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Stupid, petty and counter-productive

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Illinois

I was at SIU a couple of weeks back to give a presentation to Mike Lawrence’s real politik class and have lunch with several SIU professors and administrators. Some of those SIU people expressed supreme frustration with the governor’s office on this very topic…

Illinois State University’s president says the state’s inspector general erred in throwing out hundreds of employees’ passing grades on a mandated online ethics course because they finished too quickly.

The inspector general’s office “exhibited an alarming lack of judgment and common sense” by failing workers who completed the course in less than 10 minutes, ISU President Al Bowman wrote in a letter to Inspector General James A. Wright.

“I, along with employees of this academic community, am offended that one would be penalized for the ability to read and comprehend information quickly when these same skills are a necessity to succeed in an environment of higher learning,” Bowman wrote in the letter.

More than 600 ISU employees — all with perfect scores — had their results invalidated because they completed the course too quickly, university spokesman Jay Groves said Thursday.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, this minimum time limit stuff is absolutely ridiculous and the result of overly bureaucratic minds who ought to be focusing on rooting our real corruption, not penalizing people for mastering the material and setting arbitrary benchmarks.

I know we’ve had this debate a few times in the past, but feel free to document your own horror story below. Or disagree with my premise. Have at it…

posted by Rich Miller
Friday, Feb 9, 07 @ 8:53 am

Comments

I think I read somewhere there were some folks who already had the answers in hand (cheating) and then immediately completed the test, hence the extremely short time period indicates there was no comprehension or actual attempting to read the question and people were simply just filling in the answers from cheat sheets and moving on.

Comment by 105th Blues Friday, Feb 9, 07 @ 9:10 am
Agree with 105th Blues. The whole point of the exercise is to read the material, think it through, and then answer some pretty easy questions. Breezing through without doing the reading and thinking defeats the purpose. I’m probably familiar with this topic enough to have written the material myself, but it still took me more than 10 minutes to go through it. The arguments of the profs at SIU are arrogant in the extreme. I am sure if they offered their tests online to their students, any student who completed the test with a perfect score in 1/3 of the expected time would draw their suspicion as well.

Comment by Anonymous Friday, Feb 9, 07 @ 9:13 am
====I think I read somewhere there were some folks who already had the answers in hand (cheating) and then immediately completed the test, hence the extremely short time period indicates there was no comprehension or actual attempting to read the question and people were simply just filling in the answers from cheat sheets and moving on.

BS. If my students finish that quickly I figure out that I screwed up and wrote a stupid test. The notion that a highly intelligent people who go to graduate school where reading and comprehending a large amount of complicated material quickly is necessary cannot pass a simple test made up of common sense questions so they cheat is exactly the kind of insulting attitude that has alienated so many state employees from this administration.

When you create a standardized test you should validate it with a sample of representative subjects. Clearly, the contractor who created the test didn’t do that. Another fine use of the taxpayer’s money.

Comment by Archpundit Friday, Feb 9, 07 @ 9:23 am
I was going to comment, but Archpundit articulated my thoughts better than I ever could.

I would recommend one small tweak to the test (which I have taken numerous times) to prevent cheating: make the question order random.

Comment by Jeb Friday, Feb 9, 07 @ 9:30 am
Like a digital prostate exam perfomed by a old cross-dressing street walker, Blagojevich’s ethics test naturally makes state workers feel violated and disgusted. While they fully understand the reason for the exam, they find the methods used insulting and demeaning. They look over their shoulder and see a group of paid lackeys that appear to be unable to pass the ethics tests themselves. Every year, every state worker must wonder, WHO is judging WHO on unethical behavior?

The test itself was little more than one of Blagojevich’s PR stunts designed to embarrass state workers, point blame, cover his butt, and create job openings for his campaign contributors.

But like that digital prostate exam, we don’t want to hear details, and the entire experience so personally embarrassing you don’t want to remember it either.

Nice guy, eh?

Comment by VanillaMan Friday, Feb 9, 07 @ 9:31 am
Um Archpundit, I believe if you actually read the questions and then read the answers and then answer the question, even at breakneck speed that it is mathematically impossible to complete the test in that short of a period of time, thus it suggests that somebody had the answers in advance.

