Chances of lightning strike greater than some questionable FCAT scores

The two FCAT answer sheets were so similar that the odds of the tests being taken independently was one in a trillion.

A one in a trillion chance that there was no cheating or other monkey business. More unlikely than one of those students getting struck by lightning (a one in a million chance).

So the state invalidated those two FCATs, and 405 others in 58 schools in Palm Beach County.

On Tuesday, Palm Beach County released a breakdown of the number of students in each grade level at each school whose tests were invalidated by the Florida Department of Education because of evidence of possible collusion on the tests.

Thirty-five FCAT results at Glades Central High were thrown out this year because the students' test answers were suspiciously similar to another classmate's.

At Atlantic High in Delray Beach, 31 tests were invalidated. At Forest Hill High in West Palm Beach, 23.

The state Department of Education is stepping up efforts this year to screen for cheaters on the FCAT and other state standardized tests by calling in Utah-based Caveon Test Security to analyze answer sheets. Caveon uses "statistical forensic analysis" of test answers to check for a number of factors that could indicate a breach in test security.

In this first major rollout of test cheating analyses, the Department of Education flagged and invalidated tests that had such similar test responses "that the validity of the test responses must be questioned."

Overall, the highest number of flagged tests came from tenth graders and from students retaking the 10th grade FCAT because they had failed them before. Tenth-grade math and reading FCATs are a requirement for graduation from high school.

The state has an appeal process where schools can try to justify why two tests were so similar. Appeals are due to the school district's department of assessment by Aug. 25, and then to the state by Sept. 1.

In addition, a separate analysis was done to check for schools with improbable levels of similarity or gains. It also looked for suspicious patterns of wrong-to-right erasure marks on tests.

Fourteen districts in Florida had one or more schools flagged under this analysis. In Palm Beach County, one school was flagged for having 33 students with unusual erasure patterns. Marc Baron, the district's chief of performance accountability, said the name of that school cannot be disclosed because the district is doing an internal investigation of the results.

MSA students cleared on FCAT cheating charge - Education ...

BRADENTON -- Four words have cleared Manatee School for the Arts students who have been accused of cheating on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, or FCAT -- “No evidence of improprieties.”

School Superintendent Tim McGonegal used those words in a letter sent to the state’s Department of Education Tuesday to describe the end results of an internal investigation completed by the Manatee County School District.

The letter was sent to DOE Deputy Commissioner Kris Ellington. In it, McGonegal says the school district’s investigation found no evidence of improprieties on the part of Manatee School for the Arts or its employees.

“The school reported that they place great importance on students reviewing answers and making the necessary corrections. We have found nothing to the contrary,” McGonegal said.

Ellington sent letters to 14 school districts on June 9 about concerns of FCAT cheating. The letter says that district administrators needed to conduct internal investigations on their respective schools. Manatee School for the Arts was one of 21 schools statewide under investigation.

The investigations were requested because Caveon Test Security, a company that subcontracts with the state’s education department, identified “extremely unusual levels of erasures,” that could be because of cheating, according to state documents. Caveon offered an analysis based on exams that changed answers “from wrong-to-right.” There were nearly 7,000 tests initially invalidated due to Caveon’s findings, and in Manatee County there were at least 35 tests thrown out.

There were 246 students at MSA who were administered the seventh grade reading portion of the FCAT. The 35 students in question were distributed over 12 rooms, with the most in any one room being four students who made changes from wrong to right, MSA administrators said.

“We’ve been cleared,” Principal Bill Jones said. “It’s excellent. I don’t think there was any other conclusion anyone could come to. There’s just no foundation.”

MSA students have averaged above state levels in their scoring on the reading portion of the FCAT for more than five years. However, the Department of Education memo says that Caveon judged the “extremely unusual levels of erasures” on a rate index of 12 or more.

“A rate index of 12 represents a level of erasures that would be expected to occur once in a trillion times” when tests are taken under standardized conditions, Ellington’s memo says.

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