Education, Standardized Tests | featured news

Thirty-five Atlanta Public Schools educators and administrators were indicted Friday on a myriad of charges in connection with alleged cheating in standardized testing, one of the largest cheating scandals to hit the nation's public education system.

A new report by the Washington-based Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution calculates states spend a combined $1.7 billion annually on standardized testing.

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.

Teachers helped students correct mistakes on standardized tests, prepared them with actual test questions or left instructional posters displayed in the classroom during testing, according to school district reports.

With school in full swing across the United States, the littlest students are getting used to the blocks table and the dress-up corner - and that staple of American public education, the standardized test.

Average scores on the ACT exam held steady for the high school class of 2012 but the results show modest progress in the number of students who appear ready for college-level work in math and science.

Educators say John Allen asked Crescendo principals to show teachers the state standardized test. L.A. Unified was going to suspend him, but the board voted to fire him and close the campuses. The meeting at Crescendo Preparatory South was progressing as usual when the acting principal dropped a bombshell: She had been given copies of the upcoming standardized tests.

An investigation by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution shows that hundreds of school systems nationwide exhibit suspicious test scores pointing to the possibility of cheating.

Scores on the critical reading portion of the SAT college entrance exam fell three points to their lowest level on record last year, and combined reading and math scores reached their lowest point since 1995. The College Board, which released the scores Wednesday, said the results reflect the record number of students from the high school class of 2011 who took the exam and the growing diversity of the test-taking pool -- particularly Hispanics. As more students aim for college and take the exam, it tends to drag down average scores.

The schools chancellor, Dennis M. Walcott, said he did not believe the increase meant that more misconduct was taking place.