Regents adopt anti-cheating plan |
On Board Online • March 26, 2012
By Cathy Woodruff
Senior writer
Someday soon, those who administer standardized tests to New York students could be asked to raise a hand and pledge to uphold a code of ethics.
Or perhaps they would make that promise silently by signing a document affirming their commitment to honesty and integrity.
Either way, in a world where student test scores soon will have implications for everything from school performance ratings to curriculum planning to their teachers’ and principals’ careers, adults involved in administering the tests will need to be more accountable, a special investigator, Henry M. “Hank” Greenberg, told the state Board of Regents.
Under the plan approved unanimously by the Regents, teacher-proctors will swear an oath, school boards and BOCES districts will designate “integrity officers” to coordinate and conduct investigations of alleged cheating, and the State Education Department (SED) will create a new apparatus for protecting the integrity of dozens of tests. High school Regents exams, and English Language Arts, and science and math tests for elementary and middle school students are among the tests to be policed under the new policies.
“The department has the awesome responsibility of overseeing the administration of more than 5 million state assessments every year, and it seems with each and every year the importance and the purposes for which these assessments are used increases,” said Greenberg, a former federal prosecutor who served as counsel to Gov. Andrew Cuomo when he was state attorney general.
Yet, after a pro bono investigation that spanned four months, Greenberg said he found the state ill-prepared to prevent and deal with cheating on those tests. He said there is a dearth of appropriately qualified staff and technical capacity within SED, and there are big holes in policies and regulations.
The core of Greenberg’s seven-point plan (see sidebar, page 8) is a new unit that would focus specifically on handling reports of test security breaches and would be staffed with people who have expertise in conducting investigations. Greenberg said the office also must be equipped with an online incident reporting system, so local educators will have a reliable, consistent path to put suspected security violations on record, and a state-of-the-art computer system so SED staff can track and make sense of allegations and other information they receive.
On March 20, shortly after the Regents wrapped up their two-day meeting, Education Commissioner John B. King Jr. announced the appointment of an Albany-based assistant U.S. attorney, Tina Sciocchetti, as the state’s first executive director of test security and educator integrity.
Sciocchetti’s responsibilities will go beyond testing issues to also encompass enforcement of broader educator misconduct, including moral character violations such as engaging in inappropriate relationships with students.
Until now, SED’s default mechanism for dealing with cheating allegations has been its Office of Assessment Policy Development and Administration, where Greenberg said otherwise-competent staff members are untrained and unqualified to screen complaints and conduct investigations.
Greenberg said he could not even confidently determine how many cheating allegations have been made in the last five years. “Evidence grows stale and the lack of oversight with that kind of backlog is disturbing,” Greenberg said.
In part because SED lacks the capacity to conduct investigations, that work has been left to local districts and BOCES district superintendents, who Greenberg said often “don’t know the first thing about how to question a witness or evaluate evidence” and get no help from the state.
“I believe it behooves the department to provide training and resources, and currently no such training is being provided,” he said. “There are no policies, procedures or simple checklists for school districts to make sure that they are covering all the bases.”
Greenberg recommended giving local districts clear and detailed written guidance, including specific examples, on what constitutes a security breach and explicit warnings on the penalties for violating the rules. In cases involving egregious and intentional misconduct, staff members could lose their jobs.
Greenberg also found flaws in existing reporting mechanisms. He said the only people now clearly authorized to submit complaints are principals, and the system for submitting allegations is paper-based and unreliable.
Under Greenberg’s plan, complaints and allegations could come from any source, including teachers and students, and could be submitted online.