60 PA Schools Flagged for Possible Cheating

[grntuscarora]

Follow the links to the report itself. Interestingly, charter schools are well-represented on the list. Thankfully, my local district isn't on it. But next year, who knows. Schools and teachers being ordered to achieve the impossible with less funding to do it with....
I loathe NCLB.
And Tom Corbett.


http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/report-flagged-60-pennsylvania-schools-possible-cheating-180715018.html

[femmocrat]

1. Are they all in the Philadelphia area?

However, there is no proof that cheating occurred, according to the article. I'm not jumping to any conclusions based on "statistical irregularities".

From the article:
"A Pennsylvania government report has found statistical irregularities that suggest cheating on standardized tests may have happened in 60 state schools, according to The Notebook blog.

The irregularities--including erasures from wrong to right answers and improbable gains over the space of a year--do not necessarily mean that cheating occurred. But the state never followed up on the report's findings to ensure that it did not, The Notebook found. In one school, the odds of the wrong-to-right changes occurring naturally were less than 1 in 100 trillion."

[grntuscarora]

2. Many, not all, were Phila. schools

22 Phila. public and charter schools were flagged. The rest of the 60 were elsewhere.
I don't even pretend to understand the methods used to figure out when cheating has possibly occurred. The report, looking for aberrant behavior, defines it as "one that occurs in less than 1 in 10,000 chances". The report is also careful to point out that

"Student scores or school AYP status should not be revoked or invalidated based on data forensic analysis results alone. These results are based on statistical properties. Schools or students with highly improbable results are identified. These flagged or identified schools or students may have earned their scores unfairly. However, they also may have earned them fairly. As stated earlier, the combination of many indices may give strong evidence for a testing irregularity, but they do not provide definitive evidence of such behavior."

What I fail to understand is why the state (so far) has ignored the report, prepared in July of 2009. If they're going to make my kids prep, prep, prep for these miserable tests and spend days each year taking them,then they can take some time to guarantee the integrity of the exams to make sure the results mean something.

[femmocrat]

3. Found this article in GD:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1476269

There were 35 districts possibly involved and in all corners of the state.

Excellent question.... Why has it been ignored so long? I'm just *assuming* it was because of the transition from the Rendell to the Corbett administrations.

Also found this near the end of the linked article: "Eller noted the department's 2010 budget had no money for audits, but that Tomalis has ordered them reinstated for this year."

JMO, but I think it is a part of Corbett's general attack on public education in order to promote his voucher plan this fall. The timing is certainly suspicious.