Why Tell Districts About Cheating on Tests?

Half a brain, that's all we ask. Do we get that? Not from Jim Rex's SC Department of Education. See Test Police Monitor School Results in Sunday's P & C.]

The Education Department did set up a watchdog committee (the "test police") over testing results used to answer the requirements of NCLB. Thus, to our list of unsung heroes we must add the name of Joe Saunders, one who figured out how to catch cheaters, an aspect needed given the stakes involved:

"Joe Saunders spurred the state's exploration into this aspect of testing. He's a number-crunching expert for the state who wrote a computer program that analyzes eraser marks.

"The state's testing company provides individual students' answers to every test question, including whether tests contained answer switches. A computer can tell when an answer has been erased.

"Saunders' program flags districts, schools and classes that have high numbers of answer changes, and it shows whether correct or incorrect answers ultimately were chosen.

Now Saunders clearly has a whole brain, but his program has been used by brainless wonders. Here's what the Liz Jones, the state's director of assessment, has to say about what has been done with the results of the computer analysis in the past:

"State officials plan to continue analyzing eraser reports, but Jones, the state's assessment director, said the attention on Sanders-Clyde and The Post and Courier's interest in the state's eraser analysis have prompted conversations about expanding the state's efforts to identify cheaters.

"Officials are considering the possibility of letting districts know when schools have higher than normal numbers of eraser marks in an effort to share the load in catching potential educator misconduct, Jones said.

"This case has caused a lot of discussion in the office," she said.

Ya think? We should be grateful, I suppose, that they took Sanders-Clyde seriously.

Golly, why tell districts about patterns of cheating? Shouldn't that be a secret? Someone's reputation might be at stake.

Person Jim Rex's

Right click for SmartMenu shortcuts