Hazard-Herald confirms: Perry County educators under investigation for cheating on ACT

The latest news about the ACT cheating scandal in Perry County’s two district high schools:

The Kentucky Educational Professional Standards Board has now opened a full investigation into the activities of the professional educators involved.

ACT reported in November that cheating was definitely confirmed in both high schools.

By the way, new PLAN scores that were recently released add more evidence of misconduct.

The table below (click on it to enlarge), extracted from an Excel spreadsheet with the new test results for all schools in the state, shows both of Perry County’s high schools experienced very large score increases on the PLAN test between 2008-09 and 2009-10, the year when the cheating allegedly occurred. PLAN is another state-required test from the ACT, Incorporated given to all 10th grade students that is very similar to the ACT.

Both Perry County schools then experienced tremendous score drops after close scrutiny forced the staff to play honest during the current school year’s test cycle.


These one-year PLAN score drops between 2009-10 and 2010-11 are absolutely enormous. They are more than twice as large as any other drop in any other high school in the state.

Thus, the evidence mounts, including findings from the ACT investigation itself, that answer sheets were altered. And, ACT says the students didn’t do it. That means the only other individuals who had access to the controlled answer sheets did.

What we don’t want to do is send a message to educators around Kentucky that if you get caught altering test sheets, others will cover for you. If that bad message does get sent, Kentucky’s new assessment system’s credibility is dead before the first test booklet ever gets printed. I think the EPSB agrees.

Spinning the EXPLORE and PLAN results

I posted the new test results from the eighth grade EXPLORE and tenth grade PLAN testing in Kentucky several days ago.

These are found in a Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) news release titled, “EXPLORE AND PLAN RESULTS SHOW IMPROVEMENT,” which released on February 24, 2011.

At the time, I was most interested in the scores.

I missed the fact that the title of the news release and the first paragraph’s comment that “school scores moved up slightly in nearly all subject areas tested” were inaccurate spins of the rather mixed trends from 2009 to 2010.

FACT: On EXPLORE, between 2009 and 2010 scores only moved up in the individual academic subjects of math and science. The EXPLORE scores stayed flat in reading and went down in English.


FACT: On PLAN, scores also declined in English between 2009 and 2010. Science stayed flat. PLAN scores only increased in math and reading.


Overall, the PLAN Composite also stayed flat, which certainly conflicts with the KDE’s headline, as well.

I suspect that if questioned, the KDE would claim that they were talking about the whole period trends from 2006 to 2010, but I think most people reading the headline and the first sentence comment would think the comments refer to changes from last year.

Besides, if we are talking about the whole period from 2006 to 2010, the scores did improve somewhat in all areas, not just in “nearly all subject areas tested.”

KDE can’t have this both ways, and a correction would be appropriate, especially as the rather stagnant PLAN data indicates our schools are not getting the message – we want our kids better prepared for college and careers, not whatever nebulous things the soon to be defunct Kentucky Core Content Test looks for.

Early PLAN performance trends mixed for Persistently Low-Achieving High Schools

Kentucky’s first round of 10 Persistently Low-Achieving Schools was identified in early spring of 2010, nearly one year ago. Eight of the 10 schools are high schools, so I thought it would be interesting to see how these schools did on the fall 2010 PLAN test administration.

Of course, the innovations being introduced in these schools haven’t had nearly enough time to show much impact, but it is still interesting to take a baseline look.

Here are the PLAN score trends from 2009-10 to 2010-11 for each of the first group of Persistently Low-Achieving High Schools. The far right column summarizes the one year trend in the Composite Score for each school (click on table to enlarge).


Overall, two schools actually had slight Composite Score declines while two stayed static, and four showed a score increase. Two of the four schools with an increase in score had a rather notable increase, 0.8 points or more.

Again, I would not make much of these trends, as the schools had not had much time to make changes when the PLAN was given, but there are causes for both optimism and caution here.

However, all of these schools still score below, sometimes very far below, the Kentucky-wide PLAN Composite average, which was 16.7 in 2010-11. And, the Kentucky average lags a national norm average set back in 2005 by 0.8 point, as well.

There is one other item of note. Schools are supposed to test every 10th grader, so the number of students taking the PLAN should closely agree with the enrollment in that grade. What is interesting is that in almost every school in the listing, the number of 10th graders tested dropped between 2009-10 and 2010-11. The number of students tested rose only in two of the schools.

Statewide, across all grades, enrollment only dropped very slightly from 652,071 students in 2009-10 to 651,025 students in 2010-11, a drop of about 0.16 percent. All of the schools with drops shown above had much larger percentage changes in the same time interval.

