Accountability for you, but not for me, seems to be a common policy in schools I've worked in. Now it's been exposed in the state superintendent's office in Indiana.
"Christel’s ninth- and 10th-grade students got brutally low scores on the English and math tests, with only 70 percent passing English and just a third passing math...
"Bennett’s staff swung loyally and swiftly into action; within a day they had found what they called a “loophole” in the state law that allowed them to change Christel’s grade."
The Case of the Missing Zeroes
An astonishing act of statistical chutzpah in the Indiana schools’ grade-changing scandal.
By Jordan Ellenberg
Slate.com
Aug. 2, 2013
Florida Education Commissioner Tony Bennett resigned Thursday amid claims that, in his former position as superintendent of public instruction in Indiana, he manipulated the state’s system for evaluating school performance.
Bennett, a Republican who created an A-to-F grading protocol for Indiana schools as a way to promote educational accountability, is accused of raising the mark for a school operated by a major GOP donor. Bennett calls that charge, which arose from emails among Bennett’s staff obtained by the AP, “malicious and unfounded” and “frankly so off base.” He offered a different explanation for why the grades for Indianapolis charter school Christel House Academy—whose mark soared from a C to an A—and 12 other schools were changed at the last minute. According to Bennett, he was just correcting a simple math mistake.
Bennett’s explanation is perfectly mathematically reasonable, and it would get him off the hook. The only problem is that the story he’s telling appears to be totally false.
Bennett told AEI’s Rick Hess, “As we were looking at the grades we were giving our schools, we realized that state law created an unfair penalty for schools that didn't have 11th and 12th grades. Statewide, there were 13 schools in question had unusual grade configurations. The data for grades 11 and 12 came in as zero. When we caught it, we fixed it.”
Bennett’s stated rationale makes sense. Here’s an analogy. You’re teaching a course with three exams, and each student’s overall exam grade for the class is computed as an average of her three individual exams
(1/3) * (exam 1) + (1/3) * (exam 2) + (1/3) * (exam 3)
But what happens if a student misses exam 3, with a justified absence, and the test can’t be made up? Then we have what’s called a “missing data” problem—we have to infer something about the student’s performance without the full complement of data we have for everybody else. One natural approach is to compute that student’s overall exam grade as the average of the exams she did take:
(1/2) * (exam 1) + (1/2) * (exam 2).
What you shouldn’t do is give the student a zero for the exam and average it into her grade.
Christel House had started out as a middle school and was adding one high school grade each year; for the 2011-12 school year, it served students through the 10th grade. High schools, according to Indiana statute, were to be graded on four metrics, averaged like so:
30% * (English scores) + 30% * (algebra scores) + 30% * (graduation rate) + 10% * (college and career readiness score)
But, as Bennett said in an official statement, “Christel House only served students in grades K-10, thus the graduation rate and college and career readiness measures could not be calculated because the school did not serve grades 11 and 12.” So it faced a missing data problem, like the student who had to miss an exam.
Indeed, it wouldn’t be fair to count those scores as zero! The obvious fix, just as with the student, is to grade such a school on the two scores that it does have:
50% * (English scores) + 50% * (Algebra scores)
Does that mean Bennett really did get railroaded, and he was just fixing an obvious error?
No—because the “fixed” version of the grade was what Indiana was already using before Bennett started tinkering with the gears. When you dig into the numbers, the story about the unfair zeroes looks like a complete fabrication.
Christel’s ninth- and 10th-grade students got brutally low scores on the English and math tests, with only 70 percent passing English and just a third passing math. Here’s how Jon Gubera, then the Education Department’s chief accountability officer, described Christel’s performance in one of the emails released by the AP:
“OK, here is their breakdown ...
They served grades K-10 in 2011-12 so they are a combined school but do not have any graduates. So their grade is a combination of the standard E/MS model and the HS 9&10 model which only counts ECA proficiency.
E/MS results: 3.00 on E/LA (no growth bonuses) and 4.00 on math (bottom 25% bonus) = 3.50 points (B)
HS results: 2.00 on E/LA (70% pass rate) and 0.00 on math (33% pass rate) = 1.00 points (D)
Final Combined results: E/MS 3.50 x .76 (76% of school is in grades 3.8) = 2.66 + HS 1.00 x .24 (24% of school is in high school) = .24. Thus overall grade is 2.66 + .24 = 2.9 (C).
