In an increasingly challenging school climate filled with educational reform and changing testing mandates, I find this story worth sharing with my esteemed School Leadership 2.0 colleagues:

Last Thursday, Elizabeth Jewett, Superintendent of Watchung Hills Regional High School district in Warren, N.J. was notified that Pearson had issued a "priority 1 alert" for a test item breach within one of her schools.  According to the NJDOE, a student "Tweeted" a picture relating to the PARCC examination during the test, which Pearson discovered through a contracted service that monitors social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.  The State Education Department cooperated with Pearson's investigation, and asked Superintendent Jewett to discipline the student in question. 

‪In a private email sent to other district superintendents (which was somehow leaked to this reporter's blog) Superintendent Jewett informed her colleagues of the incident, but after her own investigation, it was determined the student's Twitter posting occurred after school hours at 3:18pm and didn't include a picture.  In her email, Superintendent Jewett cited concern from the student's parents about the "monitoring" of their child's account, and admittedly found the practice "a bit disturbing" herself.

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‪What started as a leaked email and a small blog post is now beginning to gain national attention (with coverage from Washington Post, NY Times, Fox News, and NJ.com, among others), and raises some important discussion points:

‪- Are public school students (who are more or less required to take these exams unless they "opt out") expected to be held to the same requirements as "at will" employed teachers when it comes to testing procedures?

‪- Is there any difference between discussing test questions in school hallways or on the bus ride home, versus online/electronically?

‪- Should there be more public transparency on Pearson's relationship/contract with the states that administer these exams and the policies that surround such agreements?  (NJDOE allegedly paid Pearson over $100 million in taxpayer money for statewide administration of the PARCC test)

‪- Amidst what appears to be a cloak of secrecy, is there an adequate system in place to determine the reliability and validity of these test questions and the procedures in which they are scored?  

‪And most importantly:

‪- In asking the State DOE (and ultimately the district) to issue discipline to this NJ student, is Pearson simply protecting the intellectual property/integrity of their product, or violating a student's right to free speech?

Cross-posted to my Examiner page: http://www.examiner.com/article/pearson-s-monitoring-of-parcc-test-...