I've seen teachers give away too much information when standardized tests are coming around. I've also seen the more common one.. They'll be talking about something & say "Pay attention. This WILL be on the test"

I don't necessarily agree. In our state, we have a standardized test that most children, families and teachers HATE. But thanks to good ol' "NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND," it is there, and we waste our time with it. Therefore, you would think that a lot of teachers in our state would push the test, and prep for it. I won't kid you - we do. To a degree. See, our test is based solely upon the Grade-Level Expectations. So if I want my 6th graders to do well in 7th grade, I need them to understand (and in some ways master) the 6th grade GLEs. Are they sound expectations? yes. Are they high expectations? yes. Will every child get these before they go to jr. high? no. That's life. However, my #1 goal is to get my kids ready for the next step, and for "real life." What good will they be if they can pass a stupid test, but not able to read the directions on the side of the road during a road trip? I would think that a GOOD teacher allows students to know what to expect what's going to be on the test "this could show up on your exam" without giving it away. That's why teachers aren't allowed to look at our WASL (the test), we only get state-released prompts each year that WILL NOT be on their anymore.

HELL YEAH!! Matter of fact, my niece is GLOATING about how her last year teachers told her the anwsers of the state exam. I am not saying all of them do this...only the money & fame-hungry ones that did not teach the kids thruogh out the school year & w/ a class that contain a majority of dumb or mis-taught students.

One or two of my school teachers did. It gets harder and harder to cheat as you get higher and higher into your education, so its not realy worth worrying about the few that do cheat. IMO

I have been watching my child's teachers cheat for him since Kindergarten. I am thankful that I only have to do it for 3 more years. His teachers have taken cheating to a new level. My son is in ninth grade. In one of his core classes this year, he had 4 homework assignments the entire school year. We had begged that the school not to play with his grades and actually give him a teacher that assigns homework as they have failed in these aspects in the past. To no avail, he had a grade of 46% at the end of the first half of the class. Amazing 3 weeks before the end of the school year, his grade for the first half of the year went from 46% to 63%. 65% is considered failing. Now with the 80% that he currently has been handed in the class, he has a final grade of 69% a D. But by the time the final grades are turned in for the school year, I foresee at least a B for the class. They still have the final to go to cheat for him. All of the grades on assignments that he didn't do nor turn in were miraculously changed to an A+ a mere 3 weeks before the end of the school year. Thus effecting his grade by a mere 12 percentage points. As a parent, I am livid because thanks to our schools, we cannot get our son to accept responsibility for himself because there are no natural consequences. He boasts to the other children about how he is smarter than the teachers because he doesn't have to do any work at all and doesn't need to know the material because he will get an A no matter what. He was placed in Special Education classes in 5th grade by the school with the reason being "other". This must be the evaluation given to a child that refuses to do the work and becomes violent when asked to do it. In elementary school and middle school the teachers would complain that he did not do his homework or classwork. We as parents attempted to get him to do his work but were unable to make this happen thanks to the teachers lack of support. In looking at it from our son's point of view why would he do his schoolwork when he gets full credit for not doing it. We have been fighting a losing battle since the leverage is with the teachers because they control his grades. Miraculously without doing classwork or homework, he managed to get an A+ on every test that he took. (He is so amazing!) We found out that he was given advanced copies of all tests by his teachers 2 weeks in advance of the tests. Then the Special Education teachers would quiz him on the test answers (using flash cards with the actual test questions and taking mock tests identical to the tests) until he was able to get an A on the exam. When asked why they were giving him grades for work that he wasn't doing (which we had proof of) the teachers' comments were that it didn't show what he really knows and they did not want him failing classes when they feel he knows the material. My question back was "How can you know what he really knows when you help him cheat on the tests?" My child is lazy and looks for the easy way out of everything. I have been trying to teach him to do things the right way but thanks to our wonderful education system, I am at a loss at what to do. It was rather easy to find out just how badly the schools are cheating because I have twins. In 5th grade my one twin had B's in science and was learning the Latin names for the bones and muscles in the human body while the other had to identify whether or not an animal was a plant eater, meat eater, or both. He didn't even have to learn herbivore, carnivore, and omnivore. Don't worry, he got a very strong A in this class. This is the same school, the same grade level, and the same year! So, it was no shock to me that they helped him cheat on the standardized tests too. My one son was complaining that they had example on how to answer the questions on white boards that were actual questions on the tests. He did not feel that it was fair that he had to do the work for himself while his brother was given several of the answers. My suspicions are that this is fairly common because 2 of my children frequently complain about this happening at the schools. Under-achievers are consistently given the teachers that don't assign homework and have only open notebook tests (mainly via answers supplied by a projector the day previous). It is sickening to watch these children handed grades while children that work for their grades get a minimum of 6 hours of homework and night on college level material in ninth grade to earn B's and C's. Several of the children that I know that go to different schools are complaining about the same thing.

Yes it does go on...

Fairly common and it's actually a big problem. In the U.S., students are getting as good of grades as kids in other countries. Yet they are falling behind in standardized testing. This means the students are getting good grades for an education that they are not necessarily getting.

I NEVER do that. But I get the better students because of what I teach.