Teacher alleges cheating on tests

Terry Webster

Monday, June 26, 2000 | 11:19 a.m.

A fourth grade teacher who resigned has set local and state investigations in motion by making allegations of test coaching and altered test scores at Robert E. Lake Elementary School.

The biggest bombshell that former teacher Ramona Johnson dropped on the Clark County School District, however, was proof that she had unrestricted access to the highly guarded fourth grade TerraNova exam booklet.

The booklets -- which are kept under lock and key -- contain the questions for the same TerraNova exam fourth graders in the district will take this fall.

"In the worst-case scenario, people could lose their licenses," said Mary Peterson, superintendent of the Nevada Department of Education. "But we will look at intent and how much damage was done."

State officials will step in after the local investigation is finished. Today school district administrators are poring over inventory records for the booklets and beginning to interview teachers at Lake Elementary.

"It's extremely serious," said Kay Carl, assistant superintendent of elementary education. "A lot of people are going to have to be interviewed, and it's going to be very upsetting."

Carl said she was surprised by the accusations.

"I have not heard even a trickle of anything like this," she said.

The investigations will determine whether the Clark County School District, the nation's eighth largest, has joined the ranks of other districts that have fallen prey to the pressures of high-stakes testing. Schools in New York City, Atlanta and Chicago are among those that have been rocked by testing scandals.

"It's a small percentage of educators who are doing this," said Michael Carr, a spokesman for the National Association of Secondary School Principals. "But a lot of pressure is being put on educators for these standardized tests. By the time these kids get to middle and high school, teachers are being held accountable for everything they (students) have learned before."

Carr said the association supports efforts to raise student performance, but in many cases the funding and resources schools need to do it are not available.

In Clark County, schools that perform well are praised and recognized. Those that don't are labeled inadequate and are closely monitored.

"Schools are labeled based on the performance of one group of students," Carl said. "I can tell you what that does to educators. It rips their souls out."

According to Johnson, her saga at Lake Elementary began when school administrators reprimanded her for poor student test scores on the TerraNova exam.

Teachers study the results in an effort to identify students' strengths and weaknesses. Johnson began researching how her students performed on the Curriculum-Based Assessment Program exam that was given at the end of the school year in third grade, comparing it to their scores on the TerraNova exam. "I wanted to protect myself," she said.

Johnson was shocked by what she found. School documents reviewed by the Sun confirm Johnson's claim that the same 18 students who scored highly on the Curriculum-Based Assessment test -- in many cases a perfect 100 -- struggled on the TerraNova.

"I know what these students can do," Johnson said. "Some of them are just not going to get a 100 on anything." That led Johnson to believe the third grade scores were somehow altered.

One of the most extreme examples is a student who scored 100 on both the geometry and measurement sections of the earlier test. The student, who has attention deficit disorder, scored 17 percent in geometry and 14 percent in measurement on the TerraNova.

Another student who also received 100s in geometry and measurement on the test in third grade scored 43 and 53 respectively on the TerraNova. Similar trends were seen in the classes' reading scores.

Peterson and Judy Costa, the school district's director of testing and evaluation, both said the two tests have distinct differences. But they also agreed that students who excel on the Curriculum-Based Assessment should perform well on the TerraNova.

Costa said she is in the process of comparing the scores. At present, there is no proof of cheating on either test. "All we can say for certain right now is that the TerraNova was taken outside of the school," said Costa. "That's very serious. But I don't think there was any cheating done on the TerraNova. If there was, our scores would have been a lot higher. On the other one (Curriculum-Based Assessment), I'd say that's still iffy at this point."

Starting this fall, tighter inventory controls will be placed on the booklets, Costa said. Schools are currently required to take 12 steps in handling them.

When Johnson completed her analysis of the test scores, she gave her findings to Lake Elementary Principal Alma Vining. Johnson later confided to another fourth grade teacher about her concern over her students' TerraNova scores. Then the conversation took an unexpected twist. "She said, 'Why don't you just do what we all do and teach the test?' " Johnson said. "Then she gave me a copy of the TerraNova."

Johnson showed the Sun the TerraNova booklet, along with copies of the Curriculum-Based Assessment test she said a third grade teacher gave her. Johnson said she never returned them for fear of retribution. Meanwhile, administrators had asked Johnson to make an analysis of Curriculum-Based Assessment scores for new teachers. "I told them not to feel bad about the TerraNova, because the CBAP scores were inflated," Johnson said. "I thought I could take care of this problem on the inside."

Johnson claims administrators then began questioning her job performance. But Vining denies it. "I was not trying to get rid of her," she said.

At least 18 memos on school letterhead were sent to Johnson from the end of April through the beginning of June. The subjects on the memos included investigatory conferences, a verbal warning, requests to review Johnson's grade book and lesson plans and reminders to attend upcoming meetings.

Instructional time was taken from her students, Johnson said, because school employees were showing up with memos for her to sign during class time and students were being taken from the classroom for questioning.

"This has been extremely disruptive for the class, as well as personally traumatic for my daughter," said parent Miriam Dame.

Several parents filed written complaints, stating they were upset at not being informed their children were interviewed in the principal's office. Because it is a confidential personnel matter, Vining and other administrators said they could not comment on Johnson's job performance. They did say, however they have sent certified letters to Johnson requesting the return of school materials.

Vining firmly maintains there was no wrongdoing at her school.

"I've been in education over 30 years," Vining said. "I've built a name by being a very reputable educator. We are able to get kids to achieve without ever cheating. I have never suggested that to anybody."

She also said teachers are not pressured to raise test scores. "We just do the best we can. I'm not going to try to compete with the schools in Green Valley and Summerlin," Vining said.

Sixty-three percent of the students are low income at Lake Elementary, located at 2904 Meteoro St.

Vining said she could not explain how the TerraNova booklet was removed from her school, adding that there were no signs of forced entry into the area where they were stored. On Johnson's performance reviews, there are positive comments about her work. Letters from students and their parents show she had earned their trust and respect.

Johnson's students made these comments about her:

Parents gave Johnson high marks as well.

"It touches my heart that a nonrelated person would take the time with my daughter and unconditionally make her feel she was more than just a student, that she is something essential in this life," a parent wrote in one of Johnson's RAVE reviews, an award given by parents, students or co-workers. "It takes a lot of love, kindness and respect to make a child feel that good about herself." Another parent said Johnson "has the unique ability to teach with discipline and love."

On May 30 Johnson was honored as one of 15 finalists in the Teacher of the Year 2000 awards banquet, a contest held by KMZQ 100.5-FM, a local radio station. More than 2,000 teachers competed. At school the next day she received a memo that read: "Meet with me on Monday, June 5 to discuss allegations of selling items to students in your classroom. Also to be discussed at the meeting will be an alleged letter you sent home to the parents about the school administration harassing you."

The selling allegations stemmed from a project involving a classroom store, which was announced in the school newsletter. School officials said no charges were filed against her. Johnson, 43, worked for several years in the Clark County School District, although not consecutively. She was at Lake Elementary for the past two years.

She previously served as a flight attendant with TriStar Airlines and was a communications dispatcher and a secretary in the criminal investigation bureau of the Metro Police Department.

Johnson holds a bachelor's degree and an educational specialist degree, a pre-doctoral degree. She earned both degrees at UNLV.

She is undecided on her future career plans, but said she is planning to take legal action against the school district. She resigned her position at Lake Elementary earlier this month. "These were my kids," Johnson said, holding a picture of herself with her class at Lake Elementary. "I miss them."