Also, the level of anger and contempt exhibited by tenured faculty in general towards “the establishment” (state) and anger about pensions and other such issues certainly gives credibility to this argument. Have you ever seen how (most)faculty react to being told to do something?

Comment by 105th Blues Friday, Feb 9, 07 @ 9:34 am
The irony in this is staggering. Cheating on an ethics exam, and this adminisistration offering an ethics course. Too funny.

Comment by God's Country Friday, Feb 9, 07 @ 9:36 am
Jeb’s comment is excellent. There are a number of techniques regularly used that can stymie cheating on multiple choice tests, yet not penalize rapid test-taker who really do know the answers. One good method is to write two or three times the number of needed questions, then select a random sample of the questions, and place the multiple choice answers in random order. Another good technique is to write three versions of each question, each worded slightly differently, so that each takes a different one of the given answers.

Comment by muon Friday, Feb 9, 07 @ 9:38 am
I agree with Rich and Archpundit. This ethics material is not rocket science, requires little more than common sense, and can be completed quickly by anyone with moderate intelligence. The idea that a minimum time limit provides any meaningful measure of material mastery is a joke. Rather than believe there is a culture of “cheating” to pass this “test”, you should be more concerned about the time wasted by employees dragging out the testing process so that they don’t trip the minimum time limit alarm. This is the type of stuff that gives government a bad name…

Comment by Just Wonderin' Friday, Feb 9, 07 @ 9:38 am
Also let me state that I believe faculty can complete the test faster than most folks and that they are smart, but I am simply stating that it was viewed as mathematically impossible to complete the test in that short of a period of time with a “perfect” score (unless you already have the answers in advance or you are just immediately picking an answer without reading the question, which I believe is extremely unlikely that you get 100% correct in that scenario.)

Comment by 105th Blues Friday, Feb 9, 07 @ 9:40 am
105th Blues, I really think you’re totally off base there.

Comment by Rich Miller Friday, Feb 9, 07 @ 9:42 am
“Stupid, petty, and counter-productive.” Sounds like a good title for the Rod Blagojevich textbook on governing.

Just Wonderin’ makes a great point: the default for ethics enforcement in this administration is that government is full of cheaters. Wonder where they got that idea?

Comment by Sarge Friday, Feb 9, 07 @ 9:44 am
As a University employee who also had his certificate of completion revoked for completing the course in under ten minutes, I can speak to this somewhat.

I agree with Archpundit’s comments in that the idea that employees within an institute of higher learning would require “cheat sheets” to complete a rather straightforward — and overwhelmingly simple — ethics test is not only insulting, but it has no basis in fact.

If my memory serves me correctly, one particular question was along the lines of, “Which of the follwing is a prohibited political activity?…A. Campaigning or distributing political material to coworkers…B. Using the printer to finish a report for your supervisor…C. None of the Above?” I paraphrase, of course, but you get the idea.

Just because some people within an educational environment can rely upon their mental capabilities to answer such mind-numbingly simple questions in under ten minutes does not mean they lack ethics. Not that our current state government has the capacity to be an arbiter of such things.

Comment by Anon Friday, Feb 9, 07 @ 9:45 am
The test includes 80 screen pages of information and 10 questions, and some people finished it in as little as three or four minutes, while the average state employee took about 30 minutes to complete the training. So it means that people weren’t reading the information. The test section itself can be completed very quickly.

So yes Rich you’re correct with respect to me using the term “test”. I’ll revise that and say it’s impossible to review 80 pages of materials and complete a 10 question test in 3-4 minutes. But perhaps the state instructions didn’t say you have to review the material?

Comment by 105th Blues Friday, Feb 9, 07 @ 9:47 am
If anyone thinks the ethics test requires cheating to be completed quickly and accurately then they haven’t had a look at it in a while. I personally took this test in October for the first time and found it mildly insulting. Did I finish too quickly? No. Why? Because I had heard that there was a minimum time, so I just would let the site sit on each question for a few minutes. I think I clocked in around 30 minutes. In my opinion it could have been done in 8-10 minutes. Certainly if the time was 45 seconds we might want to look into things, but those questions were nowhere near difficult.

