By Del Stover
3/15/05 -- The high stakes surrounding state-mandated standardized tests -- along with a number of recent cheating incidents -- have prompted school districts and states across the nation to tighten test security.
Just last month, Houston officials sent 600 administrators, police officers, and other staff members into classrooms across the city to monitor security while students took the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS).
This extraordinary action was in response to an investigation into possible testing irregularities at 23 Houston schools. Two teachers already face dismissal because of allegations they helped students cheat on state tests last April.
But Houston is hardly unique in its experience. In recent years, school districts in at least 20 states have reported incidents of cheating -- or improper handling of test materials that compromised the integrity of the testing process.
Gregory Cizek, a University of North Carolina professor who studies cheating, says the problem isn’t as widespread as media reports might suggest -- but it is more prevalent than many educators want to admit.
“The best research to date comes out of the Chicago Public Schools,” he says. “It suggests that, in probably 3 to 5 percent of classrooms, there’s some sort of inappropriate educator activity.”
Tightening the security surrounding state tests is a logical outcome of the growing importance of test results in the evaluation of teachers, administrators, and schools, Cizek says. “Tests count, so there’s going to be an increase in the willingness of some people to ‘get around a corner’ by doing something that’s not appropriate.”
Late last year, the Dallas Morning News reported “statistically unusual” test score results at nearly 400 schools statewide -- and sparked a review of past test data by local and state education officials.
In Dallas, where the newspaper’s analysis raised questions about test results at 35 schools, officials ultimately cleared 34 schools of wrongdoing. But, at one school, several teachers face disciplinary action for allegedly helping students cheat on the TAKS.
“We are taking this situation seriously,” Interim Superintendent Larry Groppel said in a news release announcing the investigation’s findings. “We want to send a clear message that cheating is not going to be tolerated in this district.”
The newspaper’s research also prompted the investigation in Houston, where officials set up a telephone hotline for reporting irregularities during the TAKS exam last month. State officials created a new inspector general’s office with broad powers to investigate allegations of cheating.
The Texas Education Agency also has stepped forward, hiring Cizek to review its test security measures and announcing plans to build a tracking system to monitor for testing irregularities.
These measures should help state officials get to the bottom of recent allegations, says TEA spokesperson Suzanne Marchman. But, she adds, it’s hoped these actions also will reassure the public and education community about the future integrity of the test system.
Meanwhile, many states -- most recently Delaware, Massachusetts, and North and South Carolina -- are setting up procedures to more closely examine test data for signs of cheating.
Some states already are looking for such “red flags” as tests showing students answering hard questions correctly and missing easy ones, classes with abnormally high passing rates, or tests with several wrong answers erased and replaced with correct answers.
For most school districts, the issue is more about reminding staff members to take the rules seriously -- such as keeping tests securely locked and counting tests before distributing them.
That was the response of the Guilford County, N.C., school system after several employees were disciplined two years ago for allegedly sharing test questions with students in advance.
“Basically what we did was refocus everyone and tighten up [security],” says Sharon Johnson, the district’s executive director of assessment evaluation. “We also let staff members know that if you violate the assessment code of ethics, you will lose your job.”
Cizek predicts school officials will see even tighter test security rules coming down the pike -- and they’ll eventually be as routine as today’s practice of including receipts with a business reimbursement request.
“Nobody blinks at that today,” he says. “It’s standard procedure because of the potential for some people to abuse the system. Now, just as you need to turn in your receipts, you need to review those test results.”