, some of their actions, values, and beliefs appeared unethical and associated with gaming the state-mandated assessments.

Principal Matta observed a number of alarming comments and strategies discussed by some “test-crazed” teachers. The first set of comments related to the small subgroup population size of African American students and their academic performance. An instructional coach guided the group of teachers through a data report that showed African American students were not performing well in reading and mathematics. During a conversation on the report, the instructional coach stated, “Well, they don’t really impact our scores; they don’t make up a subgroup for us. We need to focus on special ed. and ELLs because that’s what hits us the most.” Another teacher agreed, and the team quickly shifted focus to other subgroups ¹ and other aspects of the data. The team discussed potential interventions and teaching strategies to better support ELL students and students with disabilities. Principal Matta said nothing at that point and decided to talk with the instructional coach after the meeting. He initially thought the incident was an isolated event and would be best handled by having a one-on-one conversation.

When Principal Matta discussed the issue with the instructional coach, he found that the former principal had encouraged this type of behavior. The instructional coach said,

I was told to do this, and when I asked why, I was told because that was the directive from the school district, from the associate superintendent, to use data to ensure all subgroups meet AYP. So subgroups that don’t count for AYP are secondary.

The instructional coach added, “It’s just like how we teach to the test. We know what standards are tested and which are not, and then we focus on the tested standards.” Principal Matta listened and realized gaming the test and some unethical practices had become a part of the school culture. Principal Matta asked the coach, “Do you agree with this type of behavior? Is that why you became an educator?” The instructional coach responded, “No, but it is what it is. We have to protect our jobs.”

In a separate data meeting, the ninth-grade mathematics teachers reviewed student assessments and broke students into three groups: high-achieving, bubble kids, and low-achieving. One teacher said, “Let’s come up with some worksheets for the high-level kids and for our ‘lows’ so we can focus on our bubble kids.” Another teacher agreed and added, “Yes, maybe we can even get a substitute to teach the ‘highs’ and ‘lows’ so we can really plan and give our bubble kids what they need.” The other teachers in the room did not have any objections, and some nodded in agreement. Principal Matta planned to be a silent observer, but he was angered about what he was hearing and would not stay quiet this time. He asked the group,

Are you going to consider heterogeneous groupings? Why not have mixed groups and allow some of the higher-performing students to help the others? Or what about having some combination of activities for heterogeneous and homogenous groups over the course of the next few weeks so all students can receive instruction from their teachers and benefit?

The teachers said that was a good idea, replied that they would do as Principal Matta proposed, smiled, and then continued with their conversation as if Principal Matta’s comments were never made. Principal Matta began to wonder whether the teachers understood what he had just said, whether they were being purposefully resistant, or whether they thought that targeting certain students for supports at the expense of others was an effective teaching practice or what was expected of them. Principal Matta had already observed many of these teachers and found them to be caring, smart individuals, so this conversation was confusing to him.

Later in the week, Principal Matta overheard teachers complaining about the “soccer kids.” A small group of teachers were discussing that it was unfair they were receiving so many soccer kids and that it was unreasonable for them to pass the state assessments. One teacher said,

It’s unfair we get all of them here. They come here, and they aren’t ready. They can’t be successful, and there is nothing we can do about it. It’s not fair to us that we have to deal with them.

Principal Matta was unfamiliar with the term soccer kids so he asked a colleague at his former school. His colleague shared that it was a term many students used to describe students who had recently moved from Mexico. Principal Matta was offended and confused by the comment because the teachers who used the term were Mexican Americans and some had even lived in or had family in neighboring Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. He thought, how could they talk like this about our kids? Many of the students from Mexico had moved to escape violence in Ciudad Juarez, and Principal Matta believed the school should be embracing these students, not isolating or blaming them for issues related to standardized testing. Principal Matta further recognized that many teachers were so focused on testing that they were marginalizing certain students.

