Month: June 2007

An internal investigation has found that top officials at the Texas Education Agency improperly steered state work to their friends.

The report from the agency’s inspector general says that the problems lead all the way up to TEA’s deputy commissioner, Robert Scott, the likely choice to succeed Shirley Neeley as education commissioner.

Investigators also found that a consultant for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation had an unusual influence over how grant money was divvied up.

“These contracts were not competitively bid,” the report states. “Several associated subcontracts were awarded to individuals with ties to TEA senior staff. Key participants in the contracting process do not agree as to how subcontractors were chosen.”

Mr. Scott disputes the allegations.

“I did not tell anyone to hire anyone,” Mr. Scott said Wednesday night. “There are no concrete allegations in that report that can be substantiated about wrongdoing.”

The report’s timing is awkward for the agency. Friday is Dr. Neeley’s final day as education commissioner. She announced her resignation this month after Gov. Rick Perry informed her he would not reappoint her to the post.

Unless Mr. Perry announces her successor before Monday, Mr. Scott would be the likely choice to take over as acting commissioner. […]

Read More… from TEA: Agency officials got friends contracts; Exclusive: Neeley’s likely successor, foundation adviser are named

The state’s investigation into cheating on the 2005 TAKS test has borne its first fruit.

Theresa B. Lee Academy, a Fort Worth charter school with a long history of problems, improperly tampered with the 2005 Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, state officials announced Thursday. As a result, the Texas Education Agency could launch proceedings to close the school permanently.

“I think this could be the beginning of the end,” agency spokeswoman Suzanne Marchman said.

Lee was one of two schools highlighted last week in a Dallas Morning News investigation that found evidence of extensive cheating at a number of Texas charter schools. The two with the biggest problems, according to The News’ statistical analysis, were Lee and its sister school, Jesse Jackson Academy in Houston.

But while Lee is facing sanctions, the state investigation at Jesse Jackson Academy has concluded without finding any cheating. That’s in part because the investigation did not examine a single student answer sheet. […]

Read More… from FW school cheated, state says; Troubled charter could face closure after TAKS findings

Starting next spring, Texas schools will have to record whom students sit next to during the TAKS test, according to a set of anti-cheating reforms announced Monday.

The Texas Education Agency also will send inspectors unannounced to schools on test day, track which adults administer the tests to students and create an honor code for test takers.

The moves come one week after a Dallas Morning News investigation found more than 50,000 students with extremely unusual answer patterns on the 2005 and 2006 TAKS test. Experts say those patterns strongly suggest cheating by students or school personnel.

“The findings were definitely troubling and certainly raised suspicions,” TEA spokeswoman Debbie Graves Ratcliffe said Monday.

But the agency will not take the step researchers say would be most effective at deterring cheating: scrambling the order of test questions so students can’t copy off each other. […]

Read More… from Taking down TAKS cheaters; Reforms include inspections at schools, honor code for students

The TAKS test is dead. Long live the TAKS!

When legislators went home to their districts last month, the temptation must have been strong to proclaim loudly they had killed off the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills. Anti-testing sentiment in Texas reached new levels over the past year, and legislators had spent the previous months lined up to take whacks at the hated TAKS.

But the measure they ended up passing, Senate Bill 1031, doesn’t quite match that rhetoric.

First, the TAKS lives on as before in grades three through 8. And in high school, the TAKS is simply being swapped out for a network of 12 new tests. They’ll be given at the end of specific classes, like U.S. History or English II, and tied to their content. Students will have to average a certain score across the tests to earn a high school diploma.

Is this a revolution or something smaller? There’s a lot we don’t know at this point. The first new tests won’t be given until 2012, and there are a lot of decisions to be made between now and then.

The bill still awaits the governor’s signature. But as long as it marches forward, here’s what we can safely assume. […]

Read More… from COLUMN: Legislators left unanswered questions on new state tests

State may switch to online tests Page 12A One possible path to cutting cheating on exams is digital: switching to computerized testing. The state has conducted several experiments with online tests, and officials have said some state tests – although probably not the TAKS – could be administered solely online within two years. Without a […]

Read More… from Faking the Grade: Day 3 sidebars and graphics

By Joshua Benton and Holly K. Hacker Staff Writers Page 1A Last of three parts In 1975, a social scientist named Donald Campbell came up with the idea that would eventually be called Campbell’s Law. He wrote like an academic, but you could boil the concept down to this: The higher the stakes, the more […]

Read More… from Faking the Grade: Efforts to stop cheating often fall short; More emphasis has been placed on TAKS, not on catching copiers

Page 6A A group of charter schools approved controversially in 1998 are, among all their other problems, a significant source of the state’s cheating. The 100-plus schools were approved at a rambunctious meeting of a State Board of Education committee. That’s when board members rejected staff recommendations and decided to give a charter school – […]

Read More… from Faking the Grade: Schools had issues from Day 1; Many troubled charters were hastily approved over TEA objections

By Joshua Benton and Holly K. Hacker Staff Writers Page 1A Second of three parts Last year, 53 sophomores took the math TAKS test at Houston’s Jesse Jackson Academy. Two stood out from the crowd. They were the only two whose answer sheets don’t show evidence of cheating. Jackson – a Houston charter school with […]

Read More… from Faking the Grade: At charters, cheating’s off the charts; Loosely regulated schools among state’s worst offenders on TAKS

Page 22A Accusations of cheating in Texas schools began in earnest in 2004, when a series of stories in The News uncovered cheating in Wilmer-Hutchins schools in southern Dallas County. The Texas Education Agency initially declined to investigate. But eventually a TEA team found that two-thirds of the test proctors in the district’s elementary schools […]

Read More… from Faking the Grade: At education agency, years of inquiry, few concrete results; Of 700 schools flagged with suspicious scores, TEA has cited none

PROBLEM SCHOOLS Page 21A Here are some of the Texas schools with the strongest evidence of substantial TAKS cheating, according to a Dallas Morning News analysis: Forest Brook HS, North Forest ISD Forest Brook High is in the long-troubled North Forest district, where eight of its 11 campuses have state ratings of unacceptable and state […]

Read More… from Faking the Grade: Day 1 sidebars and graphics