Bottom line: their terrible 10th grade Algebra I results (33% passing) was the principal factor in earning a C grade."
Christel’s grade 3–8 scores came to a 3.50, or a B, and their high school scores, thanks to the algebra fiasco, were a 1.00, or a D. The school’s score is then an average of the grade 3–8 scores and the 9–10 scores, weighted according to the proportion of students in each group.
Where are the zeroes for the graduation rates and readiness score that got averaged into Christel’s score—the “unfair penalty” that Bennett claims he fixed? They’re not there, because that’s the part that Bennett, as far as I can tell, simply made up.
Gubera’s computation wasn’t satisfactory for Bennett, because it didn’t give Christel an A, and—judging by the emails obtained by the AP—he had already told Christel administrators they were getting an A. No mere numbers were going to make a liar out of him!
What’s more, Bennett wrote in one of the emails, the low grade for Christel meant “legislative leadership as well as our critics of A-F are going to use this against us to undo our accountability metrics through legislation.” He went on: “If you can’t tell, I am more than a little miffed about this. I hope we come to the meeting today with solutions and not excuses and/or explanations for me to wiggle myself out of the repeated lies I have told over the past 6 months.”
Bennett’s staff swung loyally and swiftly into action; within a day they had found what they called a “loophole” in the state law that allowed them to change Christel’s grade. The statute clearly states that high schools without 12th-graders get a score made up half of the English score and half of the algebra score. What’s more, the law said schools that combined high school grades and lower grades should use a weighted average of the elementary/middle school measures and the four high school measures.
Here’s where Bennett’s team found the loophole big enough to drive a charter school through. A normal person would do exactly what Chief Accountability Officer Jon Gubera did—give Christel the weighted average of its elementary/middle school score, according to the rules for elementary/middle schools, and its high school score, according to the rules for high schools.
But Bennett had a better idea. Christel was, technically speaking, not a high school, so the statutory formula for the high school grades didn’t apply. But it also didn’t have all four high school measures, so, he argued, the rules for combined schools didn’t apply either. There were just 13 schools in the state that had both middle school and high school grades but no seniors. For these schools, Bennett reasoned, the Indiana education poobahs should have a free hand to set the grades however they pleased. You can guess what happened next: Bennett ruled that the ninth- and 10th-graders in these schools didn’t count at all. So it was that the offending algebra grades vanished in a puff of bureaucratic smoke. (Anne Hyslop at Ed Money Watch has an even more detailed accounting of the process, if you like watching sausage get made.)
This was an act of astonishing statistical chutzpah. Suppose the syllabus for my math class said that the final grade would be determined by averaging the homework grade and the exam grade, and that the exam grade was itself the average of the grades on the three tests I gave. Now imagine a student gets a B on the homework, gets a D-minus on the first two tests, and misses the third. She then comes to me and says, “Professor, your syllabus says the exam component of the grade is the average of my grade on the three tests—but I only took two tests, so that line of the syllabus doesn’t apply to my special case, and the only fair thing is to drop the entire exam component and give me a B for the course.”
I would laugh her out of the office. Or maybe suggest that she apply for a job as a state superintendent of instruction.
The saddest part is that I’m guessing Bennett sincerely felt he was doing the right thing. In his mind, he knew Christel was a great school, so if the scores said otherwise, the scores had to be wrong. In this respect, ironically, he ends up echoing his policy opponents, adopting the position that a mechanistic testing and scoring procedure can’t be allowed to override firsthand knowledge about teachers and schools.
Saying this out loud wasn’t an option, so any test scores that seemed to indicate learning problems at Christel had to be eliminated from the spreadsheet with extreme prejudice. (I attempted to reach both Tony Bennett and Jon Gubera and have not received a reply from either man. If I do hear back, I will add an update to this story.)
Bennett told AEI’s Hess, “I'm a track and field guy. I run, I try to keep my weight down at about 190. Christel has been a track-performing school for a number of years. If I get on the scale one day, am doing everything the same, and am still wearing my same clothes and they fit, and the scale suddenly reads 215, I am going to question what's going on.”
