Charter accused of MCAS cheating

[tonysam]

A state investigation has concluded that staff engaged in “pervasive, systemic cheating’’ on MCAS tests at a Springfield charter school where scores skyrocketed last spring, the state’s commissioner of elementary and secondary education said yesterday.

Commissioner Mitchell Chester said that he will ask his agency’s board today to revoke the charter for the Robert M. Hughes Academy and that teachers and administrators could lose their state professional licenses. He declined to specify the acts of cheating because of investigations continue, but said it was orchestrated by the principal and carried out by several staff members.

The state action was announced as charter schools are under intense scrutiny, with the Legislature engaged in a high-stakes debate over whether to double the number of charter school seats in many cities, including Springfield and Boston.

“It’s very disturbing,’’ Chester said yesterday. “In my own experience working in four different states, I have never encountered an incident of cheating that was as highly orchestrated as I’ve seen in this case.’’

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Just because public school districts can be corrupt doesn't mean charters can't be, either.

Somebody should tell Arne Duncan this.

[virgogal]

1. And now a convicted felon is in charge to straighten things out.

Aaaah,Massachusetts.

[montanto]

2. Not very clever cheaters.

I try to tell my students that they need to cheat creatively. Bringing in an essay written by a UCLA graduate student is a pretty easy way to get busted. They should have just cheated their scores up a bit, then they could have run that scam for a few years! In the end the only way to make it "to the top" is to cheat, since there is no "top" achievable in a system that requires 100% performance from 100% of the participants.

[mzteris]

3. It's tying test scores to bonuses and salary

and poor security measures.


At my son's charter when we were in NC, I helped proctor. Teachers were not allowed to supervise their own students. They all swapped classrooms. Parents weren't allowed to proctor in the same room as their child - or even grade!

When the test was over - test booklets were passed in, counted, and placed in a large envelope and signed across the closing by the teacher in the room and the proctors and turned in to the test administrators. The same with the answer sheets. This was a group of people with a representative from the teachers, the admin, the BOD, and a number of parents. Tests were handled in a group setting only. At no time was any one person left alone with any test - or test taker for that matter.



A quick short list of some of those public schools you mentioned. . .

Barbara Hollingsworth: Fairfax public schools officials cheat on test scores
By: Barbara Hollingsworth
Examiner Columnist
September 22, 2009


Atlanta
 schools
 soft on cheats?
By Heather Vogell
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Atlanta News 5:00 a.m. Monday, August 31, 2009


Readers Digest
That's Outrageous! Caught Cheating
Cheating is becoming a problem in schools across the country ... and teachers are the culprits.
By Michael Crowley
Cheating among teachers has become epidemic in America's schools, with cases from New York to California, Florida to South Dakota, Tennessee to Maryland. "It's more prevalent than anyone wants to admit," says UNC-Chapel Hill professor Gregory Cizek, an expert on cheating in schools. "Teachers are paid to be role models. It sends a really destructive message to kids."


Press-Telegram Long Beach, CA
School's state test scores thrown out after alleged cheating
By Kevin Butler, Staff Writer
Posted: 09/16/2009 07:49:15 PM PDT

FairTest: The National Center for Fair and Open testing
Cheating Cases Continue to Proliferate


Analysis shows TAKS cheating rampant
State says it's addressed the problem, but News uncovers more than 50,000 cases
05:29 PM CDT on Sunday, June 3, 2007
By JOSHUA BENTON and HOLLY K. HACKER / The Dallas Morning News


Suspicious Test-Taking Boosts Scores
Chris Halsne
KIRO 7 Eyewitness News Investigative Reporter
We dug deep into that data and found accusations of cheating, which could falsely improve scores, spread out in 317 different schools in more than 100 districts.