Tuesday, July 12, 2011

It's Never Sunny...

sent in by an alert reader. Thanks!
Philadelphia also has a developing scandal around possible cheating on the 2009 PSSA. Philadelphia blog The Notebook reports that according to analysis by Data Recognition Corporation:
The analysis, prepared for the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) in July 2009, highlights roughly 60 schools with suspicious results due to multiple statistical irregularities, including 22 District schools and six seven charters in Philadelphia...
Porter stressed that statistical analysis alone, without witnesses or confessions, cannot definitively prove that there was cheating. But he added that the report "describes a reasonable approach to identifying schools where there may have been cheating."
Nevertheless, it appears that the state never followed up with any further investigations. The forensic data analysis was discontinued in 2010, although PDE spokesperson Timothy Eller said it would be reinstated this year.
Both Philadelphia, where 44% of the schools of concern are, and Pennsylvania officials are now scrambling to figure out what happened to the report.
It appears that nothing was done with it at the time.
We can thus add Philly to the list of cities that are dealing with allegations or proven examples of widespread cheating on standardized tests.

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