Ethical Violation and Solutions - Essay Example

? Section/# Ethical Violation and Solutions Perhaps the main cornerstone of the of ethics for any educator can be defined as the following: “a primary professional concern for the student and for development of the student’s potential”. More specifically, the Code of Ethics and Principles of Professional Conduct of the Education Profession in Florida reveal that another constraining influence is with regards to the fact that the educator “Shall not intentionally suppress or distort subject matter relevant to the student’s academic program” (3d). This level of ethical expectation extends to a great litany of different areas and portends a high level of expectation for the individual educator. As such, the article that will be analyzed “teaching to the test” reveals the way in which rigid state and federal standards have encouraged many struggling school districts, and individual teachers, to attempt the unethical approach of teaching to the test as a means of passing whatever requirement might exist at the given time. Naturally, this practice in and of itself is troublesome; however, when one considers it from both the standpoint of the utility that the student gains and the ethical ramifications for how the educational process takes shape, a nuanced understanding of the impact of such an approach is able to be understood. The core ethical issue that must be understood is the fact that the educators themselves are encouraging a level of unethical behavior that is both unfair to the educational process as well as unfair to the end student. In order to understand this unethical behavior, it is necessary to delve in to the motivating factors that encourage it take place initially. Ultimately, the educational system, as it exists today, as both state and federal standards that must be met at multiple times throughout any given school year. As such, teachers are not only required to transmit the information that they are responsible for providing to the students, they must also take a sizable chunk of their time to instruct and prepare the students for taking standardized tests that will not only rank the student as compared to the rest of the students within the state, school system, or nation, they also have a profound impact upon the overall level of school ranking and funding levels that are received in subsequent periods. As such, the overall importance of these standardized tests cannot be understated. Unfortunately, even thus far in my own professional and student development, I have seen this take place. The first time that it was evidenced to me was with regards to taking the PSATs in high school. Rather than using this opportunity to fill in the gaps of any education that the students might have missed out on, the teacher merely hurried to provide a way of what can only be described as “educated guessing”. The second time this practice was noted it was in an 8th grade classroom that I was observing. The teacher, although highly qualified spent the bulk of her time going through a standardized test and pointing out how to delineate the correct answer; rather than teaching the material and explaining what the rationale behind it was. The third time that this took place was in my final year of high school as state standards of educational attainment from K-12 were being measured. Although the senior year of high school is normally at a slower pace than the other years, the educators cut short much of the information that would otherwise have been presented as a means of focusing on the standardized test that was of more importance to the local district and the funding levels that the educators would have to divvy up than it was to the individual students. Accordingly, as the article notes, a highly unethical practice has emerged within many of the more troubled school districts throughout the nation. In addition to not spending enough time on the subject at hand, educators throughout the system have been teaching to the test instead of preparing for the test. The key differential is with regards to the fact that an understanding of the knowledge and a comprehension of the way in which it will be tested is no longer required. Educators have instead realized that seeking to explain and allowing enough time for the students to comprehend the rationale and objective levels of understanding that exist for these tests would necessarily take more time than they are willing to provide to accomplish such a function (Phelps, 2011). As such, the temptation to rapidly integrate the information to the student, being the test, and hurry on to the next milestone and/or metric that exists is far more important to these educators than merely seeking to create a more knowledgeable and informed student body. Although the issue that is thus far been presented might seem as somewhat trivial, the fact of the matter is that the integrity and ethical standards of the educator are compromised in such a situation due to the fact that they are willing and able to reduce the overall level of education that they are providing to the student in favor of saving time and merely seeking to fulfill a requirement. In short, this particular approach is nothing but a shortcut and comparatives cheating. Although there are of course tangential cases of educators allowing an open form of cheating within the classroom, necessarily a far greater ethical violation of what has been discussed, the issue at hand is still very much an ethical oversight due to the fact that it does not allow for a significantly high level of educational attainment within the student body; a task that the code of ethics specifically denotes as tantamount to all others. As a function of correcting this, it will be necessary to seek to reallocate some of the resources that are utilized within the school. Due to the fact that it is utterly impossible to change state or federal standards in a relatively brief period of time, seeking to ensure that the resources that teachers have, and the overall requirements that they are encouraged to perform are at reasonable levels will allow for this ethical violation to no longer have legitimate cause to take place. Although it is true that many educators may just choose to be lazy and gloss, it is this analysts understanding that the broad majority of educators are ultimately good individuals that do not intend to violate any ethical standards during the course of their teaching. As such, by providing these individuals with an actionable and measurable means of meeting the requirements that they are tasked with, it only stands to reason that the overall level of unethical behavior takes place with respect to standardized testing will be reduced. Reference PHELPS, R. P. (2011). Teach to the Test?. Wilson Quarterly, 35(4), 38-42. Read More