ACT cheating scandal in Perry County still boils

New PLAN score release adds more evidence of misconduct

Who will be held accountable: Anyone?

It is absolutely vital that the integrity of testing in Kentucky is carefully maintained if this state is to reestablish a viable assessment system.

Sadly, events since last summer regarding school staffers cheating on the ACT in Perry County, which we discussed before here, here, here, and here provide a still unfinished story about whether state officials have the stomach to defend Kentucky's testing programs from cheating.

The Hazard-Herald reports local commotion over the scandal boiled up again a few days ago in a Perry County Board of Education meeting.

And, while we will have to wait until August for new ACT scores, the release several days ago of the latest PLAN scores for the current school term adds to concerns that serious test tampering occurred last year on ACT, Incorporated tests given in Perry County’s two high schools, and the tampering wasn’t limited to the ACT. PLAN is another state-required test from the ACT, Incorporated given to all 10th grade students that is very similar to the ACT.

The table below (click on it to enlarge), extracted from an Excel spreadsheet with the new test results for all schools in the state, shows both of Perry County’s high schools experienced very large score increases on the PLAN test between 2008-09 and 2009-10, the year when the cheating allegedly occurred.


Both Perry County schools then experienced tremendous score drops after close scrutiny forced the staff to play honest during the current school year’s test cycle.

These one-year PLAN score drops between 2009-10 and 2010-11 are absolutely enormous. They are more than twice as large as any other drop in any other high school in the state.

Thus, the evidence mounts, including findings from the ACT investigation itself, that answer sheets were altered. And, ACT says the students didn’t do it. That means the only other individuals who had access to the controlled answer sheets did.

Should the school staff responsible for this get off scot free?

So far, the only individuals who have suffered because of the improper changing of answer sheet entries are the students, who had to retake the ACT.

But, the Kentucky Educational Professional Standards Board did receive a referral from the Kentucky Department of Education and is conducting an investigation.

Furthermore; since the ACT drives money from KEES scholarships, which impacts both taxpayers and students; and influences college admissions, which obviously impacts students; perhaps other state agencies will decide to take a look, as well.

So, stay tuned.

One critical point in all of this is that we don’t want to send a message to educators around Kentucky that if you get caught altering test sheets, others in the system will cover for you.

If that bad message gets sent, Kentucky’s new assessment system’s credibility is dead before the first test booklet ever gets printed.

Grade 8 and 10 readiness tests show mixed results

The fall 2010 results from the EXPLORE and PLAN tests were released today, and there is a bit of progress in some areas compared to last year balanced by stagnation or decay in others.

This first table, taken from the Kentucky Department of Education’s news release, shows the eighth grade EXPLORE scores by subject and test year (testing is done in the fall of the listed year). I shaded drops in scores between 2009 and 2010 in this and the next table in pink when scores dropped. Scores that stayed flat are shaded in yellow, and increases are in green.


It is worth noting that since 2006, eighth grade scores are up across the board, which is good news. Also, in most cases, the 2010 scores are higher than the last national norming sample available for this assessment, which is now a rather stale half-decade old.

Here is the data for the PLAN test, which is administered to 10th grade students.


Scores are also up across the board from 2006, but English decayed slightly between 2009 and 2010.

Sadly, our 10th grade students’ scores in 2010 remain behind the national norms, which, again, are rather stale.

You can access detailed reports, including spreadsheets with individual school scores, here.

I’ll have more on these important tests tomorrow.

ACT scores cancelled at Perry County Central High School amidst concerns of possible test compromise

There are multiple news reports here and here that the ACT, Incorporated is investigating “potentially compromised test scores” at the Perry County Central High School.

Tests involved include the PLAN tests for 2009 and the ACT given in 2009 and 2010. PLAN is given to all 10th grade students in Kentucky, and all 11th graders take the actual ACT college entrance test.

The sketchy reports say student cheating is not suspected. The issue apparently surrounds testing administration procedures. Some of the suspected issues may involve administration of tests with special accommodations to students with learning disabilities. However, it is reported that all the 2009 test scores have been cancelled, and students will be offered a chance to retest.

The ACT indicates there is no specific time frame for concluding such investigations.

I did a quick check of the changes in ACT Composite Scores for 11th grade testing in all Kentucky high schools between 2008 and 2009. Perry County Central High School had the sixth largest increase in the state, although a few other schools had even larger increases.

However, large score changes are not unusual in small high schools, and all the schools that exceeded Perry County Central High School’s change between 2008 and 2009 are small. None tested more than 75 students in the 2009 eleventh grade ACT administration.

In contrast, Perry County Central High School tested 231 students that year, making a large score change much more unlikely.