But Christel wasn’t doing everything the same. It didn’t have a 10th grade before, and then it did, and whatever it was doing to teach those new 10th-graders math, it didn’t lead them to pass algebra.
Bennett could, and should, have faced up to that fact, given the school the C it earned, and delivered them some honest tough love: “You’re still doing well at the stuff you’ve always done well, but you obviously haven’t succeeded at the new stuff you’re trying to do. We believe you can do it, but until you do, your grade’s going to suffer.” Isn’t that what accountability in education means, if it still means anything at all?
Showing posts with label testing integrity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label testing integrity. Show all posts
Friday, August 02, 2013
Saturday, March 30, 2013
Grand jury indicts 35 in Georgia school cheating scandal
See further discussion here.
What do you expect when you allow schools to keep their culture of secrecy and backdoor politics? If you want real reform, you have to change the culture of the education establishment.
Schools don't like people who make waves. They like people who fall in line with school politics.
"For example, teachers who reported other teachers who cheated were terminated, while teachers who were caught cheating were only suspended."
Beverly Hall reminds me of the administrators and board members I knew at Chula Vista Elementary School District.
Report: Test cheating may be widespread
Grand jury indicts 35 in Georgia school cheating scandal
35 employees indicted over alleged cheating
By Chelsea J. Carter
CNN
March 29, 2013
Watch this video
Atlanta (CNN) -- In what has been described as one of the largest cheating scandals to hit the nation's public education system, 35 Atlanta Public Schools educators and administrators were indicted Friday on charges of racketeering and corruption.
The indictment is the bookend to a story that was once touted as a model for the nation's school districts after the district's test scores dramatically improved in some of its toughest urban schools.
Among those indicted by a Fulton County, Georgia, grand jury was Beverly Hall, the former schools superintendent who gained national recognition in 2009 for turning around Atlanta's school system.
"She was a full participant in that conspiracy," Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard told reporters during a news conference announcing the charges.
"Without her, this conspiracy could not have taken place, particularly in the degree in which it took place."
The indictment follows a state investigation that was launched after a series of reports by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper found large, unexplained gains in test scores in some Atlanta schools.
A state review determined that some cheating had occurred in more than half of the district's elementary and middle schools. About 180 teachers were initially implicated in the scandal.
Threats and intimidation
Hall has denied any role in the cheating scandal. In 2011, she told The New York Times that her subordinates had allowed the cheating to occur, but denied she was involved.
Hall resigned from her position in 2011 following the state investigation, which lambasted her leadership and found widespread cheating in dozens of Atlanta schools.
The alleged cheating is believed to date back to early 2001, according to the indictment, when standardized testing scores began to turn around in the 50,000-student school district.
For at least a period of four years, between 2005 and 2009, test answers were altered, fabricated and falsely certified, the indictment said.
Hall allegedly oversaw a system where threats and intimidation were used against teachers, it said.
"As a result, cheating became more and more prevalent," the indictment said.
By the time the 2009 Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests, as the standardized test is known, was administered in Atlanta Public Schools, "cheating was taking place in a majority of APS's 83 elementary and middle schools."
The allegations, the indictment said, are substantiated by the Georgia Governor's Office of Student Achievement analysis of erasures on standardized tests.
'Suspicious' test score gains
According to the indictment, Hall placed unreasonable goals on educators and "protected and rewarded those who achieved targets by cheating. It also alleges she fired principals who failed to achieve goals and "ignored suspicious" test score gains throughout the school system.
In 2009, Hall was named the National Superintendent of the Year by the Schools Superintendents Association, which at the time said her "leadership has turned Atlanta into a model of urban school reform."
But the indictment paints another picture of Hall, one of a superintendent with "a single-minded purpose, and that is to cheat," Howard told reporters.
"For example, teachers who reported other teachers who cheated were terminated, while teachers who were caught cheating were only suspended," the indictment alleges.
"The message from Beverly Hall was clear: There were to be no exceptions and no excuses for failure to meet targets."
At the heart of the conspiracy to cheat, the indictment said, was money.
