When Educators Cheat

Donna Harrington-Lueker

Incidents of unethical and unlawful test practices grow out of the mounting pressure from high-stakes testing

Gary Buehler's experience with a cheating controversy began with a rumor and ended with a 10-day suspension without pay for a building principal. In between, Buehler's district--the Oswego City Schools in upstate New York--weathered a tidal wave of press attention and tons of soul-searching.

The allegation: The principal had made copies of a state test the district had been chosen to pilot and had distributed those copies to staff members prior to the test.

For Buehler, who is in his third year as Oswego's superintendent, the incident was wrenching as he tried to balance the principal's right to due process with the public's need for accountability. "I had to protect the rights of the individual, yet I didn't want someone to think I was sweeping something under the carpet," the superintendent says.

Buehler isn't the only school administrator to wrestle with the issue of cheating. In the last year, as states have continued their push to adopt high-stakes assessments, the number of cheating incidents among educators has risen dramatically, critics of standardized tests charge.

Obvious Wrongdoing

None condones the incidents, many of which involve obvious violations of a state or school district's testing guidelines. "It's like football," says Douglas Reeves of the Denver-based Center for Performance Assessment. "Everybody agrees players can't use drugs, no one tolerates it and no one says, 'But there's so much pressure.' It's absolutely clear and unambiguous. ... We don't regard it as acceptable.

"I don't understand how anyone can say it's a close call," Reeves adds.

Some critics of testing and some research studies also fault school leaders for contributing to the problem. "There are just a number of cases in which superintendents tell principals to get the scores up or you're out of here," contends Walter Haney, a researcher at the Center for the Study of Testing at Boston College.

Still, few believe the pressure to do well on state tests will ease anytime soon. Currently, according to the Denver-based Education Commission of the States, 41 states use some kind of state test to track improvement and determine rewards and sanctions. And an increasing number of states have begun to tie improvements on standardized tests to job evaluations and cash bonuses. In California, teachers are eligible this year for a first round of awards worth as much as $25,000 per teacher. Those awards depend in large part on increases in test scores. Florida and Georgia also have passed legislation that makes improvements on standardized tests part of a principal's or teacher's evaluation, and some local districts have done the same.

"It's a recipe for cheating," says Catherine Taylor, an associate professor of education at the University of Washington, of the trend to link personal rewards and punishments with scores on state tests. "As soon as someone's job is on the line, it's over the top," says Taylor, who has worked for two major test publishers.

Increasingly, too, states are adopting strong penalties for test-code violations. This year North Carolina, a leader in high-stakes assessments, passed legislation that made test-security violations subject to civil charges, criminal action or loss of professional license.

Zero Tolerance

For superintendents, the challenge is twofold. First, they have to let schools know that cheating won't be tolerated. "The tone has to start from the top," says Ronald Friedman, superintendent of the Long Beach Public Schools in Long Beach, N.Y. "You have to reinforce that the integrity of the entire school system depends on the integrity of every person in it.

Long Beach isn't immune to the pressure of high-stakes tests. Last year, the local newspaper used scores from a grade test to rank Long Island schools and singled out the 10 lowest-scoring schools in a prominently placed article.

In that atmosphere, people think that any score less than a 90 percent is unacceptable, says Friedman. For Long Beach's four elementary school principals, the pressure is especially keen. "It's natural," says Friedman. "None of them wants to be the lowest of the four."

Friedman recognizes the danger he and his colleagues across the country face: Confronted with such pressure to do well, teachers and principals may try to stretch the rules, convincing themselves they're still acting responsibly. And without constant reminders that cheating won't be tolerated, such actions can become the norm, he says. "You have to send the message early and often so that people know the district doesn't countenance cheating," says Friedman, Long Beach's superintendent of two years.

His message echoes that of Eva Baker, co-director of the federally funded national Center for Research in Evaluation, Standards and Student Testing in Los Angeles. "A district has to have zero tolerance [for cheating]," says Baker. "It has to be real clear that teachers and administrators are expected to set moral and ethical standards for their colleagues and for children."

At the same time, though, Baker and others say, school districts must provide training in how to administer tests. "We just learned that we assumed a whole lot," says one administrator whose district dealt with a cheating scandal this year. "Even good teachers were saying, 'I have been a little bit loosey -goosey with this."'

Some studies show, in fact, that teachers sometimes take wide latitude in test administration and preparation, using strategies that state codes of ethics ban and test makers say compromise the tests accuracy. Among those strategies: using similar items from past tests to help students prepare, encouraging a student to reconsider an answer that might be wrong or reviewing materials on a secure test.