I wish I would have taken screen shots of the whole thing and then anonymously posted them somewhere. Then everyone would know how much of a joke this thing is.

Comment by Robbie Friday, Feb 9, 07 @ 9:49 am
105th… I am assuming your 80 screens number is correct, though I would appreciate some kind of citation.

My recollection of those 80 screens were than many had litle to no words and even the informational screens rarely had more than 2 paragraphs. I would be interested in how many words (excluding the questions) the entire presentation is. I would then read sample passages of other articles to find out how many wpm I read. Then I would be willing to talk about whether or not something was ‘mathematically impossible.’

Comment by Robbie Friday, Feb 9, 07 @ 9:53 am
I am a State Employee, but not employed by RB, the ethics test is a joke. In our Division, we are told to take the test online, and have a review of what is covered regarding Ethics for employees, then go ahead for the test. Above each question, a “hint” is provided for the answer. When I answered very fast, at the end the computer gave me a message and told me that I needed to take the test again, and spend more time, as I answered in an unsuitably short amount of time. Had the SIU techs set up their procedure like ours, they wouldn’be be having this controversy. But, regardless, the testing is a joke, and a smoke screen to let the public think things are actually being done to help with the ethics problems. You can answer all the questions right, but you have to have some morals and ethics inside yourself, along with strong supervision from your employers. As usual, athis is state paperwork at it’s finest; or not so finest.

Comment by State employee Friday, Feb 9, 07 @ 9:58 am
http://education.zdnet.com/?p=826

Again, if they didn’t say “please review the material” then time shouldn’t be a factor, however how can you argue that someone received sufficient or a proper level of ethics training in 3-4 minutes? Obviously if the objective is to provide training, it ain’t happening in 3-4 minutes and folks weren’t interested in receiving the training or too busy or the training sucked etc.

Comment by 105th Blues Friday, Feb 9, 07 @ 9:59 am
105th Blues, the 80 screens worth of material are largely duplicative of the material presented in previous years. It might be the case that a first time test-taker needs a half hour or more, but a repeat employee could scan through the pages quite quickly to see if there was any new or unfamiliar information.

Comment by muon Friday, Feb 9, 07 @ 10:00 am
I am a reformed state employee and took the test. Yes, it was possible to flip through the information and take the test quickly because I did it. While I do not have a PhD, only an MA, if you understand basic ethics and have a conscience it should not be a challenge. I’m really offended by taxpayers who suggest that it wasn’t in their best interest that I, as a state employee, take the test in the time I could complete it, no matter how short, and move on with other IMPORTANT duties. Of course, I was equally offended about not getting a raises.

Comment by City Voter Friday, Feb 9, 07 @ 10:05 am
This years test is coming soon. You can be sure that everyone will waste even more time taking it. The questions really are simple enough to pass without reading the material. Besides, you can just keep taking it until you pass anyway.

Comment by Mr. Ethics Friday, Feb 9, 07 @ 10:17 am
I took it it was a lot of common sense things that ordinary people would not do because they were taught not to.So maybe these so called answers we were suppose to have is really what we remember to do as being the right thing.As far as ethics it seems to be failing at the top of heap not the ordinary workers.RICH MILLER your right it is stupid and I would like to add more puffery from you know who.

Comment by DOWNSTATE Friday, Feb 9, 07 @ 10:18 am
Speaking of stupid and petty…looks like the GRod and the Keystone Klowns have lost the “cover” for their bonehead play on blocking the predatory lending program. Remember how they dreamed a meeting with Jesse Jackson and his opposition to HB4050?
Well USA Today is reporting:
“WASHINGTON â€” Predatory mortgage lending, fueled by an explosion in high-cost, subprime loans, is creating a “crisis for millions of American homeowners” that requires action, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., said Wednesday…..,”
Subprime loans are higher-cost products aimed at borrowers with poor credit or a lack of credit history. The sector has grown from $150 billion in 2000 to $650 billion today, about 20% of the overall market.
Minorities are far more likely to use subprime loans. Of loans taken out by African-Americans last year, 55% were high-cost loans, the Federal Reserve says. For Latinos, the rate was 46%, while for whites and Asians it was 17%.
While the subprime lending has expanded credit, such critics as civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, who testified, say it has led to exploitation of minorities.”