He reflected on the work that needed to be done and concluded that a school-wide discussion needed to be held. He had already wanted to discuss how the school could rebuild community trust, but now he wanted to address his concerns related to assessment, data analysis, and inappropriate comments relating to students at the upcoming faculty meeting. Principal Matta created a list of positives and negatives to discuss during the faculty meeting because he recognized a need for a strengths-based approach. He felt the positives were (a) the teachers’ efforts in planning lessons and analyzing data, (b) the degree of collaboration and collegiality evident in PLCs and throughout the school, and (c) the close-knit nature of the school staff. The negatives were (a) instructional strategies that promoted inequality and inequity for low-performing and high-performing students, (b) some teachers who held a deficit perspective ² of students from Mexico, and (c) some teachers and staff who were looking for loopholes to improve test scores at the expense of certain student populations. Principal Matta knew that he was new and that some teachers might feel uncomfortable with sharp criticism. He was aware that he needed to build trust within the school and with teachers before meaningful changes could be made, but his integrity motivated him to directly communicate that gaming the system at the expense of certain students or any type of cheating would not be tolerated.

Summary

Cheating scandals have brought great attention to acts of blatant cheating, but less attention has been paid to how principals and teachers game the accountability system or take strategic actions to raise test scores. Pressure and incentives can motivate administrators to blatantly cheat on state-mandated assessments or engage in less obvious gaming techniques through the use of targeted interventions and data analysis practices that are legal but unethical (Nichols & Berliner, 2007). Principals and teachers may not even be fully aware of how gaming strategies that target particular student groups negatively affect other student groups. This is not a suggestion that school leaders or teachers are justified in engaging in gaming actions, but it highlights the complicated, stressful, and multivariate nature of school leadership in the era of accountability policies. Currently, little research explicitly focuses on how principals and teachers game the accountability system nor does it expose the differences between highly unethical gaming techniques and strategic actions, such as teaching all students strategies to perform well on standardized tests (de Wolf & Janssens, 2007; Ehren & Swanborn, 2012). Furthermore, it is unclear whether districts are training teachers and principals to appropriately and ethically analyze data to inform instructional decisions. Without the appropriate training or foresight, principals making data-informed decisions could have potentially harmful effects on students.

The aftereffects of cheating or gaming the accountability system contribute to the further marginalization of particular student groups and the erosion of public trust. New leaders taking over schools have the added burden of building trust, learning about the history of the organization, establishing their own legitimacy, and developing actionable plans to promote school improvement with staff who may or may not be resistant to change. Such endeavors require training, support, and an ethical leadership orientation.

Teaching Notes

This case is written for graduate students enrolled in principal preparation courses, such as a school law, school personnel, or principalship course, although this case might also be useful in educational policy courses. The case affords students with the chance to critically examine a number of essential school leadership questions, such as the following: Why do seemingly good people end up making moral, ethical, or legal mistakes?

How does cheating or gaming negatively affect a school, district, and community? What distinguishes cheating, gaming, and other unethical actions from strategic actions taken to increase test scores? How should a principal act or respond when working in a district where cheating occurs? How should a new assistant principal respond when he or she finds that the principal is engaged in cheating? What leadership challenges emerge when the public’s trust is lost? How should a principal investigate cheating in his or her own school? What pressures might a new or interim principal confront when taking over a school from a popular principal, and how does the interim principal go about building trust and rapport?

The initial case is purposefully undisguised to highlight the public nature of cheating, gaming, and the long-term negative consequences associated with these leadership shortcomings. Future principals must be prepared to deal with the pressures of high-stakes accountability and have the ability to navigate the immense organizational and policy-related structures that contribute to unethical and illegal leadership activities. Although some might argue that principals who cheat are unethical and should have never become leaders in the first place, it is clear that certain policies and expectations have brought out the worst in some educators, given the instances of cheating and gaming being documented across the nation. Perhaps, it is too simplistic to view those who cheat as innately lacking moral character without understanding the context and circumstances. Implications of poor test performance can be life changing for teachers, principals, and district administrators as they face reassignment or termination when students do not perform well on tests.

New principals and assistant principals confront tremendous pressure to perform and perform quickly when beginning at a new school (Elmore, 2005). The fictional scenario presents an interim principal who confronts an upset school community and a school staff who may still be engaged in cheating and gaming. The principal considers his own legitimacy, his values as an educator, and the goals set forth by the superintendent. He is in a position of difficulty that requires strong and consistent leadership, but also may require time and the development of trust. Instructors and students can use this case study in a number of ways.