"It is further part of the conspiracy and endeavor that targets achieved through cheating were used by Beverly Hall to obtain substantial performance bonuses," the indictment said.
It also alleges a number of others received performance bonuses based on test scores.
2011: Seven edcuators step down as scandal unfolds
Racketeering and conspiracy
Of the 65 counts in the indictment, Hall and 34 others were charged with one count of violating Georgia's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, commonly known as RICO.
In addition to racketeering, Hall also is charged with making false statements and writings and theft by taking.
If convicted on all counts, she could face a maximum of 45 years in prison.
Among those also indicted were four of Hall's executive administrators, six principals, two assistant principals, six testing coordinators, 14 teachers, a school improvement specialist and a school secretary.
These Atlanta Public Schools officials are among those named:
-- Millicent Few, director of human resources, is accused of participating in the conspiracy and making false statements during the investigation.
-- Tamara Cotman, a regional supervisor who oversaw dozens of Atlanta's schools, is accused of intimidating witnesses, including a principal and other staff, in an effort to hinder an investigation.
-- Sharon Davis-Williams, who also oversaw a region of Atlanta's schools.
-- Michael Pitts, who oversaw a region of Atlanta's schools, also is accused of intimidating witnesses, primarily staff at Parks Middle School, in an effort to hinder or delay an investigation.
-- Christopher Waller, principal at Parks Middle School in Atlanta, where at least four teachers are accused of conspiring to cheat on standardized tests, is also alleged to have pressured teachers to cheat as early as spring 2006.
-- Armstead Salters, principal of Gideons Elementary School, where at least four teachers say he allegedly pressured them into cheating.
Hall and the 34 others named in the indictment have been ordered to surrender to authorities by Tuesday, said Howard, the district attorney.
What do you expect when you allow schools to keep their culture of secrecy and backdoor politics? If you want real reform, you have to change the culture of the education establishment.
Schools don't like people who make waves. They like people who fall in line with school politics.
"For example, teachers who reported other teachers who cheated were terminated, while teachers who were caught cheating were only suspended."
Beverly Hall reminds me of the administrators and board members I knew at Chula Vista Elementary School District.
Report: Test cheating may be widespread
Grand jury indicts 35 in Georgia school cheating scandal
35 employees indicted over alleged cheating
By Chelsea J. Carter
CNN
March 29, 2013
Watch this video
Atlanta (CNN) -- In what has been described as one of the largest cheating scandals to hit the nation's public education system, 35 Atlanta Public Schools educators and administrators were indicted Friday on charges of racketeering and corruption.
The indictment is the bookend to a story that was once touted as a model for the nation's school districts after the district's test scores dramatically improved in some of its toughest urban schools.
Among those indicted by a Fulton County, Georgia, grand jury was Beverly Hall, the former schools superintendent who gained national recognition in 2009 for turning around Atlanta's school system.
"She was a full participant in that conspiracy," Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard told reporters during a news conference announcing the charges.
"Without her, this conspiracy could not have taken place, particularly in the degree in which it took place."
The indictment follows a state investigation that was launched after a series of reports by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper found large, unexplained gains in test scores in some Atlanta schools.
A state review determined that some cheating had occurred in more than half of the district's elementary and middle schools. About 180 teachers were initially implicated in the scandal.
Threats and intimidation
Hall has denied any role in the cheating scandal. In 2011, she told The New York Times that her subordinates had allowed the cheating to occur, but denied she was involved.
Hall resigned from her position in 2011 following the state investigation, which lambasted her leadership and found widespread cheating in dozens of Atlanta schools.
The alleged cheating is believed to date back to early 2001, according to the indictment, when standardized testing scores began to turn around in the 50,000-student school district.
For at least a period of four years, between 2005 and 2009, test answers were altered, fabricated and falsely certified, the indictment said.
Hall allegedly oversaw a system where threats and intimidation were used against teachers, it said.
"As a result, cheating became more and more prevalent," the indictment said.
By the time the 2009 Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests, as the standardized test is known, was administered in Atlanta Public Schools, "cheating was taking place in a majority of APS's 83 elementary and middle schools."
The allegations, the indictment said, are substantiated by the Georgia Governor's Office of Student Achievement analysis of erasures on standardized tests.