Wow! looks like Jesse is against the predators. Wonder what GRod will dream up next? Oh I know he’ll blame it on the community colleges

Comment by Capt. Obvious Friday, Feb 9, 07 @ 11:09 am
105th, you are not only beating a dead horse, you are successfully burying it today. The average state employee may use 30 minutes to take the test but that is only because they “know” they must take longer than 10 minutes or they will have their hands slapped for being too smart and finishing it too quickly. So they answer a question, get a cup of coffee, answer another question, go to the bathroom, answer another question, do some work, etc. etc. etc. until they have eaten up a respectable amount of time to take this idiot test. You stating the test is 80 computer pages long is also misleading. Many pages have only a few WORDS on them - not sentences, not paragraphs. Word has certainly spread among this state that you need to waste a lot of time taking this test in order to pass something on which a 4th grader could get a perfect score. But I’ll give you credit for one thing - you believe everything Blago says and you definitely stick by your man.

Comment by Little Egypt Friday, Feb 9, 07 @ 11:25 am
===The test includes 80 screen pages of information and 10 questions, and some people finished it in as little as three or four minutes, while the average state employee took about 30 minutes to complete the training. So it means that people werenâ€™t reading the information. The test section itself can be completed very quickly.

IOW, the questions are so easy as to not require the reading of the material. It is a bad test. A good test of whether someone has spent time on the reading would actually require reading the material to pass.

So let’s review. The point of the test is to see if people have retained the knowledge imparted to them from the material. However, people can pass the test without reading the material. This means either the material is incredibly easy or that the test is a poor gauge of whether one comprehends the material. Either way, it’s a waste of time.

Trying to argue with people who in some cases are experts on education, testing, and measurement over this only makes one look really stupid.

Comment by Archpundit Friday, Feb 9, 07 @ 12:01 pm
Well said, Larry. The point you make about the professors being experts in designing tests as well as taking them is overlooked in this discussion. LE, as I recall, a few of the “screens” were just a picture, not even any accompanying words.

I learned ethics at home. I don’t need any training from Rod Blagojevich’s lackeys.

When this joke of a test becomes public, Wright and Blago will have enough egg on their faces to make an omelet.

Comment by Arthur Andersen Friday, Feb 9, 07 @ 12:21 pm
three points. 1 In my industry we have been taking the same test year after year and I can do it in my sleep. 2 If there was cheating they should have asked their students for pointers. 3 Vanilla man need to drop his HMO.

Comment by Utility Infielder Friday, Feb 9, 07 @ 12:30 pm
I would love for someone to publish the test so that the public could see why people could do it so quickly and see just what all that money peid to the vendor got the taxpayors of Illinois. The test had to be as easy as possible so the administration could issue press releases about how great it was they could get every state employee to pass an ethics test!

Comment by Anon Friday, Feb 9, 07 @ 12:39 pm
I was one of the 600 ISU employees that had a perfect score invalidated, the test was easy, anyone with the least bit of common sense or understand of ethic could pass it with out reading the text at all. which of course might be the reason that the Blagojevich administration thinks that it should take a long time to read thou and do, they don’t understand ethics.

Comment by RMW Stanford Friday, Feb 9, 07 @ 12:46 pm
Having taken the test as an Illinois State University employee, I have to agree that the test is far too simple. President Bowman’s letter was well written and on point…and similar to what Archpundit has been saying. In a section not quoted in the story, Bowman stated that as a university instructor, it would be absurd to punish students for finishing tests too quickly…they either know the material well or the test was poorly written is the general point.

As for the cheating, my impression was that the questions were a random selection from a bank of multiple questions. I could be wrong here, but if that was not the case, then the IG’s office should have talked to a couple of professors about how to prevent cheating. If thousands of people are taking the test, the risk of sitting around with the list of answers could have been eliminated by simply programming the test to reorder answers and select questions from a bank.

The issue, in my opinion, is what the goal of the testing is in the first place. If the goal is to ensure that employees have the necessary ethics knowledge, then it shouldn’t matter how long the test takes as long as the knowledge is demonstrated (especially if the test is properly written and simple steps are taken to prevent cheating). If the goal is to make someone sit through training, then an internet program is not the best method…

Comment by the wonderboy Friday, Feb 9, 07 @ 12:57 pm
While I could have completed the mandatory ethics training & test in under 10 minutes it so enrages me that I have to waste my time with this tripe that I spent at least 30 minutes bitching about how stupid it is to waste my time.

