USA Today: Possible testing fraud under Rhee in DC
“Our decisions at all levels must be guided by robust data.” -DC Public Schools, Core Beliefs
USA Today recently published an article about their investigation of reported testing irregularities in the DC Public Schools. Independent statisticians and testing experts cited in the investigation find that wrong-to-right-answer erasure patterns in DC schools like the celebrated Crosby S. Noyes Education Campus are too frequent and systematic to have happened by chance. Such patterns have to be four standard deviations above normal to even trigger a flag from the testing companies.
For example, from 2006 onward, between 75% and 80% of Noyes’ classrooms were flagged for unusually high rates of erasures, where wrong answers were changed to correct ones. In one Noyes classroom, seventh graders averaged 12.7 wrong-to-right conversions; the average DC
