Marie,

Re- fudging-"Honesty is the best policy."  
Standards- the state and pertinent state standards, or lack there -of, should be indicated in the submitted data.

Nationwide standards- should be the goal :>)


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From: "Marie Cora" <marie.cora at hotspurpartners.com> 

That is the question…..
 
Hello all!  Not too long ago, I received an email question regarding submitting accurate data to the states and the Feds.  It appeared that the person was being pressured to make up data (assessment scores) so that the outcomes of the program looked better.  
 
I bet this story is not new to you – either because you have heard about it, or perhaps because it has happened to you.  
 
So I have some questions now:
 
If programs fudge their data, won’t that come back to haunt us all?  Won’t that skew standards and either force programs to under-perform or not allow them to reach their performance levels because they are too steep?  Why would you want to fudge your data?  At some point, most-likely the fudge will be revealed don’t you think?
 
We don’t have nationwide standards – so if programs within states are reporting data in any which way, we won’t be able to compare ourselves across states, will we?
 
Since states have all different standards (and some don’t have any), states can report in ways in which it makes them appear to be out-doing other states, when perhaps they are not at all?
 
I’m probably mushing 2 different and important things together here:  the accurate data part, and the standards part (“on what do we base our data”) – but this is how it’s playing out in my mind.  Not only do we sometimes struggle with providing accurate data (for a variety of reasons:  it’s complex, it’s messy, we feel pressure, sometimes things are unclear, etc.), but we do not have institutionalized standards across all states for all to be working in parallel fashion.
 
What are your thoughts on this?
 
Thanks,
marie cora
Assessment Discussion List Moderator
 
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From: "Marie Cora" <marie.cora at hotspurpartners.com>
Subject: [Assessment] To fudge or not to fudge
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