'Suspicious' test score gains
According to the indictment, Hall placed unreasonable goals on educators and "protected and rewarded those who achieved targets by cheating. It also alleges she fired principals who failed to achieve goals and "ignored suspicious" test score gains throughout the school system.
In 2009, Hall was named the National Superintendent of the Year by the Schools Superintendents Association, which at the time said her "leadership has turned Atlanta into a model of urban school reform."
But the indictment paints another picture of Hall, one of a superintendent with "a single-minded purpose, and that is to cheat," Howard told reporters.
"For example, teachers who reported other teachers who cheated were terminated, while teachers who were caught cheating were only suspended," the indictment alleges.
"The message from Beverly Hall was clear: There were to be no exceptions and no excuses for failure to meet targets."
At the heart of the conspiracy to cheat, the indictment said, was money.
"It is further part of the conspiracy and endeavor that targets achieved through cheating were used by Beverly Hall to obtain substantial performance bonuses," the indictment said.
It also alleges a number of others received performance bonuses based on test scores.
2011: Seven edcuators step down as scandal unfolds
Racketeering and conspiracy
Of the 65 counts in the indictment, Hall and 34 others were charged with one count of violating Georgia's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, commonly known as RICO.
In addition to racketeering, Hall also is charged with making false statements and writings and theft by taking.
If convicted on all counts, she could face a maximum of 45 years in prison.
Among those also indicted were four of Hall's executive administrators, six principals, two assistant principals, six testing coordinators, 14 teachers, a school improvement specialist and a school secretary.
These Atlanta Public Schools officials are among those named:
-- Millicent Few, director of human resources, is accused of participating in the conspiracy and making false statements during the investigation.
-- Tamara Cotman, a regional supervisor who oversaw dozens of Atlanta's schools, is accused of intimidating witnesses, including a principal and other staff, in an effort to hinder an investigation.
-- Sharon Davis-Williams, who also oversaw a region of Atlanta's schools.
-- Michael Pitts, who oversaw a region of Atlanta's schools, also is accused of intimidating witnesses, primarily staff at Parks Middle School, in an effort to hinder or delay an investigation.
-- Christopher Waller, principal at Parks Middle School in Atlanta, where at least four teachers are accused of conspiring to cheat on standardized tests, is also alleged to have pressured teachers to cheat as early as spring 2006.
-- Armstead Salters, principal of Gideons Elementary School, where at least four teachers say he allegedly pressured them into cheating.
Hall and the 34 others named in the indictment have been ordered to surrender to authorities by Tuesday, said Howard, the district attorney.
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Cheating scandal: Feds say teachers hired stand-in to take their certification tests
I've been saying for years that we need more highly-capable teachers.
Cheating scandal: Feds say teachers hired stand-in to take their certification tests
By Adrian Sainz
The Associated Press
Nov. 25, 2012
It was a brazen and surprisingly long-lived scheme, authorities said, to help aspiring public school teachers cheat on the tests they must pass to prove they are qualified to lead their classrooms.
For 15 years, teachers in three Southern states paid Clarence Mumford Sr. — himself a longtime educator — to send someone else to take the tests in their place, authorities said. Each time, Mumford received a fee of between $1,500 and $3,000 to send one of his test ringers with fake identification to the Praxis exam. In return, his customers got a passing grade and began their careers as cheaters, according to federal prosecutors in Memphis.
Authorities say the scheme affected hundreds — if not thousands — of public school students who ended up being taught by unqualified instructors.
Mumford faces more than 60 fraud and conspiracy charges that claim he created fake driver's licenses with the information of a teacher or an aspiring teacher and attached the photograph of a test-taker. Prospective teachers are accused of giving Mumford their Social Security numbers for him to make the fake identities.
The hired-test takers went to testing centers, showed the proctor the fake license, and passed the certification exam, prosecutors say. Then, the aspiring teacher used the test score to secure a job with a public school district, the indictment alleges. Fourteen people have been charged with mail and Social Security fraud, and four people have pleaded guilty to charges associated with the scheme.
Mumford "obtained tens of thousands of dollars" during the alleged conspiracy, which prosecutors say lasted from 1995 to 2010 in Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee.
