ACT testing in Perry Co.: Trust? NO! VERIFY!!!

One month ago the Perry County Schools Superintendent announced that cheating in his district is a ‘dead issue.’

Hardly!

The 2011 ACT testing of all Kentucky 11th grade students was conducted today, and an E-Mail yesterday to all the District Assessment Coordinators (DAC) says that neither the ACT, Incorporated nor the Kentucky Department of Education was willing to trust Perry County staff to administer the tests on their own.

The E-Mail for March 14, 2011 contains this item:


ACT SCORES RE-POSTED TO OPEN HOUSE

ACT scores from the March 2010 administration have been re-posted to the KDE Open House site. The update was made after ACT, Inc. completed its investigation of ACT administration errors made at Perry County Central and Buckhorn High Schools in Perry County. Lowered scores for those two schools are reflected in the update. Due to the issues in Perry County, ACT and KDE staff will be on site at both high schools during the administration of the ACT in March 2011.

All DACs should be sure to remind staff that the Administration Code applies to all state tests, and reports of problems may lead to actions, including lowering of scores, and personnel discipline and retraining.

The e-mail provides more evidence that staff members at the Kentucky Department of Education are really unhappy about cheating in Perry County. Further evidence of that is the fact that the department forwarded an inquiry to the Kentucky Educational Professional Standards Board, which recently confirmed that professional credentials of unnamed educators in Perry County are under investigation due to the cheating.

By the way, if any other teachers out there are considering cheating, just look at what has already happened to Perry County.

The department of education reanalyzed Perry County’s ACT scores with all the cheating results scored as zero. The district’s ACT average for 2010 dropped from 19.2 to 10.4! That really hurts.

And, with certificate action still pending, the consequences for cheaters may have only just begun.