Here’s a rather unconventional view on cheating, says the Washington Post. It was written by Penelope Trunk, who founded Brazen Careerist and two other startups. Her career advice runs in 200 newspapers. She lives on a farm in Wisconsin and homeschools her sons. This appeared on her blog…
…Read Moreschool cheating
The cause of standardized test cheating and how to stop it
A top-ranked Los Angeles charter school now joins the seemingly endless list of schools and districts suspected of succumbing to a nationwide cheating pandemic: Animo Leadership Charter High School, run by Green Dot Public Schools, says Lisa Guisbond, policy analyst for the National Center for Fair & Open Testing, or FairTest–a nonprofit organization that aims to improve standardized testing practices and evaluations of students, teachers and schools–for the Washington Post. In Monday’s cheating news, the New York Board of Regents authorized an independent investigator to study how the state Board of Education handles cheating allegations. FairTest has documented confirmed cheating cases in 30 states and the District of Columbia in just the past three academic years…
…Read MoreCheating teachers, principals found in 5 more Georgia schools
Richard Hyde, the investigator behind the July bombshell report of extensive teacher cheating in Atlanta’s schools, expects to have the next installment of the unfolding saga ready by Thanksgiving, reports the Huffington Post. At the request of former Georgia Gov. Sonny Purdue, Hyde and his team are now investigating several suspicious test results from schools in Dougherty County, which surrounds Albany, Ga., and where one quarter of residents live below the poverty line. The investigative team also includes workers from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, who have been quietly interviewing teachers in the district, sometimes with the aid of a polygraph machine…
…Read MoreReview aims to avert cheating on state tests
New York State education officials announced Monday that they had begun to review the way they detect and prevent cheating on standardized tests, taking a step to avoid the cheating scandals that have engulfed school systems in other states, reports the New York Times. New York does not conduct statistical analyses of its high-stakes third- through eighth-grade tests to scour for suspicious results that could signal cheating, like unusual spikes in a school’s scores or predictable erasures on multiple-choice questions, officials said…
…Read MoreSurvey: Nearly 30% of Michigan teachers report pressure to cheat
One out of three public school educators report pressure from bosses, parents or others to change grades, and nearly 30% say pressure to cheat on standardized tests is a problem at their school, according to a voluntary Free Press survey of Michigan educators, reports the Detroit Free Press. At schools that don’t meet federal standards, the tension is higher: About 50% say pressure to change grades is an issue, and 46% say pressure to cheat on the tests is a problem…
…Read MoreTesting erasures draw questions at NJ schools
They are the nearly invisible clues left behind that can tip off experts about possible cheating on standardized tests: the little erasure marks of an answer changed from wrong to right, reports NJ Spotlight. And sadly, it’s mostly the adults who are the culprits. Now the prevalence of such erasures is getting 34 New Jersey public schools a letter from the state indicating that it wants another look at their exams and procedures. The move comes as test security is getting ever more attention nationwide, in the wake of high-profile cheating scandals in Dallas and, more recently, Atlanta…
…Read MorePa. education secretary orders reviews of all state exams since 2009
Following revelations about possible cheating on state tests, Pennsylvania’s education secretary has ordered forensic reviews of all exams since 2009, with special attention to Philadelphia, reports Philly.com.
“When you have multiple indications from multiple sources that something’s not correct, that absolutely does require a greater level of scrutiny,” Education Secretary Ronald Tomalis said in an interview Thursday.
L.A. officials unexpectedly move to shut down charters implicated in cheating
In an unexpected action, Los Angeles school officials Tuesday voted against renewing the operating agreements of two charter schools involved in a cheating scandal last year, reports the Los Angeles Times. The decision could lead to a shutdown of all six schools run by the Crescendo organization. The vote by the Los Angeles Board of Education was based on the revelation at Tuesday’s meeting that a principal implicated in the cheating scandal had been hired by the outside organization brought in to manage the Crescendo schools…
…Read MoreOfficials replaced amid Atlanta cheating scandal
The fallout from the Atlanta Public Schools cheating scandal continued to spread as four area superintendents were replaced and a school district in Texas put the superintendent it recently hired from Georgia on paid leave, the Associated Press reports. Interim Superintendent Erroll Davis replaced the four superintendents late Monday, hours before trustees of the DeSoto Independent School District near Dallas placed Superintendent Kathy Augustine on leave as they re-examine her previous post…
…Read MoreU.S. Education Department joins D.C. test probe
The U.S. Department of Education has joined the District’s investigation into allegations that some recent big gains on standardized test scores might have been the result of cheating by teachers or principals, a D.C. official said Thursday, reports the Washington Post. Roger Burke, a spokesman for D.C. Inspector General Charles J. Willoughby, said investigators from the Education Department’s Office of Inspector General have been active in the probe, which was requested in March by Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson…
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