Question

Question Four

Eric Aboagye was a 29-year-old math teacher at Ako Basic School in Pru District. He empathized with his students and was devoted to their success. A colleague described Aboagye as a “star teacher” and a “very hard worker, who will go the extra mile.” Aboagye was a teacher when Mary Afenya was Pru District’s school superintendent. Afenya set accountability measures for the Pru District school district and created performance objectives for the schools. Teacher evaluations were linked to students’ performance on standardized tests. Schools whose students did not make appropriate progress toward the standardized test goals received escalating sanctions that culminated in replacement of teachers and other staff, and restructuring or closing of the school. Ako Basic School had been classified as “a school in need of improvement” for the previous five years. Unless 58 percent of students passed the math portion of the standardized test and 67 percent passed the language arts portion, Ako Basic School could be closed down. Its students would be separated and bussed across town to different schools. Aboagye pushed his students to work harder than they ever had in preparing for the test. But he knew that it would be very difficult for many of them to pass. Mr. Mensah, the new principal of Ako Basic School, had heard that teachers in the elementary schools that fed into Ako had changed their students’ answers on the standardized tests under the guise of erasing stray pencil marks. Mr. Mensah asked Aboagye and other teachers to do the same. Aboagye found the exams of students who needed to get a few more questions right in order to pass. He changed their answers. If he did not change their scores, Aboagye feared that his students would lapse into “why try” attitudes. They would lose their neighborhood school and the community that had developed within it. Thanks to Aboagye and other teachers, students of Ako did better than ever on the standardized tests. Salomey, a former student at Ako at the time, recalled, “Everyone was jumping up and down,” after a teacher announced the school had met the requirements. The same process of changing answers continued at Ako for about five years. In the fifth year, nine other teachers were helping Aboagye change answers. Later in that year, the investigation unit of the Ghana Education Service (GES) visited Ako and other Pru District schools. The results of the investigation showed that, teachers and administrators at 20 schools had cheated in the manner that Aboagye had. Also, 78 teachers who had confessed or been accused of cheating were placed on administrative leave, including Aboagye. Later, Aboagye’ employment was terminated. (All characters used in the case are hypothetical)

1. In this case study, indicate and explain two benefits and three disadvantages of falsifying the results (make reference to relevant ethical theories and/or approaches).

2. Do you think cheating can ever be ethically justifiable? Why or why not (Explain three reasons – make reference to relevant ethical approaches)?

Answer 1

Let me state two benefits of falsifying the results:

• Using such approach like falsifying the results, students could pass easily without keeping their honest and hard efforts.
• With such approach, the school could save themselves from closing down; this approach comes with less hard efforts. They also saved their school and community that they have developed within their area.

Now let me state three disadvantages of falsifying the results, these are as stated below:

• It may save school and community from closing down, however, it promotes cheating within the school culture, so, students will be encouraged to perform such dishonest activities over time and culture will be affected as they promote cheating within school environment.
• It could not solve real issues or problems, as students don’t get sufficient marks, so, students have some kind of knowledge gap, here, students need to prepare well with understanding knowledge requirements. As, they are associated with falsifying the results, they never could meet such knowledge gap.
• The duty of teachers is to help students to learn and promote such environment that gives necessary knowledge to the students, however, students don’t get proper learning when teachers are engaged into such dishonest practices and they could put fewer efforts towards teaching duty.

Cheating is not ethically justifiable, as cheating promotes dishonesty and falsifying the results, so students and teachers both pollute school culture, they never try for understanding the real causes and root causes behind low marks that students are receiving. They even don’t involve their senior teacher and principle to bring collaborative efforts and perform discussion on what kind of changes are to be initiated to improve standard of school and quality of education. The cheating practice usually unethical as it has several negative consequences and we never could get honesty, integrity and resolve the real problem and students are discouraged to learn in the school environment,