W. James Popham, professor emeritus at UCLA, is familiar with such violations. "The fact is teachers will give kids more time on tests," says Popham. When asked, nearly one-third of the teachers attending a recent workshop he conducted also said that making a copy of a current test was acceptable.

Testing experts also note that few teachers or administrators are knowledgeable about testing practices, especially those practices that corrupt test scores. "A lot of the violations we see now--like walking around a room and suggesting that a student rethink an answer--are a function of ignorance," Popham says.

Guilford County, N.C., combats those problems with several strategies, says Marty Ward, the district's testing director. As part of the state's code of ethics, the school district's testing coordinator is required to make sure all teachers are trained to follow the code, which appears in every test administration manual.

"People need to understand their responsibilities," Ward says. "They need to know that they can't leave the room with a booklet or what to do if a child has to go home sick."

To make certain teachers receive training, every school in Guilford County has a resting coordinator trained in testing procedures, and teachers must sign forms indicating that they've been trained in testing practices. The district also emphasizes proper testing practices throughout the year.

"We don't have a training session where we don't remind people of the code of ethics," says Ward. Schools must file testing plans with the central office, indicating which teachers are testing in which rooms.

Finally, two adults must be in the classrooms at all times during testing, and the district sends out monitors to visit the schools every time a test is administered. Such practices help the district determine how well schools are following testing guidelines and protect schools from controversy, Ward says.

Maryland's Case Study

Having good procedures for investigating incidents is also critical, say administrators in Montgomery County, Md. Last May, parents at the county's Potomac Elementary School told state officials that Potomac's principal had given children the answers to test questions during the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program. The parents also alleged that students had received extra time on the exam and were given the opportunity to rewrite portions of the test. (The exam is given over a period of five days for 105 minutes a day.)

The allegations rocked the district: A top-performing school, Potomac had the highest test scores of any school in Montgomery County and the third-highest test scores in the state. In 1999, 82 percent of the school's students had achieved satisfactory scores or better on the MSPAP versus 44 percent statewide and 55 percent in Montgomery County as a whole.

As the allegations surfaced, the principal resigned without admitting any wrongdoing, and a 5th-grade teacher was placed on administrative leave with pay.

The district in turn launched a full-fledged investigation into the incident, sending teams of central-office administrators to interview students, teachers, administrators and other staff members at the school. Parents too were interviewed. When evidence suggested problems went beyond this year's 5th -grade tests, the district widened its probe to include other grades and other years.

Throughout the process, administrators worked with a script of questions and prepared written statements for every person interviewed, says Pamela Hoffler-Riddick, the district's associate superintendent for shared accountability, who helped conduct the probe. Investigators asked whether witnesses had seen or taken part in anything that might be construed as inappropriate or not in keeping with state testing guidelines. At the end of the interview, they also asked how teachers had prepared for the test and whether they had had access to training, teachers' manuals or other instructions.

Teachers at Potomac who were fearful of providing information critical of their principal or colleague were encouraged to speak to either administrators or union representatives. Children were interviewed only after parents had given permission. And no one was interviewed alone, says Elizabeth Arons, the district s associate superintendent for human resources. "We used pairs of administrators throughout the investigation," she says.

In the end, investigators talked to every person at the school who had contact with the test--a process that district officials say helped ensure the district's credibility. "You have a level of integrity you have to preserve, says Hoffler-Riddick.

A complication: Shortly after the allegations surfaced, the story broke in The Washington Post, and national media, including The New York Times, Newsweek and National Public Radio, soon descended on the district. Faced with that media spotlight, district administrators feared that their investigation might be tainted.

"We wanted people to tell us what they'd observed or remembered--not what someone told them or what had appeared in the press," says Hoffler-Riddick.

The district also acted quickly to reassure parents at the school. Within a week of The Washington Post's story, the county held its first public forum on the incident. And though the investigation was ongoing and it could not release details, the district was able to tell parents that officials had found substantial evidence of test code violations. It also promised parents that Potomac would have a new principal before the start of the school year and that they would have a role in the principal's selection.

On June 27, just a month after the allegations surfaced, the district released its findings. Investigators determined that students had been coached, prompted and given additional time to complete the tests. In one case, a student who had initially refused to take the test was removed from class and allowed to work unsupervised on the test. In another, a student who had not completed a section on one day's test was told to continue working the next day, investigators found.

The bottom line: Test security in the 3rd and 5th grades was "lax and, at times, nonexistent," Superintendent Jerry Weast said in his letter to parents. Weast asked the state to suspend the 5th grade teacher's license for one year and invalidate Potomac's scores. He also advised the state to revoke the principal's teaching certificate permanently. As of late October, the principal had challenged that action.

