Article

Suspected cheating by students, teachers
Sunday, May 21, 2006 • BY JOHN MOONEY • Star-Ledger Staff

In East Brunswick, a student was caught snapping a picture of a page from the state's high school test with his camera phone.

At a couple of Central Jersey schools, eighth-graders spread a question on the state's language arts test.

And in Wharton, a middle school teacher was accused of tipping off students about a question on a state test. When the actual test came, some students reportedly asked an obvious question: "Are teachers allowed to tell us what was on the test?"

As New Jersey's public schools cope with an onslaught of state testing, the stakes have never been higher for teachers and students to perform. And officials say that with the pressure has come some creative bending of the rules, if not outright cheating, and an unparalleled demand to make sure the testing is honest and secure.

In the past seven years, records obtained by The Star-Ledger show the state has investigated 140 cases where testing security was breached, leading to potential cheating. The cases cut across all kinds of public schools, urban and suburban, from elementary to high school.

Most were harmless cases of misplaced test books or a misunderstanding of procedures. Others have been actual cases of cheating, involving students or educators, that have voided test scores.

"The vast majority do the right thing and are honest and upright," said Brian Robinson, director of New Jersey's testing division. "But as stakes continue to rise for these scores, people could be tempted to get their results as high as possible by any means possible."

The most notorious case has been in Camden, where state investigators are probing claims by a high school principal who said his boss asked him to fix students' answers after the test. Two other Camden schools are being investigated because of a dramatic rise in test scores.

The Wharton case, as well as another involving a missing booklet in Wayne, remain under state investigation, officials said.

Nobody contends such incidents are necessarily widespread, and the number of investigations -- let alone violations -- is minuscule compared with the hundreds of thousands of tests administered each year.

However, students have been suspended, teachers disciplined and tests retaken over the last several years.

Under the federal No Child Left Behind act, about 700,000 of the state's 1.3 million students now take some type of standardized exams each year.

A SECURITY ARMS RACE

During four high-pressure weeks each year when the state gives standardized exams in seven grades, the security measures designed to protect the integrity of the test booklets and answer sheets would rival the security system at any bank.

The booklets are sealed in shrink-wrap, five or 10 to a package, each coded with numbers. Every step of the process demands books be counted and names signed. Inside the testing rooms, the walls are covered and proctors walk the aisles.

New state guidelines even require schools ensure the memories of high-powered calculators are erased before testing begins.

"It's like CIA-level stuff, and honestly it can be tedious at times," said Ray Gonzalez, director of assessment for the Paterson school district. "But it's also a necessary evil to make sure everyone's comfortable with these tests and their results."

Even with such controls, there have been breaches in the testing process, and each breach results in an in-depth state investigation.

The staff at Montclair High School witnessed an investigation up close this spring when booklet No. 15904436 went missing from the field test of a new science section in the High School Proficiency Assessment.

The state's investigation found nothing untoward, although the book remains missing. Principal Melvin Katz said he's convinced it was never sent by the vendor, but conceded the school should have been better at counting the delivery on the front end.

"When it happened, we knew we'd be part of a physical examination that not many doctors would give," he said. "We ended up doing a few mea culpas on that one."

Most actual cheating involves students who learn of upcoming questions and then spread the word to friends and classmates, according to the state reports.

At a Green Brook middle school, a student came forward to officials with knowledge of a writing question on the test. The boy said he was told about the question by a friend from Middlesex at a karate class.

After a state probe, no retesting was ordered in either town, but Green Brook's superintendent said it was a tough lesson about a system she thought couldn't be tighter.

"We are very, very diligent, but who knew a child might hear something in a karate class from a kid in another town?" Superintendent Stephanie Bilenker said.

Technology also is a new challenge for monitors, as students with text messaging or cell phones have added tools at their disposal to share valued test information.

Several cases have arisen over the past few years in which students have been caught using camera phones during testing. At the Middlesex Vocational High School in East Brunswick, the student who used the camera phone was suspended for five days, his phone confiscated and his test scores voided.

"Kids' mastery of technology has created a kind of arms race," said Tim Peters, manager in the state's testing division. "Two or three years ago, it was cell phones. Now it's cell phones with pictures. We're always discovering the ingenuity of students."

A BROADER PROBLEM

Of course, not all cheating involves students.

In Camden -- a district already beset by performance, management and political troubles -- New Jersey's Department of Education and others are investigating at least three city schools, officials said. The sites include the district's magnet high school, where Principal Joseph Carruth claimed an assistant superintendent pressured him to alter students' answers on a high school test this spring.

Carruth said when he refused the demand he was given a critical job evaluation and eventually dismissed by Camden Superintendent Annette Knox. The district has said it is investigating the claims and won't comment further on a personnel matter.

Beyond his case, Carruth said there is a broader problem in Camden and the state's oversight of testing, especially now with schools in jeopardy of being closed if their scores don't rise.

"In suburbia, there's a real fear of these rules -- everyone's by the book -- but in the city there was no fear," he said last week. "There needs to be more of a threat that the state will come in."

State officials are certainly paying attention now. The state this spring sent teams of monitors into the district and launched investigations in two schools where scores went up dramatically last year, including one school that posted among the highest math scores in the state.

State officials say the next step will be to review the district's results from this spring's tests, due in June, to see how they compare.

Such analysis may become the norm statewide, they said, and this year another half-dozen schools statewide saw their "unusual increases" double-checked. None was found to be amiss.

"Of course, we all hope that any school's performance improves year to year, and it certainly doesn't mean there's been cheating when it does," said Robinson, the state's director. "But if it rises really high, it is worth asking the questions."

Other cases in New Jersey haven't taken on such intrigue.

The case in Wharton involved a teacher at the Alfred McKinnon Middle School who assigned her eighth-grade class a writing task that mirrored the state's exam the next day, according to a copy of the state's initial investigation. In addition, the teacher appeared to give out some clues during the science section of the test, the report said.

According to the probe, the teacher maintained the writing "prompt" -- asking students to write a passage off an image of a man standing at a mailbox -- was innocently chosen from several options.

Other teachers said it could have been a coincidence and the teacher was a veteran and "respected colleague." But enough questions were raised that state investigators started a full probe.

Gonzalez, the testing director for Paterson, said after one incident that the district already had strengthened its requirements beyond those of the state but conceded there are no fail-safe measures, especially as the pressures mount.

"Without being in every classroom at every moment of time, you have to rely on good faith that people will follow the directions," he said. "But given the high stakes, the need to ensure these measures are as pure as possible is paramount."

Pressure of state tests push some over the line

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