Cheating scandals test schools

By Kathy Slobogin
CNN

(CNN) -- As the school year ends, the test scores are coming in. Scores on which a school's reputation rises or falls. Scores on which a principal's job can depend. Scores that will soon become even more seminal if Congress passes President Bush's education reform plan.

But increasingly the strong medicine of high stakes testing may have an unwelcome side effect -- cheating.

A few weeks ago, 71 schools in 22 districts across Michigan were cited for "testing irregularities." State Treasurer Douglas Roberts, who is responsible for administering the state's standardized exams, said three sets of test reviewers found multiple cases of identical answers on essay questions.

"We had examples of where a test answer might be as many as three sentences and four or five or six students had exactly the same answer," Roberts said.

Although some schools that were named claim there are innocent explanations for the irregularities, Roberts said it would be hard to explain away some of the examples.

"The worst examples I've seen are serious," he said. "I think that when you have several students and they're identical (answers), I would say that's a serious issue."

It's just the latest example of cheating scandals that have broken out in a dozen states in the last few years.

Just last May, a middle school in Montgomery County, Maryland, suspended seven employees when an advance copy of a state math exam was handed out to several teachers, to help them prepare students for the test. Two teachers actually gave students the test questions as homework.

"We first realized it after two students identified questions on the test as being the exact same questions they had just completed the night before on their homework," said Brian Porter, a spokesman for the Montgomery County Superintendent's office.

New York City was rocked 18 months ago by a citywide cheating scandal. A special investigation found that 52 educators in 32 schools had helped students with state tests, to boost their scores. The investigators found that teachers corrected children's answers, gave them the answers outright, or even wrote on students' exams themselves.

In Austin, Texas, a school official and the entire school district were indicted in criminal court two years ago for tampering with test scores. The State Attorney said it was the first time in Texas history that a school district had been indicted.

"We've seen an increase in cheating," said Vincent Ferrandino, executive director of the National Association of Elementary School Principals.

Proponents of high-stakes tests say they are the only effective way to hold schools accountable, that without them many students fall through the cracks and school performance stalls. But Ferrandino said there are other forms of assessment that may do a better job of evaluating a child's progress and help prevent an epidemic of cheating.

"These tests have put educators in a position out there if in fact students perform poorly it could mean, in the case of a principal, the loss of a job, in the case of a teacher it could mean a poor evaluation and consequently the loss of job downstream. For the students it could mean being retained," Ferrandino said.

Why would teachers, who are supposed to be role models for their students, resort to such behavior?

"I think part of it is because they want their students to do well," says Ferrandino. "I think in many cases teachers may look at the test and say, 'you know this really is not a test of what these children know, and what I've been teaching for most of the year.'"

Critics fear state test taking will take its toll
May 25, 2001
Putting American students to the test
April 26, 2001
Identical statewide test answers prompt investigation
June 8, 2001
Student Bureau: Cheating teachers
May 5, 2000

National Association of Elementary School Principals

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