Locally, too, Weast called for schools to use the incident as a case study in test score violations this fall and for the district to monitor Potomac for the next two years.

According to Arons, the district also will increase its monitoring of other schools with spot checks on testing days.

Using Scores Wisely

Finally, superintendents and testing experts say, the best defense against cheating scandals is to emphasize what test scores realistically can and cannot do.

"We have to rethink in a hard way what we mean about accountability," says Eva Baker, the UCLA-based assessment authority who encourages school systems to go beyond quantitative assessments such as standardized tests and involve their communities in a critical look at the kind of work students are being asked to do. "Tests are one indicator," she says, "but they're not the only one."

Baker adds: "It's a question whether the tests available in the short run will be the kind that show growth connected to good instruction and not test preparation."

But connecting test scores with instruction is key, says Dale Frederick, superintendent of the Mesa, Ariz., Unified School District, To that end, Mesa's office of testing has developed its own manual of testing ethics that discusses in detail which tests are used in the district and what their purposes are.

Before every test, too, schools hold workshops for teachers on the specific tests being administered, reviewing the guidelines provided by the state and test publishers. And this year, all Mesa's administrators attended in-service sessions on test preparation.

During those sessions, district officials also emphasize the need to avoid practices that might skew test scores. "We say to folks that we want accurate test scores," says Joseph O'Reilly, the district's director of assessment. And throughout the year, the district's assessment office works with principals and teachers to show them how to use disaggregated scores to isolate their school's strengths and weaknesses and improve student achievement. "It's never a question of 'You have to get a 74 [on this test]," O'Reilly says.

In his second year as Mesa's superintendent, Frederick says he also emphasizes the importance of ethical behavior in a high-stakes environment and the importance of good instruction--a focus many say becomes lost when stakes soar.

"People have to know that they're not focusing on the test but on education," says Frederick. "And they need to know that nothing beats quality teaching."

Donna Harrington-Lueker is a free-lance education writer in Newport, R.I.

E-mail: [email protected]

Testing, Testing, 1, 2, 3 ...

Here are what a cross section of state manuals have to say about the administration of standardized tests at the school level:

* "Principals and test administrators are prohibited from giving students answers, discussing writing strategies, suggesting to students that they review a particular portion of any test, or providing any other assistance to students that is not specified in the Test Administrator's Manuals after test materials have been opened." (Excerpt from the Massachusetts Requirements for Test Security and Ethics)

* "Educators shall use test scores appropriately. This means that the educator recognizes that a test score is only one piece of information and must be interpreted together with other scores and indicators. Test data help educators understand educational patterns and practices. The superintendent shall ensure that school personnel analyze and report test data ethically and within the limitations described in this paragraph." (Excerpt from the North Carolina Testing Code of Ethics)

* "Tests or individual test questions shall not be revealed, copied or otherwise reproduced by persons who are involved in the administration, proctoring or scoring of any test." (Excerpt from the Florida Maintenance of Test Security)

* "It is a breach of professional ethics for school personnel to provide verbal or nonverbal clues or answers, teach items on the rest, share writing prompts, coach, hint or in any way influence a student's performance during the testing situation. A breach of ethics may result in invalidation of test results and LEA [local education agency] or MSDE [Maryland State Department of Education] disciplinary action. "(Excerpt from the Maryland Test Administration and Coordination Manual)

Testing Scandals Create Headline News

Among the stories to make headlines in the past year:

* In Fresno, Calif., three teachers in the Central Unified School District were disciplined in late July for allowing students to use multiplication charts during the spring administration of the statewide achievement test, according to reports in The Fresno Bee. (State testing guidelines prohibit such aids.) Three teachers in adjacent Fresno Unified School District also were punished for making copies of the test for use as study guides, a violation of state regulations. California has used the same version of the Stanford 9 for the last three years. Other incidents were reported in Los Angeles and Woodland.

* In New York City, following a 17-month investigation, Edward Stancik, special investigator for the city schools, cited 52 educators, including two principals, for wrongdoing last December. Eight of those cited were fired, 23 were disciplined and 10 faced criminal charges. Among the allegations: The educators provided students with answers, suggested they redo problems, added paragraphs to test answers and left answer sheets where students could see them.

* In Fairfax County, Va., a popular middle school teacher resigned last spring after the school district began an investigation that showed he'd seen the state's social studies exam in advance and reviewed exam questions with his students. In Virginia, exams in four core subjects appear in the same booklet. Students take the tests over a number of days, giving anyone administering the exam the opportunity to look ahead.