Among those charged is former University of Tennessee and NFL wide receiver Cedrick Wilson, who is accused of employing a test-taker for a Praxis physical education exam. He was charged in late October with four counts of Social Security and mail fraud. He has pleaded not guilty and is out of jail on a $10,000 bond. He has been suspended by the Memphis City Schools system.
If convicted, Mumford could face between two and 20 years in prison on each count. The teachers face between two and 20 years in prison on each count if convicted.
Lawyers for Mumford and Wilson did not return calls for comment.
Prosecutors and standardized test experts say students were hurt the most by the scheme because they were being taught by unqualified teachers. It also sheds some light on the nature of cheating and the lengths people go to in order to get ahead.
"As technology keeps advancing, there are more and more ways to cheat on tests of this kind," said Neal Kingston, director of the Center for Educational Testing and Evaluation at the University of Kansas. "There's a never-ending war between those who try to maintain standards and those who are looking out for their own interests."
Cheating on standardized tests is not new, and it can be as simple as looking at the other person's test sheet. The Internet and cell phones have made it easier for students to cheat in a variety of ways. In the past few years, investigations into cheating on standardized tests for K-12 students have surfaced in Atlanta, New York and El Paso, Texas.
Still, most of the recent test-taking scandals involved students taking tests, not people taking teacher certification exams. Cheating scams involving teacher certification tests are more unusual, said Robert Schaeffer, public education director for the National Center for Fair & Open Testing.
Schaeffer notes that a large-scale scandal involving teacher certification tests was discovered in 2000, also in the South. In that case, 52 teachers were charged with paying up to $1,000 apiece to a former Educational Testing Services proctor to ensure a passing grade on teacher certification tests.
Teachers from Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Tennessee and Mississippi took tests through Philander Smith College in Little Rock, Ark., in 1998. The college was not accused of wrongdoing.
Educational Testing Services also writes and administers the Praxis examinations involved in the Memphis case. ETS spokesman Tom Ewing said the company discovered the cheating in June 2009, conducted an investigation and canceled scores. The company began meeting with authorities to turn over the information in late 2009, Ewing said.
"These cases are rare, but we consider them to be very serious and something we have to guard against happening for all the honest test-takers, students and teachers," Ewing said.
Ewing said ETS observes test-takers and reviews test scores to try to root out cheaters. ETS also has received anonymous tips that have led them to cheaters, Ewing said.
Prosecutors in the Mumford case say he, the teachers and test-takers used the Internet and the U.S. Postal Service to register and pay for the tests, and to receive payment. The indictment does not say how much he allegedly paid the test-takers.
An experienced educator, Mumford was working for Memphis City Schools when the alleged scam took place. Authorities say Mumford defrauded the three states by making the fake driver's licenses.
"What happens at many testing centers is that a whole bunch of test-takers show up simultaneously, early on a Saturday morning, and the proctors give only a cursory look to the identification," Schaeffer said. "It's not like going through airport security where a guy holds up a magnifying glass and puts our license under ultraviolet light to make sure it has not been tampered with."
Mumford was fired after news of the investigation came out, and others, like Wilson, have been suspended. But at least three teachers implicated in the scandal remain employed with their school district.
Kingston, the university professor, said prospective teachers may not be confident in their knowledge base to pass the test. Or, the cheaters may believe they are smart enough to pass on their own but also know they are poor test takers.
Kingston said his research has shown that cheating on exams is getting more prevalent.
"The propensity to cheat on exams both through college and for licensure and certification exams seems to be increasing over time," said Kingston. "People often don't see it as something wrong."
The pressure of passing the test could make people do things they normally would not do. And it could take a while for authorities and test-taking services to catch up with the cheaters.
"When people come up with a new method for cheating, it takes some time for folks to figure it out, partly because this has been an understudied area in the field of assessment," Kingston said.
Nina Monfredo, a 23-year-old history teacher at Power Center Academy in Memphis, has taken Praxis exams for history, geography, middle school content, and secondary teaching and learning.
Monfredo, who passed all her tests and is not involved in the fraud case, said the exams she took were relatively easy for someone who has a high school education. She said some people use study aids to prepare, but she didn't. And she didn't feel much pressure because it was her understanding that she could take the test again if she did not pass.
