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While schools should instill moral fortitude into their students, some educational institutions are "cheating" their systems. According to recent investigations, several public schools have been caught tampering with their schools' test score reports, graduation rates, and other performance-related statistics.

What Could Information be Falsified?

Under the No Child Left Behind Act, public school leaders are under incredible pressure to ensure their scores stay high while their graduation rates continue to soar. Public schools must publish data on campus violence, academic performance, and graduation rates. Adding to these focus areas, schools must publicly publish an annual "report card" of the school, allowing community members to ascertain how specific groups have performed throughout the year. The specific groups assessed in this report card are differentiated by:

• Ethnicity
• Disability
• Income (plus other potential related socio-economic factors)
• English language proficiency

In addition, all public schools must disclose their annual dropout rates, teacher qualification standards, and records, as well as other locally-mandated data.

This video is an example of test score manipulation in our schools.

The Pressure to Tamper With 51±¬ÁÏ Reports

While increased access to school records undoubtedly benefits the community, the transparency mandated by NCLB prompts some school leaders to falsify educational data.

Reason Magazine reveals, "While federal and state legislators congratulate themselves for their newfound focus on school accountability, scant attention is paid to the quality of the data they're using. Whether the topic is violence,

Dysgraphia is a specific learning disability that affects writing skills. It is characterized by difficulties in expressing thoughts on paper, leading to poor handwriting, spelling, and overall written expression. Individuals with dysgraphia often face challenges in educational settings, where writing is a crucial mode of communication and assessment. In this article, we will delve into what dysgraphia is, its symptoms and explore effective remediation and treatment strategies.

What is Dysgraphia?
Dysgraphia is a neurological-based learning disability that affects the motor and cognitive processes involved in writing. It is not related to intelligence or lack of effort; rather, it stems from differences in brain function that impact fine motor skills, spatial reasoning, and language processing. Dysgraphia can manifest in both children and adults, leading to frustration, low self-esteem, and academic struggles if left unidentified and unaddressed.

Symptoms of Dysgraphia

Illegible Handwriting: Individuals with dysgraphia often have messy and illegible handwriting, making it difficult for others to read their work.

Poor Spelling and Grammar: Dysgraphia can lead to frequent spelling errors and challenges with grammar and punctuation.

Inconsistent Letter Formation: People with dysgraphia may struggle to form letters consistently and mix uppercase and lowercase letters.

Slow Writing Speed: Writing can be time-consuming for individuals with dysgraphia due to motor coordination difficulties.

Trouble Organizing Thoughts: Dysgraphia can make it challenging to organize thoughts and ideas into coherent written sentences or paragraphs.

Avoidance of Writing Tasks: Those with dysgraphia may try to avoid writing tasks or experience anxiety when faced with writing assignments.

Aided by technology, more students cheat in public schools than ever before. While only 20% of students in the 1940s admitted to cheating in school, this statistic has skyrocketed to 75% of today's high school student population, according to . From cell phones and text messages to emails, cheating has found technological accomplices.

Cheating Trends

According to the , Dr. Donald McCabe, a management and global business professor at Rutgers, has found that nearly all high school students have admitted to engaging in some form of cheating. Unbelievably, 95 percent of all of McCabe's surveyed students report that they have cheated (at some point) during their educational years! Whether the cheating involved copying homework, sharing answers on a test, or using other tactics, McCabe asserts that most teens participate in these behaviors - often without getting caught.

From surveying the cheating practices of high school students for over six years, McCabe has accumulated data from 24,000 high school students in 70,000 high schools. Based on this extensive data, McCabe found that 64 percent of the students have admitted to engaging in serious test-based cheating (including copying, helping someone during a test, and using hidden notes).

Why Students Cheat

Why do such a large majority of students cheat in school? While cheating was once stereotypically confined to struggling students, today's cheaters are often the "best" students. In fact, according to The Josephson Institute, "Cheating is higher among college-bound

When President Obama accepted his presidency, he pledged to honor his promise to improve our country's public schools. As outlined on the Office of the President-Elect website, Obama and Biden have pledged to invest $10 billion per year to create and sustain early learning programs for lower income families.

In addition, both Obama and Biden hope to utilize stimulus funds to ensure that competent, quality teachers are motivated to serve the lower-income public school communities. Obama is planning to increase the support for teachers in training, allowing rising teachers to receive financial support (through grants and scholarships) by committing to work in poorer school areas.

Despite these positive goals, some critics argue that the stimulus will not actually benefit all of the nation's under-served public schools.

The Lower Income / Urban School Stimulus Incentive

According to , Obama's proposed stimulus package will provide low income and deprived urban public schools with an incredible financial boost. Specifically, as Every Child Matters outlines, lower income schools may benefit from the following proposals:

• Tax reductions for lower income families (as a continuation of the Child Tax Credit)
• $1.1 billion to double the number of low income children enrolled in early education programs (specifically, Head Start)
• $1 billion to improve the services of Head Start
• Nursing visitation and support for new mothers that meet low-income qualifications, allowing new mothers to learn recommended childcare techniques,which can foster improved child learning habits and better parent-child relationships
• Expansion of Pell Grants for improved training