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I think the best way to proceed would be to enact the ban on teachers proctoring/grading their own students’ tests (although as I’ve said before, I think it would be best to have teachers not proctor/grade tests even in their own building), but instead of creating a new centralized program to perform erasure analysis on all tests, how about simply randomly auditing tests for a couple of years to see how it goes? 

A centralized scanning/grading process/department has “Money Pit” written all over it.

Any solution that removes teachers from a testing room in a blanket way such that Tim is suggesting is a complete insult to teachers. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m tired of seeing solutions that include trusting teachers less.
but it’s also a solution that doesn’t seem to address the real issues about cheating that we have learned from the few actual facts that are out there. As I understand from the Atlanta report (the most factual one ever put out about systemic cheating), cheating starts with a school’s leaders who create a culture that encourages or even pressures cheating. So if you follow Tim’s advice, you’ll still have teachers cheat, because the school leaders are still left to pressure them.
Really, it’s a solution that seems to grasp just a small fraction of the problem.

Tim,  

That’s no hypothetical scenario. To be clear, the report about the Atlanta cheating scandal, and the analysis of it (of which, there is a lot and easy to find), are things I think you should take time to read. 

If you do, you might see that much of the type of systemic cheating to which you’re proposing a solution  (a ban on all teachers proctoring/grading) comes actually from pressure exerted by school leadership -either directly or through creating a school culture that very much encourages it.What you’re proposing ignores that fact. It also ignores the fact that those leaders will still be there -pressuring teachers- whether you shuffle teachers or not. They will just be pressuring different teachers.

I wrote to you in another post that undermining the authority of teachers and undermining their autonomy is not worth it -especially since the solution you suggested does nothing about the real problem (according to the most complete factual account that is known about cheating).

Would you like to recognize the ‘strong character and professionalism of the overwhelming majority’ of us? 1) Stop helicoptering in with more solutions from yet another outsider who, while well intentioned, doesn’t seem to grasp the real problem or the implications of a solution. 2)Suggest a proposal that isn’t insulting to the authority and autonomy of all teachers and one that puts the school leaders on the hook for the comings and goings in their school.

Ludicrous? Seriously? It is absurd to think that, if an army fails at an invasion, all of the enlisted men should be shuffled around without the officers being punished at all (that’s no solution, Tim and neither is yours).  Ludicrous? is doing all of that and then having the audacity to invoke the ‘strong character’ of most enlisted men as part of your reasoning for making the shuffle.

Tim, 
There are several places I’d like to begin responding to your last comment. Whether or not paying taxes and being a parent allows you the opportunity to act as though this is your profession; whether or not this undermines teachers’ autonomy and authority or whether or not there is even a basic relationship between pressure to increase to scores and cheating (it seems you don’t see a relationship between those two things. I think that goes back to the point I’m making about outsiders who don’t understand this profession. 

But I think I’d like give you the chance to go ahead narrow that discussion. Please do and then let’s take it from there. Also, please lay out your full idea again .. (include what you’re thinking about for administrators and teachers as well). 

(Just be prepared to explain HOW this doesn’t undermine a teacher’s authority or his/her autonomy. Simply claiming it doesn’t and using the mid-western phrase ‘one iota’ isn’t nearly enough for me.)

To play Captain Obvious for a moment:  In Atlanta and everywhere else on the planet, cheating is an attempt to game the system and gain some additional benefit while pushing the costs of that action onto the commons.  Because students are graded on tests, students have an incentive to cheat on them.  Because the government taxes income, taxpayers have an incentive to cheat on their taxes.  The urge to cheat may not be as much of an inherent condition of our humanity as sex is, but it’s close.  It’s a universal incentive whenever rules exist.  When there are rules, people will want to cheat.  

So the cause of cheating by graders is not complex.  They cheat because they have an incentive to cheat.  The only way to eliminate that incentive is to not tie teacher evaluations to student performance.  If you don’t go that route, then you have to enact the best solutions possible to prevent cheating despite the incentive to cheat.  

The only way to completely end cheating by students is to stop grading them.  Because that solution isn’t acceptable to most people, we opt instead to try to control the problem by surveillance and other measures that come at the cost of “insulting” students (by assuming that they will cheat if they are not monitored).  Most people tend to think that cost is outweighed by the benefits of reducing student cheating.  Similarly, if removing teachers from the testing room would substantially reduce if not eliminate cheating by graders, and the main cost of that policy is that teachers would be insulted, I don’t see how that cost would outweigh the benefit.  Who knows, maybe teachers wouldn’t take it personally, just as their students don’t take it personally that they are required to take tests in the classroom rather than at home without any monitoring.

Ok, my ‘general point’ wasn’t anywhere near the specific point that I actually did make. Listen with the exception of reading (listening to others), you seem like a real smart guy. Please re-read some of the posts I made. Please read the report about the Atlanta cheating scandal and at least some of the analysis that goes with it. 

Please understand, what you see as going against common sense is actually evidence (sometimes, proof does defy common sense). Please understand, it’s not about how people view teachers (authority) it’s about pride (some things are and you’ll have to deal with it). 

If you would like a numbered list of reasons why your idea is terrible, please don’t be bothered looking up facts and learning what you’re talking about. Just zip off another snarky, benighted reply and I will re mediate (whenever I get around to it) for you. 

One thing Tim asked for, and I have never seen from anyone else who comments here, was a proposed solution to the problem of cheating. The simplest explanation would be that you and others aren’t interested in a solution; that you prefer it to remain a problem, because if it’s not a problem, then a system you disapprove of would function better. Am I wrong?