NYC Public School Parents: Cheating in Atlanta; but didn't it happen here too?

NYC Public School Parents: Cheating in Atlanta; but didn't it happen here too?:

Cheating in Atlanta; but didn't it happen here too?

by Leonie Haimson

The indictments in Atlanta of the former superintendent, Beverly Hall and 32 associates for conspiracy in encouraging cheating on the Georgia state tests are shocking enough. But the evidence suggests that the much the same has happened over the last ten years in NYC.  The only difference is no effort or resources have been put by the city or the state into uncovering the phenomenon; in fact, quite the reverse. 

Under Bloomberg and Klein, the numbers of staff members monitoring test taking has fallen, and the DOE stopped doing the sort of routine erasure and score swing rate analysis which the Board of Ed had done previously.  (These methods suggested the anomalies in Atlanta).

Sol Stern relates the case of a Bronx principalwhose school's scores jumped in