By KATHY MATHESON (Associated Press)Published: July 13, 2011
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PHILADELPHIA - The state Department of Education is looking into a report that has surfaced indicating possible cheating on state standardized tests in at least three dozen school districts, a spokesman said Tuesday.
The forensic analysis of the 2009 Pennsylvania System of School Assessment results does not assert cheating occurred, but says certain answer patterns and erasures make the results suspicious.
Among the school districts identified as having multiple testing irregularities are Hazleton, Philadelphia, Connellsville and Lancaster. Many other districts were cited for one or two inconsistencies, including North Schuylkill and Minersville Area.
North Schuylkill Superintendent Andrew Smarkanic learned of the report Tuesday and said he has not had the opportunity to read it. Although he wasn't superintendent at the time the tests were administered in 2009, Smarkanic said he assumes students did better on those tests due to preparatory testing that was instituted before the 2009 tests. The report states that one of the inconsistencies measured in all school districts is whether test scores changed "improbably" within one year.
Minersville Area Superintendent M. Joseph Brady did not return a call for comment Tuesday. Jim Yacobacci, the district's new elementary principal and former assistant high school principal, was unaware of the report and was on vacation Tuesday, referring all questions to Brady.
In the Hazleton Area School District, at least one school appears on the list for each of the seven grade levels - third to seventh, eighth and 11th - at which PSSA tests are administered.
Listed in the report are Freeland, Heights-Terrace, Hazleton, Valley and West Hazleton elementary/middle schools, as well as Hazleton Area High School. Each of the five elementary/middle schools is listed at multiple grade levels.
Hazleton Area Superintendent Sam Marolo said Deputy Superintendent Francis X. Antonelli and high school Principal Rocco Petrone are preparing a report on the state's findings and would be available to discuss the matter today. Neither Antonelli nor Petrone could be reached for comment Tuesday night.
The Department of Education was unaware of the report - issued in July 2009 under a previous administration - until it was published this week by The Notebook, an independent news service covering the Philadelphia school district, said Timothy Eller, a spokesman for Education Secretary Ronald Tomalis.
"It's very frustrating to the secretary that nothing was done in the past with it," Eller said.
Then-Education Secretary Gerald Zahorchak, now superintendent of the Allentown schools, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The news comes days after officials in Georgia revealed a massive cheating scandal in Atlanta, with nearly half of the city's 100 schools involved. State investigators said 178 educators had fudged standardized tests used to meet federal benchmarks dating back to 2001.
That same week, the U.S. Department of Education began looking into cheating allegations in Washington, D.C. Over the past several years, such scandals have surfaced in school districts in Baltimore and Houston, as well as Texas, Michigan and Florida.
Experts say many districts can feel pressured to meet testing standards to avoid penalties under the federal No Child Left Behind legislation, or to ensure positive results for teachers who are rewarded based on student performance.
In Pennsylvania, the PSSA is given annually in various grades to assess math and reading skills. Based on statistical properties, results at dozens of traditional and charter schools in 2009 were flagged as being "highly improbable," according to the report by Minnesota-based Data Recognition Corp.
The report noted that any possible fraud could have been perpetrated by students, teachers or other officials. But the findings also stressed that the scores could have been obtained fairly.
"Their scores, response pattern, and number of erasures were aberrant, from a statistical probability perspective," the report states. "This does not imply that the school or student engaged in inappropriate testing activity."
The Philadelphia schools are willing to investigate the cheating allegations, but spokeswoman Jamilah Fraser said in a statement that such probes are difficult because of teacher turnover, student transience and the vagaries of memory.
The district has received about 10 to 15 accusations of breaches in test security in each of the past three years, and a few have been substantiated through internal investigations, Fraser said. Alleged violations could range from "low-level" offenses, such as failing to cover materials during a testing period, to more serious ones.
She also noted the district has a "very robust test monitoring protocol." Approximately 75 percent of schools, including charters, receive unannounced visits to random classrooms during PSSA testing, Fraser said.
It's not clear how often forensic audits were conducted under the previous administration, Eller said. The July 2009 report from Data Recognition Corp. refers to that being "the first year of data forensic analyses for the PSSA," but a company spokeswoman declined comment.
Eller noted the department's 2010 budget had no money for audits, but that Tomalis has ordered them reinstated for this year.
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