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TEA: Teacher leaked part of TAKS test
Sex and test scores.
By Joshua Benton
An Amarillo teacher leaked a portion of this spring's TAKS writing test to
his colleagues because he wanted his school's students to have a better
chance at passing, a state investigation has found.
The teacher said that he leaked the information because he believed that
educators in other districts were doing the same and that Amarillo students
were "as deserving of prior knowledge of TAKS test information as students"
in those other Texas districts, according to an investigative report
released by the Texas Education Agency.
David Tamez, an elementary bilingual teacher, told investigators that he
obtained the test information by volunteering to serve on a statewide
committee of educators who help determine which questions make it onto the
Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills each year, the report states. He
alleged that members of those committees regularly smuggle out secret TAKS
information to share in their home districts ? a contention TEA officials
vigorously dispute.
Also Online
Read the full Texas Education Agency Report (.pdf)
Investigative reports: TAKS Cheating
"You know good and well what people are doing," Mr. Tamez said, according to
a tape recording of his interview with investigators. "They're writing down
prompts; they're writing down information."
The TEA inspector general's office is recommending a further investigation
to determine whether Mr. Tamez's claims of widespread improprieties are
valid.
"We believe in the security of our current system," TEA spokeswoman Debbie
Graves Ratcliffe said.
One person interviewed by investigators gave a different account from Mr.
Tamez's. An Amarillo teacher signed a statement saying Mr. Tamez bragged
that the source of his insider test information was someone else entirely: a
person he had sex with who works for a company that helps build the TAKS.
Mr. Tamez could not be reached for comment Thursday. According to the
report, he has resigned his position in Amarillo and recently moved to the
Houston area.
Writing prompt
The information Mr. Tamez leaked was the topic on which students taking this
year's fourth-grade writing test are asked to write a brief essay, known as
the writing prompt. Students who don't write an essay that is at least
minimally satisfactory automatically fail ? no matter how they perform on
the test's multiple-choice section.
Having students write practice essays on the prompt in the days leading up
to the exam, in a less stressful environment, could give a school an edge.
The leak to Amarillo teachers occurred at a Feb. 14 meeting of that
district's reading specialists. During the discussion, according to written
statements by people who were there, Mr. Tamez said that he was involved in
the selection of TAKS items and that he had suggestions on what students
should be studying in the days leading up to the test.
He said that it was important for students to practice writing a personal
essay using the word "I" and that they needed to know how to write about
their feelings when helping others, the report states. He also said that he
couldn't go into more detail before the group without losing his teaching
license but that if any teachers wanted more information about the upcoming
test, they could approach him after the meeting.
Several teachers said they did approach him individually, to ask him about
parts of his talk they found confusing. Each said that instead of answering
their questions, he told them exactly what the prompt would be.
Amarillo district officials gathered that something was wrong and told
staffers not to share Mr. Tamez's information with their students or use it
to study, according to the report.
"It raised a great alarm among our people," Amarillo Superintendent Rod
Schroder said in an interview with The Dallas Morning News. "The integrity
of the test was our top priority."
A week later, on test day, it became clear that Mr. Tamez had inside
information. The writing prompt this spring was: "Write a composition about
a time when you helped someone."
Internal investigation
The Amarillo ISD conducted an internal investigation, which concluded that
teachers had not shared the prompt with their classes and that student
scores were still valid. But it also found evidence that Mr. Tamez had
learned the prompt from an unidentified employee of Pearson Educational
Measurement, which has a $279 million contract to manage the TAKS and other
state tests.
One teacher gave investigators a signed written statement about a
conversation she had with Mr. Tamez after he gave out the writing prompt.
"I asked him why he knew specifics about the test, and he pulled out a
business card and said 'Because I slept with' " the person, she wrote. She
said she did not remember the name on the card, but the person "was from a
company called Pearson."
She told investigators in an interview that the sex had occurred the weekend
before the meeting at which he shared the writing prompt with his
colleagues.
When a state investigator later asked Mr. Tamez about the claim, he
indicated that it actually referred to an employee of a company called
TRI-LIN Integrated Services, a San Antonio company that translates some
versions of the TAKS from English to Spanish. But he said that he did not
have sex with the TRI-LIN employee and that he never told anyone he did.
"If I slept with someone, it wasn't to get a prompt," he said in the
recorded interview with the investigator.
Mr. Tamez told investigators he had overheard the prompt at a TAKS educator
committee meeting he had attended the previous June. Those are
state-organized meetings of Texas teachers where they evaluate questions for
inclusion on future TAKS tests.
Records show that Mr. Tamez served on such a committee that focused on the
fourth-grade Spanish math test June 29 and 30 last year.
Mr. Tamez told investigators that, even though writing wasn't the subject of
the meeting, he overhead a group of educators discussing three or four
prompts that could be chosen for the next year's writing test. One of them,
he said, was the subject of particularly intense discussion, and he thought
that could be the true writing prompt. He said he went back to his hotel
room and wrote the prompts down.
He said that such behavior was common at these TAKS committee meetings,
where he often witnessed teachers secretly scribbling notes about questions,
according to his interview.
"If you look at the people who serve on the committee and how many of them
their vocabulary scores go up, you would find that there is definitely
cheating going on ? because you know word for word what the words are on the
vocabulary test," he told the state investigator.
He said that he then shared the information with his Amarillo colleagues
because he didn't want his students to be at a disadvantage against students
in other districts where committee members spread inside information.
"I'm not saying ... [Amarillo students] deserve to cheat. I'm not saying
that. But the fact of the matter is that I was the one that was caught, you
know?" The TEA investigation did not attempt to determine whether Mr.
Tamez's allegation about leaks in other districts is accurate. But the
report does recommend "further investigation of information received that
widespread and systemic improprieties may have been committed by committee
members who are charged with the responsibilities associated with the
preparation of TAKS tests."
There are reasons to doubt Mr. Tamez's story that he heard about the prompt
at the state committee meeting.
First, according to TEA staff, the process of selecting this year's
fourth-grade writing prompt did not begin until last September ? months
after the meeting. And this year's prompt was drawn from a list of more than
50 candidates ? not three or four.
"That is a complete lie," Victoria Young said of Mr. Tamez's allegation that
he learned the prompt when he said he did. She heads development of the
reading, writing and social studies portions of the TAKS at TEA.
Agency officials also said that though they would welcome suggested
improvements to security at educator committee meetings, they believe claims
of widespread problems are false.
"I think that would have come to our attention in many different ways, and
it hasn't," said Ms. Ratcliffe, the TEA spokeswoman.
Educators are required to sign an oath saying they will not share
information outside the committee, and they are not allowed to take notes on
any paper that they will be allowed to leave the room with.
"It appears this individual has told multiple versions of how he obtained
the information he did," said Criss Cloudt, TEA's top assessment official.
There is also reason to doubt that a TRI-LIN employee was his source. Dr.
Cloudt said TRI-LIN handles only the Spanish version of the fourth-grade
writing test, which uses a completely different writing prompt from the
English version. Mr. Tamez leaked the English version's prompt.
In exchange for agreeing to cooperate with the TEA investigation, Mr. Tamez
will receive a written reprimand that will appear on his teaching
certificate. But he will retain that certificate and thus will be able to
pursue employment in Texas public schools.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/education/stories/071307dntextaks.3938280.html
TEA Inspector General Report
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/img/07-07/0713amarillotaks.pdf
— Joshua Benton
Dallas Morning News
2007-07-13
INDEX OF OUTRAGES
Pages: 380
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