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State targets TAKS cheats

Ohanian Comment: Maybe I'm missing something here, but according to news reports, it wasn't students who were engaged in massive erasing of answer sheets and writing in of new answers.

by Janet Elliott


AUSTIN — Students will be asked to sign pledges next year that they will not cheat on the state's high-stakes test, and school districts could suffer lower ratings if cheating is found, education officials said Monday.

Reacting to allegations of widespread cheating and growing pressure on students to pass the standardized tests, state education officials said they will "ramp up" security for the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills.

They'll also switch the order of the sections of test questions, making it harder for students to look over someone's shoulder and make the results easier to spot if they do, because all students will be assigned seats.

The Texas Education Agency also will increase scrutiny by developing a system to identify statistical patterns that may signal cheating. It also will contract with a testing security expert for an independent statistical review.

The latest steps will build on enhanced training for test monitors and a new inspector general's office to investigate allegations of wrongdoing, said Education Commissioner Shirley Neeley.

"But as the stakes surrounding testing have become higher, some have questioned whether we are doing all we can to prevent cheating," she said.

The education agency has been battling allegations of widespread cheating on standardized tests for the past 21/2 years. In 2006, Utah-based Caveon Test Security was hired to conduct a study of test scores and flagged about 700 Texas schools for irregularities.

Investigations cleared all but 16 schools of the allegations.

Bexar County's Northside Independent School District already has implemented some of the reforms, including implementing seating charts and developing a local test-integrity policy.

Pascual Gonzalez, a spokesman for the district, said giving a district a lower academic rating is a serious consequence but may be necessary "if that's what it takes to keep some of these schools from cheating."

However, Gonzalez said he hopes the TEA has a better independent audit than Caveon's. The flagged schools were named publicly before local officials could review and contest the data.

"They dinged you if your scores were too good even if it was from all the tutorials and steps we took to help kids do better," he said.

Earlier this year, lawmakers decided to phase out the high-stakes tests for older students in favor of end-of-course exams beginning with freshmen entering high school in 2011-2012. That bill is awaiting action from Gov. Rick Perry.

— Janet Elliott
Houston Chronicle
2007-06-12
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/stories/MYSA061207.01B.cheating_.33f7137.html

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