How Much Of This Goes On In Our Schools?

Un-freakin-believable:

The school district of Rochester, N.Y., gave teachers and students exact copies of the questions and answers that would appear on a mandatory test, only to have officials deny wrongdoing and watch half the students fail anyway.

...Prior to taking the social studies test, however, a district-created study guide available to teachers and students listed multiple-choice questions and answers that were identical and in the same sequence as those that would appear on the social studies exam.

The multiple-choice questions were only a part of the exam, comprising 40 percent of each student's score, reports the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.

It is unknown how many of the district's seventh- and eighth-graders saw the answers beforehand, said the newspaper, but it was determined that of the 4,329 students who took the exams, 50 percent of the seventh-graders and 44 percent of the eighth-graders failed.

So, with 40% of the answers given to them, roughly 47% could not pass the test. Forget for a second the fact that the teachers cheated their butts off in order to make it look like they were doing their jobs. The sad thing is that they had not ensured their students knew enough about the subject to get half the ones they had not been given. I am not as concerned with the cheating as I am the lack of education these kids had received before the test.