"If you feel like you can't pass and you hire someone it means you really didn't know what you were doing," she said. "I think it would be easier to just learn what's on the test."
Cheating scandal: Feds say teachers hired stand-in to take their certification tests
By Adrian Sainz
The Associated Press
Nov. 25, 2012
It was a brazen and surprisingly long-lived scheme, authorities said, to help aspiring public school teachers cheat on the tests they must pass to prove they are qualified to lead their classrooms.
For 15 years, teachers in three Southern states paid Clarence Mumford Sr. — himself a longtime educator — to send someone else to take the tests in their place, authorities said. Each time, Mumford received a fee of between $1,500 and $3,000 to send one of his test ringers with fake identification to the Praxis exam. In return, his customers got a passing grade and began their careers as cheaters, according to federal prosecutors in Memphis.
Authorities say the scheme affected hundreds — if not thousands — of public school students who ended up being taught by unqualified instructors.
Mumford faces more than 60 fraud and conspiracy charges that claim he created fake driver's licenses with the information of a teacher or an aspiring teacher and attached the photograph of a test-taker. Prospective teachers are accused of giving Mumford their Social Security numbers for him to make the fake identities.
The hired-test takers went to testing centers, showed the proctor the fake license, and passed the certification exam, prosecutors say. Then, the aspiring teacher used the test score to secure a job with a public school district, the indictment alleges. Fourteen people have been charged with mail and Social Security fraud, and four people have pleaded guilty to charges associated with the scheme.
Mumford "obtained tens of thousands of dollars" during the alleged conspiracy, which prosecutors say lasted from 1995 to 2010 in Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee.
Among those charged is former University of Tennessee and NFL wide receiver Cedrick Wilson, who is accused of employing a test-taker for a Praxis physical education exam. He was charged in late October with four counts of Social Security and mail fraud. He has pleaded not guilty and is out of jail on a $10,000 bond. He has been suspended by the Memphis City Schools system.
If convicted, Mumford could face between two and 20 years in prison on each count. The teachers face between two and 20 years in prison on each count if convicted.
Lawyers for Mumford and Wilson did not return calls for comment.
Prosecutors and standardized test experts say students were hurt the most by the scheme because they were being taught by unqualified teachers. It also sheds some light on the nature of cheating and the lengths people go to in order to get ahead.
"As technology keeps advancing, there are more and more ways to cheat on tests of this kind," said Neal Kingston, director of the Center for Educational Testing and Evaluation at the University of Kansas. "There's a never-ending war between those who try to maintain standards and those who are looking out for their own interests."
Cheating on standardized tests is not new, and it can be as simple as looking at the other person's test sheet. The Internet and cell phones have made it easier for students to cheat in a variety of ways. In the past few years, investigations into cheating on standardized tests for K-12 students have surfaced in Atlanta, New York and El Paso, Texas.
Still, most of the recent test-taking scandals involved students taking tests, not people taking teacher certification exams. Cheating scams involving teacher certification tests are more unusual, said Robert Schaeffer, public education director for the National Center for Fair & Open Testing.
Schaeffer notes that a large-scale scandal involving teacher certification tests was discovered in 2000, also in the South. In that case, 52 teachers were charged with paying up to $1,000 apiece to a former Educational Testing Services proctor to ensure a passing grade on teacher certification tests.
Teachers from Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Tennessee and Mississippi took tests through Philander Smith College in Little Rock, Ark., in 1998. The college was not accused of wrongdoing.
Educational Testing Services also writes and administers the Praxis examinations involved in the Memphis case. ETS spokesman Tom Ewing said the company discovered the cheating in June 2009, conducted an investigation and canceled scores. The company began meeting with authorities to turn over the information in late 2009, Ewing said.
"These cases are rare, but we consider them to be very serious and something we have to guard against happening for all the honest test-takers, students and teachers," Ewing said.
Ewing said ETS observes test-takers and reviews test scores to try to root out cheaters. ETS also has received anonymous tips that have led them to cheaters, Ewing said.
Prosecutors in the Mumford case say he, the teachers and test-takers used the Internet and the U.S. Postal Service to register and pay for the tests, and to receive payment. The indictment does not say how much he allegedly paid the test-takers.
