Muscogee Co. Schools Safeguard Against CRCT Cheating - WLTZ 38 | Columbus Georgia Regional News & Community

By: Matt Lally

Columbus- Georgia lawmakers and politicians are still combing through the 300 page report that reveals widespread cheating at Atlanta public schools on a state wide standardized test, the CRCT.

The investigation shows that former Superintendent Beverly Hall knew about the cheating on standardized tests, but either ignored it or tried to hide it.

More than 80 percent of schools were involved in the cheating.

Muscogee County Superintendent, Dr. Susan Andrews, says that her district has a set list of procedures and guidelines to ensure that CRCT test scores are accurate county wide.

She says, "Last year we began putting in very strict procedures in order to make sure that our test scores were valid. We made sure that any classroom with 30 or more students had proctors and we instructed principals to assign proctors to as many classrooms as they possibly could."

The list of guidelines also shows that:

• System Monitors were assigned to any school that had been flagged for erasures outside the norm the previous year.
• Principals are required to store testing materials in a location that was only accessible to the principals and test coordinators.
• Door windows had to be unobstructed at all times so that principals, test coordinators, and monitors could observe testing without disrupting students.
• All materials must be handed out and taken up in the shortest amount of time to make sure testing materials are in the hands of individuals for a short amount of time.

When asked why teachers would erase students answers to increase test scores Dr. Andrews said that some teachers feel the stress of score levels that have to be met and panic but adds that is no excuse to cheat.

CRCT scores for individual Muscogee County score were released today and can be accessed by following this link:

http://www.doe.k12.ga.us/pea_communications.aspx?ViewMode=1&obj=2041