Assessment

States Lack Sufficient Test Security, Newspaper Finds

By Catherine Gewertz — October 01, 2012 1 min read
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An investigation by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has found that large-scale cheating on state tests is bound to continue because states do not have in place the security measures necessary to prevent it.

The most recent installment of the Journal‘s ongoing investigation into cheating on standardized tests, published this weekend, concludes that states have not taken key steps to ensure test security.

It includes a chart focusing on 10 ways cheating can be prevented, such as assigning monitors to schools and performing statistical analyses, and lists which methods are used—or not—in each state.

“Many states do not use basic test-security measures designed to stop cheating on tests. And most states make almost no attempt to screen test results for irregularities,” according to the Journal.

As you know, the Journal-Constitution has been reporting on test cheating nationally since last March, in the wake of Atlanta’s big cheating scandal. Its coverage includes identifying 196 districts with “suspicious patterns” of test scores, and an interactive tool that allows users to find similar patterns in their own school districts.

The newspaper’s collection of stories about standardized-test cheating, in Atlanta and nationwide, can be found on a special landing page of its website.

A version of this news article first appeared in the Curriculum Matters blog.