Pennsylvania looking into possible cheating on state tests

[The Northerner]

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The Pennsylvania Department of Education is looking into a report that has surfaced highlighting possible cheating on state standardized tests in at least 35 districts and noting aberrant scores in dozens of others, a spokesman said on Tuesday.

The forensic analysis of the 2009 Pennsylvania System of School Assessment results does not assert cheating occurred, but says certain answer patterns and erasures make the results suspicious.

Among the school districts identified as having multiple testing irregularities are Philadelphia, Hazleton, Connellsville and Lancaster. Many other districts were cited for one or two inconsistencies.

The department was unaware of the report — issued in July 2009 under a previous administration — until it was published on Friday by The Notebook, an independent news service covering the Philadelphia school district, said Timothy Eller, a spokesman for Education Secretary Ronald Tomalis.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/pa-looking-possible-cheating-state-tests-214403453.html

[Mnemosyne]

1. Please let them nail the CASD, please! n/t

[spartan61]

2. I'm certainly not advocating cheating on

standardized tests, but with so much riding on test scores, I can understand why it is happening. Test scores could mean the difference in funding, jobs, lay-offs, bragging rights, etc. Most of the school year is spent teaching to the test instead of the curriculum and "teachable moments." I hate to see this cheating happening, but I'm not surprised.

[femmocrat]

3. I don't believe it. I sincerely doubt that it is that widespread.

Please read the entire article at the above link which does not offer any conclusive evidence or allegations of actual cheating. Instead, some of the districts mentioned are unaware of or can explain any aberrations.

As a teacher who spends an entire week every year monitoring PSSAs, I can vouch for how tight the security is during testing week.

It is also unknown how the audit was conducted during the previous administration. I find the timing very suspicious and believe it is just another attack on public education by the Corbett administration. Since vouchers recently failed in the legislature, Corbett has vowed to bring them up again in Sept. He and his minions are plotting to discredit the public schools to garner support for vouchers and charter schools.

[WinkyDink]

4. There are 501 school districts in PA.