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Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2007 > February > 04 > Entry
Lessons in test security
This much nobody is disputing — practice tests given at City Day Community School last year somehow contained questions that were based on the actual Ohio Achievement Test. In some cases questions from the practice test and the actual state exam are all but identical.
That should never happen. How it did happen is not yet completely clear.
But what we have learned suggests test security on at least four Ohio Achievement Tests from March 2006 was compromised.
It may take some more investigating to find out exactly where those questions came from. Officials at the school insist the state tests that were delivered to City Day in February 2006 were not tampered with. But somehow it seems a test somewhere was compromised.
And at least one expert in test cheating says the state could be doing more to keep those tests secure.
Greg Cizek is a professor of education measurement and evaluation at the University of North Carolina and author of the 2003 book “Detecting and preventing classroom cheating: Promoting Integrity in Assessment.” He also knows a thing or two about Ohio. Cizek is a former University of Toledo professor who serves on a panel of testing experts that advises the state on its standardized testing program. He was also once a school board member Sylvania.
Hearing the City Day story, Cizek had a couple of immediate suggestions. Ohio allows its testing company to deliver standardized tests to schools up to seven days before the test is scheduled. That is way to long, Cizek said. With today’s just-in-time shipping options, tests should be delivered much closer to the actual test date. There also should be much tougher rules for tracking test handling.
“The states that I am aware of in which test security is taken very seriously try to have the test booklets arrive with the smallest possible interval between arrival and test administration,” he said. “In addition, those states require and “chain of handling” sign-off procedure from the minute the booklets hit the district so that there is a clear record of exactly who handled the materials and when.”
If the state wanted to take it a step farther, it could follow the example of Texas, which is now using statistical methods to track unlikely changes in test performance by schools there in an effort to catch cheaters. Texans can thank the Dallas Morning News for the state’s new vigilance. It was the Morning News’ stories about cheating in that state which finally got state officials to recognize the need for change.
There are a lot of great new methods to root out cheating. One example — computers can now track erasure marks and record how often a student changes answers from wrong to right and vice versa. Too many erased wrong answers can point investigators to schools that may need more scrutiny. The head of the state testing program, Mitch Chester, told me in September that the state’s testing company this year is conducting an erasure study for the first time.
But up until now, Ohio has not employed new methods for catching cheaters. Chester told me in the past five years the only testing irregularities he knew about were self-reported by schools, which means they were likely small procedural mistakes.
Meanwhile, the Morning News is finding hundreds of schools with suspicious results in Texas. Is possible that Ohio is that much different than Texas? Or could more advanced methods employed here produce similar findings?
One other thing the state could do that might help us better understand whether cheating is a real problem here. It could tell us when it catches cheaters. Ohio Department of Education spokesman J.C. Benton told me recently that just this year the state put in place a new policy — it no longer discusses investigations into test irregularities.
In other words, the Ohio Department of Education will neither confirm nor deny when an investigation is underway. Even when an investigation is complete, the department will not release the findings or even acknowledge it ever investigated a school.
But when it comes to cheating, wouldn’t it be better if we knew more rather than less?
Permalink | Comments (3) | Categories: City Day Investigation, My Favorite Posts, Testing
Comments
By Paul A. Miller
February 8, 2007 8:42 AM | Link to this
As a conservative, I do believe charter schools and a reasonable level of standardized testing are important to establishing accountability in the education system. However, without transparency, there is no accountablity for anyone. Great job, Scott.By Caroline
February 4, 2007 11:17 PM | Link to this
Isn’t City Day a charter school?By Keith
February 4, 2007 10:12 AM | Link to this
I certainly hope no one is surprised by this “revelation” that cheating has gone on in the testing within the city limits. I sure wasn’t.