[gov3009-l] Jacobs Talk

Hi Everyone, This coming Wednesday, Brian Jacobs, an assistant professor at the Kennedy School, will present his paper with Steve Levitt entitled, "Rotten Apples: An Investigation of the Prevalence and Predictors of Teacher Cheating". The paper will be posted later this afternoon. The abstract of the paper is given below. See you all Wednesday! Shigeo __________________________________________________________________ Shigeo Hirano Political Economy and Government shirano(a)fas.harvard.edu Harvard University ABSTRACT We develop an algorithm for detecting teacher cheating that combines information on unexpected test score fluctuations and suspicious patterns of answers for students in a classroom. Using data from the Chicago Public Schools, we estimate that serious cases of teacher or administrator cheating on standardized tests occur in 4-5 percent of elementary school classrooms annually. Moreover, the observed frequency of cheating appears to respond strongly to relatively minor changes in incentives. Our results suggest that introducing high-stakes testing without appropriate safeguards will likely lead to widespread cheating.