* In Cody, Wyo., at least half of the 180 tests completed by 1st-, 2nd- and 3rd- graders at an elementary school last spring showed signs of tampering. The test maker, CTB/Mc-Graw-Hill, discovered the problem during an analysis of erasure marks on testing sheets, a common monitoring practice. Scores at the school were invalidated.

* In Chicago, at the end of May, 47 Chicago 8th-graders had to retake the Iowa Test of Basic Skills after an administrator allegedly changed incorrect answers and filled in incomplete tests. An analysis of the number of erasures on the students' answer sheets revealed the problem.

-- Donna Harrington-Lueker

Public Relations in Times of Testing Crises

Donna Harrington-Lueker

Few incidents can rock a school district more than a cheating scandal involving teachers or principals.

But anticipating the shock and anger that come in the wake of such allegations--and letting the community know what a school district is doing to deal with the situation--can help contain some of the crisis, say Tom DeLapp, a California communications consultant.

The Woodland, Calif., Unified School District faced that challenge last spring when eight science teachers at Woodland High School were alleged to have used copies of the previous year's Stanford 9 exam to prepare students for this year's exam. All eight were placed on administrative leave when the allegations surfaced.

According to district spokesperson Wayne Ginsburg, an investigation cleared one teacher of wrongdoing quickly, but the board of education disciplined the seven others, suspending them without pay for between one and five days--the maximum penalty short of dismissal according to Woodland's teacher contract. Eighty percent of the high school's sophomore science test scores were also invalidated.

When the allegations surfaced, the school district reacted quickly with a public statement saying that the teachers had been put on administrative leave and deploring the alleged actions. But backlash set in. The head of the state's teacher union protested that the pressure on teachers to improve test scores in California was unrealistic and that the state had yet to clarify what kinds of test preparation materials were allowed.

While some parents agreed with the district's course of action, others said officials had overreacted and rushed to judgment. Parents and teachers protested at board meetings, and students held rallies to show their support for the teachers who'd been disciplined. Soon Woodland was top story on CNN and in other national media.

A Lid on Controversy

Among the lessons Woodland learned:

A community's first reaction is likely to be shock and denial any time there's an accusation of impropriety, says DeLapp, former communications director for the Association of California School Administrators. When the allegations involve teachers, though, school districts can expect the emotional response to be even stronger.

"People look at teachers, and they can't imagine [any wrongdoing]," says DeLapp.

Cheating incidents can also quickly divide a community as teachers, parents and administrators take sides. "It becomes them versus us," he says. And anytime a teacher is involved, students are likely to show their support through public demonstrations, rallies and walkouts that attract even more attention.

One way to keep the controversy in check is to keep the community apprised of the process a school district is following to deal with the situation. Districts, for example, should outline the steps involved in the investigation and point out they won't take any action until the investigation is complete.

"You need to let people know that this isn't a witch hunt," says DeLapp. School districts also need to emphasize that a careful, thorough and fair process of investigation will protect the rights of teachers, the community and the school.

School districts are at a disadvantage in this regard: Any time there's a personnel issue, management can't talk about the substance of the case. But other parties can--and probably will--say whatever they want. That's why DeLapp advises districts to keep their own staff members and parent leaders informed about the investigation.

"These things become the topic of conversation in every barber shop and hairdresser in town," says DeLapp. "Don't let your own people find things out through the media."

Finally, DeLapp says, districts need to take the moral high ground to remind the public they take the public trust seriously. If they don't, he advises, they weaken their credibility and insult all those who haven't cheated.

As of late October, some teachers had taken their cases to binding arbitration.

Out of Cheating Comes Renewed Faith in Standards

NANCY S. GRASMICK

Last June the nation learned of an alleged cheating incident involving staff members at one of Maryland's highest-performing schools. This singular incident kicked off a peculiar forum for national debate on standards-based reform and its impact.

While Potomac Elementary School in one of Montgomery County's wealthier neighborhoods struggled to shelter its children from the aftermath of the unwanted national media attention, an initial flurry of interviews and commentaries flooded the airwaves and newsstands. The Washington Post and local broadcast media carried extensive coverage of the allegations, as one would expect. Editorial writers and letters to the editor in various publications took a decidedly harsh stance, with some shaming the educators who were accused of cheating and others wagging fingers at education officials for requiring the tests in the first place.

