The New York State Board of Regents will decide Monday whether to bar teachers from grading their own students’ standardized tests, a longstanding practice that state officials say creates a temptation for educators to cheat in an era of high-stakes examsThe ban, which would start in the 2012-13 school year, would require districts to score tests in other schools, on computers or in regional centers. The change would most likely cause Regents exams, now held just before graduation, to be held earlier in the spring and could lead to additional costs for districts.
The state is in the process of introducing a new evaluation system that judges teachers in part on how well their students do on standardized tests. These rising stakes are behind the state’s push for better test security, as is an acknowledgment by state officials that they have not done enough to detect or prevent cheating.
The Regents and the State Education Department “are committed to putting in place a system that ensures the integrity of our state assessment system,” said John B. King Jr., the state education commissioner, in a call with reporters on Friday.
The ban was one of several recommendations made by Dr. King and a group of state officials in a memo released Friday. The board will also vote Monday on whether to request $2.1 million from Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and the State Legislature to improve test security this school year. That would include $1 million for erasure analysis to check 10 percent of tests this spring for signs of cheating.
An independent investigator will be named in the next several weeks to analyze how the state handles cheating complaints, the memo said. But officials did not for now recommend grading all state tests in a single location, saying it would cost $10 million to $12 million annually. It also did not advise barring teachers from proctoring their own students’ exams.
The state is in the process of introducing a new evaluation system that judges teachers in part on how well their students do on standardized tests. These rising stakes are behind the state’s push for better test security, as is an acknowledgment by state officials that they have not done enough to detect or prevent cheating.
The Regents and the State Education Department “are committed to putting in place a system that ensures the integrity of our state assessment system,” said John B. King Jr., the state education commissioner, in a call with reporters on Friday.
The ban was one of several recommendations made by Dr. King and a group of state officials in a memo released Friday. The board will also vote Monday on whether to request $2.1 million from Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and the State Legislature to improve test security this school year. That would include $1 million for erasure analysis to check 10 percent of tests this spring for signs of cheating.
An independent investigator will be named in the next several weeks to analyze how the state handles cheating complaints, the memo said. But officials did not for now recommend grading all state tests in a single location, saying it would cost $10 million to $12 million annually. It also did not advise barring teachers from proctoring their own students’ exams.
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