Concern over Regents cheating by teachers

October 16, 2011 by MICHAEL GORMLEY. The Associated Press /

ALBANY -- New York state officials say cheating on state Regents exams in which teachers have a role is a growing concern, but just a fraction of the cases are being discovered as the tests are being used more to evaluate schools and teachers.

State Education Commissioner John B. King Jr. says New York's system is missing many more cases in public, private and public charter schools. He is expected to announce Monday several measures aimed at discouraging and catching cheats.

Cheating is often reported by students and parents, officials say, and the number of confirmed cases remains a fraction of the 222,000 teachers in the state's classrooms.

Data obtained by The Associated Press show just 50 cases involving teachers were confirmed in the 2009-10 school year and 41 in the 2010-11 school year.

The data give an incomplete picture of a problem that also concerns the state teachers' union.

Records obtained by The AP under the state Freedom of Information Law -- and released by the state on Friday in advance of today's announcement -- show cheating includes prompting a student to erase and re-do answers during a math Regents exam to accepting simple "qui" and "non" answers to teachers' questions on a French exam, instead of the required robust conversations.

The reports show the cases are also difficult for the small staff of the state education department to prove. Many cases involve erasures on tests with correct answers with no evidence of what motivated students to make the changes.

Cheating on Regents exams can frustrate parents and students who have seen all scores "expunged" because of cheating, forcing even students who had nothing to do with cheating to retake the exams in the summer or the following year.

The state data do not detail how often all scores are expunged, forcing retaking of tests, but some records do specifically refer to the expunging of all scores and a retaking of the tests.

Most often, teachers are directed to get more training and no longer score their own students tests. In a few cases teachers are disciplined, but the outcomes aren't provided in the state reports.

On Long Island this fall, Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice, who prosecuted a college student using a fake ID to take SAT college board exams for six friends, says she suspects widespread cheating on the tests.

Cheating investigations have also been undertaken recently in Philadelphia, Los Angeles andWashington, D.C.

In New York, the state Regents exams have grown in number and importance in the last decade as requirements for graduation, tracking the performance of schools and in new teacher evaluations.