A better solution would be a large random question pool, select the test and let me pretest..If I can get 100% on a simple pretest (with little chance of having a cheat sheet) then I shouldn’t have to read any of the material. Ethics is simple, if it feels wrong then don’t do it.

Comment by Kevin Highland Friday, Feb 9, 07 @ 1:07 pm
I was one of the many that also had their test invalidated. I clicked through the screens to the pre-test questions that were required to be answered before moving forward and answered them. After finally getting to the actual test, all I needed to do was skim the question to answer correctly. I could have answered the questions without any “Review material”. Why? Because I was raised with morals and ethics. I do not need training. It’s not hard to pass this ethics test if you are indeed ethical.

An ethics test should be taken by the higher ups. It is obvious that they are the ones who need the “Review”.

Comment by Also Insulted Friday, Feb 9, 07 @ 1:39 pm
Archpundit said it. My only comment is has the OIG ever heard of speed reading? Eveline Wood used to sell a speed reading course.

Having taken this test before, the correct answer is doing the opposite of what Public Official A would do.

Also, when people question how a person can take this test in 10 minutes - How long does it take a high speed internet connection (State of Illinois is so wired) to flip through each page? Add to that the speed reading?

Comment by Huh? Friday, Feb 9, 07 @ 2:27 pm
VM,
You can really paint a picture with words.

Comment by Bill Friday, Feb 9, 07 @ 2:35 pm
Just call the “test” what it is. It is an extremely easy exercise, a political ploy of the greatest magnitude of Blago puffery.

The same material time after time after time after time. It is an insult to state employees to have to take it with the crew that is in charge. A stinkin’ joke. A farce.

More interesting than assuming X number of people cheated would be who hasn’t taken the test. You know, how many Blago hacks, humps and appointees have avoided the test. That would be the interesting statistic.

Comment by Papa Legba Friday, Feb 9, 07 @ 2:58 pm
What a really dumb idea. I’ve taken the test, and it is a joke. I could have done it in well under 10 minutes. But, I knew the IG’s Office wanted me to spend more time.

What is really dumb is that the IG’s Office can control this issue if they wanted to without hassling employees. All they have to do is modify their program so each screen remains in front of the employee for a minimum length of time.

Why don’t they do that? I think because they want news articles that they are doing something about ethics. Most of the public doen’t pay enough attention to really know how silly this is. All they see is the the IG’s Office is tough on the ethics issue.

Just another media directed objective with no real impact other than the PR value. I guess there is some value to the private vendor who gets all that tax money for a practically incompetent test. I bet they are real Blago fans.

Comment by BigBob Friday, Feb 9, 07 @ 3:39 pm
Most of you are missing the point, some by a wide margin. The purpose of this test was never to actually teach ethics. It was to APPEAR to teach ethics. Once you understand this, the time limit makes some sense.

Comment by Madame Defarge Friday, Feb 9, 07 @ 4:04 pm
Rich -

A couple of FOIAs.

1. FOIA how long it took the Governor to complete.

2. When did the Governor take the test and in what office?

3. Check the travel logs to verify where the Governor was that day.

Comment by 4% Friday, Feb 9, 07 @ 5:21 pm
The head of our agency (a Blago appointee) was visited by two members of the secret ethics police for completing the test too quickly. It is, as many have noted, a joke. The 105th guy is way, way, way off base.

Comment by Max Maxwell Friday, Feb 9, 07 @ 6:29 pm
I took the test by just looking at the questions, and then went to lunch before pushing the send button. Passed it first time. Where ethics are concerned, you either is or you ain’t and no amount of testing is going to change you. Ya lis’n, Milarod?

Comment by Disgusted Friday, Feb 9, 07 @ 9:09 pm
I did the same thing as ‘Disgusted - Friday, Feb 9, 07 @ 9:09 pm’. Common sense is all you need and some home training in ethics

Comment by anon #1 Friday, Feb 9, 07 @ 10:21 pm