The news media gave the story wide play as the latest allegation of cheating on a high-stakes test that had surfaced in at least a half dozen states over the past year. The incident was portrayed as another symptom of a so-called backlash against performance standards. Initially, the pundits quoted the same handful of experts to articulate their critical views on testing and accountability in K-12 education today. They questioned everything from the "controversial state testing program" to the honesty of teachers administering the tests and the motivation of overzealous parents and school officials. Everyone was a target, and I certainly did not escape those volleys of angry rhetoric.

For these opponents of reform, Potomac Elementary became the exemplar of all that is wrong and misguided about academic standards: onerous testing programs, undue pressure on teachers and children and an uncompassionate bureaucracy.

Meanwhile, Montgomery County school officials conducted their own investigation, as is required by state regulation, and worked to keep the community informed without violating confidentiality laws. They quickly brought in a crisis team of professionals to help children deal with the issues swirling around them.

Steadfast Support

As the investigation and the news reporting evolved, defenders of accountability stepped up to stem the tide of opposition. Curiously, the unfortunate incident may have helped us galvanize support for the decade of work we have done in Maryland to raise standards in all schools. Editorials and letters began to appear that reminded readers not to "throw the baby out with the bath water." They rejected the argument that testing causes good people to do bad things. One does not abolish currency because some people steal.

I believe the dialogue helped many Maryland residents to focus appropriate attention on professional ethics and standards. All of us are faced with pressure to perform on the job, often to meet very high expectations. A strong personal ethic aids us in responding honestly and forthrightly in the face of standards. On the issue of performance standards for schools, the message from the community has been clear: "Improve our schools now!"

A 1999 poll by the University of Maryland reminded us that seven of 10 Marylanders share much the same urgency for school reforms that other Americans have expressed in national surveys. I am certain that the support of citizens for our decade of school improvement has been steadfast despite the Potomac Elementary School incident.

Once you make a commitment to high standards, you must commit to making a solid accountability system that is based firmly on fairness. You need to make tests as fair as possible so that they measure what you expect teachers to be teaching--no more, no less. You need to help educators understand what they can and cannot do during testing so no doubt exists about what is appropriate and what is not. And you need to enforce penalties when people step over the line.

It is important to set clear personnel regulations at the local level, as well as state certification regulations. The boundaries established for educators should mirror those for other professions, including those for doctors and lawyers. While the need to enforce these regulations may seem regrettable, it is necessary for fairness and to ensure public confidence in the integrity of the profession.

Public Disclosure

It is also important to encourage educators and the public to use school data appropriately. We cannot prevent scores from being touted by real estate agents, but we can provide more potent tools for interested consumers so data will be used for its intended purpose--school improvement.

We cannot forget that an important aspect of accountability is public disclosure, Maryland has made all test data available to the public for scrutiny at www.msde.state.md.us. Internet users are provided with easy-to-use tables and graphic tools to better understand how their neighborhood school has done over time. While both The Sun, Baltimore's daily newspaper, and The Washington Post have posted their own ratings of schools, the traffic to our Web site tells us the public is coming to us by the thousands to study in depth how schools are really doing.

Our experience in Maryland again reminds us that school performance awards and interventions should be structured to support school improvement--not artificial rankings. We annually issue monetary awards to fewer than a hundred schools making significant gains over two to three years. These small grants average around $30,000 per school, but they cannot go to teachers' or principals' wallets. They can be used only for the benefit of the school--equipment, supplies or additional staff.

While we are interested in schools meeting our high standards, we do not encourage ranking schools or school systems. However, we do intervene in our lowest-performing schools if they are declining over two to three years.

If you are going to hold schools to a standard, I believe it should be a tough one and should encourage good instruction rather than a narrowing of the curriculum. We believe we have accomplished this with the Maryland School Performance Assessment Program. Our tests include no multiple-choice items. Rather, test items are more often real-life problems requiring students to explain their solutions and demonstrate the depth of their knowledge. I recognize other states have used tests with other formats with success. Clearly, policymakers need to ensure that test designs match public expectations.

Over the past decade there have been few testing irregularities in our state. Instruction has improved. On both accounts, I believe we are moving in the right direction. However, I cannot guarantee that none of Maryland's 50,000 educators will ever go astray during some future test administration, but I believe the likelihood is small because I know and trust Maryland educators as professionals with integrity.

If accountability is to remain a centerpiece of our reforms, we simply must ensure fairness and support our professionals as they labor to improve schools for our children. Our trust will not go unrewarded.

Nancy Grasmick is Maryland state superintendent of schools, 200 W. Baltimore St., Baltimore, Md. 21 201.

E-mail: [email protected]

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