An experienced educator, Mumford was working for Memphis City Schools when the alleged scam took place. Authorities say Mumford defrauded the three states by making the fake driver's licenses.
"What happens at many testing centers is that a whole bunch of test-takers show up simultaneously, early on a Saturday morning, and the proctors give only a cursory look to the identification," Schaeffer said. "It's not like going through airport security where a guy holds up a magnifying glass and puts our license under ultraviolet light to make sure it has not been tampered with."
Mumford was fired after news of the investigation came out, and others, like Wilson, have been suspended. But at least three teachers implicated in the scandal remain employed with their school district.
Kingston, the university professor, said prospective teachers may not be confident in their knowledge base to pass the test. Or, the cheaters may believe they are smart enough to pass on their own but also know they are poor test takers.
Kingston said his research has shown that cheating on exams is getting more prevalent.
"The propensity to cheat on exams both through college and for licensure and certification exams seems to be increasing over time," said Kingston. "People often don't see it as something wrong."
The pressure of passing the test could make people do things they normally would not do. And it could take a while for authorities and test-taking services to catch up with the cheaters.
"When people come up with a new method for cheating, it takes some time for folks to figure it out, partly because this has been an understudied area in the field of assessment," Kingston said.
Nina Monfredo, a 23-year-old history teacher at Power Center Academy in Memphis, has taken Praxis exams for history, geography, middle school content, and secondary teaching and learning.
Monfredo, who passed all her tests and is not involved in the fraud case, said the exams she took were relatively easy for someone who has a high school education. She said some people use study aids to prepare, but she didn't. And she didn't feel much pressure because it was her understanding that she could take the test again if she did not pass.
"If you feel like you can't pass and you hire someone it means you really didn't know what you were doing," she said. "I think it would be easier to just learn what's on the test."
Friday, July 10, 2009
Rating adults on integrity, creativity will supplement GRE scores
New Index Will Score Graduate Students' Personality Traits
By Daniel de Vise
Washington Post Staff Writer
July 10, 2009
The Educational Testing Service wanted to help graduate school applicants prove they are more than a set of test scores. So it developed a tool to rate students across a broad sweep of traits -- creativity, teamwork, integrity -- that admission tests don't measure.
The Personal Potential Index, unveiled this week, looks suspiciously like another set of scores. An applicant's personality is distilled into six traits, and the applicant is rated on each of them by various professors and former supervisors on a scale of 1 to 5...
The index asks professors to log onto a Web site and rate a student on such skills as "Works well in group settings" and "Accepts feedback without getting defensive." The scale is tailored to force tough choices: Is the student in the top 1 percent of "truly exceptional" human beings, in the top 5 percent of outstanding scholars or merely above average?
Responses are converted into numerical scores, then averaged into ratings in knowledge and creativity, communication skills, teamwork, resilience, planning and organization, and ethics and integrity. Each applicant also gets an overall rating.
Paul Karrer, who graduated from American University in May with a master's degree in public policy, said the index sounds like an improvement over the tradition of collecting letters from professors...
By Daniel de Vise
Washington Post Staff Writer
July 10, 2009
The Educational Testing Service wanted to help graduate school applicants prove they are more than a set of test scores. So it developed a tool to rate students across a broad sweep of traits -- creativity, teamwork, integrity -- that admission tests don't measure.
The Personal Potential Index, unveiled this week, looks suspiciously like another set of scores. An applicant's personality is distilled into six traits, and the applicant is rated on each of them by various professors and former supervisors on a scale of 1 to 5...
The index asks professors to log onto a Web site and rate a student on such skills as "Works well in group settings" and "Accepts feedback without getting defensive." The scale is tailored to force tough choices: Is the student in the top 1 percent of "truly exceptional" human beings, in the top 5 percent of outstanding scholars or merely above average?
Responses are converted into numerical scores, then averaged into ratings in knowledge and creativity, communication skills, teamwork, resilience, planning and organization, and ethics and integrity. Each applicant also gets an overall rating.
Paul Karrer, who graduated from American University in May with a master's degree in public policy, said the index sounds like an improvement over the tradition of collecting letters from professors...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)