Tools change, cheats remain

By Emily Richmond

Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Cheating on high-stakes tests increased slightly last school year, with cell phones serving as the device du jour for Nevada students seeking a dishonest advantage, a new report shows.

In addition to the dozens of students who used cell phones to send text messages during exams, others were caught using calculators, copying answers and peeking at cheat sheets.

Forty-nine instances of cheating were reported statewide during the 2007-08 academic year, up from 47 the year before, according to the annual report by the state Education Department.

Of the 49 incidents, 22 took place during the high school proficiency exam, a requirement for graduation.

At Canyon Springs High School, six students were caught using cell phones to send text messages during the math and reading portions of the proficiency exam. At Clark High School, two students sent text messages to each other during the writing exam.

In addition to chronicling cheating, the annual report details minor and unintentional irregularities and teacher errors during standardized tests, which include the exams used to measure progress under the federal No Child Left Behind law.

Overall, a 4 percent drop in problems during the high school proficiency exam was reported. Department officials noted that the 125 reported irregularities make up a tiny fraction of the hundreds of thousands of answer sheets scored by the state last year.

“A lot of the problems are just honest mistakes,” said Carol Mason, test security coordinator for the Nevada Education Department. “We didn’t get a sense that these were willful violations.”

Teacher errors included giving students too much, or too little, time to complete the exam, offering translation help to English-language learners and leaving test materials in unsecured areas. In several of those cases, the teachers were substitutes.

After episodes of misplaced test booklets and improper student access to exams, state lawmakers in 2001 mandated that the Education Department track improprieties and problems and submit an annual report. The number of incidents reported statewide has steadily declined since 2005, a trend that educators link to better training and a requirement that schools have test security plans.

Since the first test report in 2002, several teachers’ licenses have been suspended — and in one case, revoked — for providing students unauthorized help on exams. Last year, two special education teachers told state investigators they had decided in advance to help their students because they did not believe the testing process was fair.

The report showed that mixed with the “honest mistakes” were a few instances of dishonesty.

At Green Valley High School, a student looked ahead in the examination booklet to the next day’s science test and memorized several questions. She asked her science teacher for help with the answers.

Students who were unable to pass the writing section of the high school proficiency exam but had the grades and academic credits to graduate were allowed to turn in a portfolio of class assignments as an alternative. One Las Vegas High School student copied a writing sample from the Education Department’s Web site and submitted it as his work.

“That’s not a very smart way to cheat,” said Sue Daellenbach, academic manager for the Clark County School District. “When kids get to the point that graduation depends on them passing, they get worried and desperate, unfortunately.”

The state has adopted a zero-tolerance policy toward students who bring personal items into the testing room, particularly electronic devices.

The report listed several incidents in which students’ answer sheets were invalidated solely because their cell phones rang during the test, even though the devices were out of sight and there was no evidence they had used them to cheat.

For one unfortunate Eldorado High School student, it didn’t matter that the phone in her pocket was set to “vibrate.”