More Cases of Test Cheats Alleged

State records show that more than 400 public school teachers in California have been investigated for allegedly helping students on state standardized tests over the past five years -- double the number of incidents reported last month by the state Department of Education.

Probes into the alleged cheating proved nearly 200 incidents, including cases of teachers providing answers to students or wrongfully allowing them extra test time, according to state documents.

Most have led to reprimands and warnings, but a few teachers have been fired or have resigned, say school administrators and union officials.

Last month, The Times reported that 200 investigations statewide since 1999 had led to 75 proven cases, according to records obtained under a Public Records Act request. But subsequently, officials for the California Department of Education said they had recently discovered that they had inadvertently omitted a 15-page list of 200 more investigations.

Those additional incidents, which occurred from 2001 to 2003, were reported to the state by proctors and testing coordinators, said Linda Lownes of the state Department of Education. The earlier cases were turned up mainly by computer flagging of suspicious patterns of test erasures.

Barbara Kerr, president of the California Teachers Assn., said the additional cases were “still not a lot compared to the hundreds of thousands of teachers we have.” The union has more than 300,000 members.

Kerr added that although some activities were clearly inappropriate, such as teaching lessons during tests, others, such as allowing extra time, are minor and should not be thought of as cheating.

“For a majority of them, it’s a matter of the ridiculous pressure that has been put upon them,” she said. “And they’re weighing that with their students looking at them with pleading eyes saying, ‘Help me.’ ”

Although not excusing inappropriate actions, Kerr and other educators say some teachers might bend the rules because of heightened anxiety about their students’ performance on state tests and the federal government’s punitive use of the scores under the No Child Left Behind law. The staff of a school with consistently bad results can be reassigned and federal funding can be withheld.

The latest records left out teachers’ names and possible punishments, but identified districts and campuses where the incidents occurred. Some cases were blatant, but others were found to be a result of confusion over testing rules.

The new incidents include:

* In the Sanger Unified School District, south of Fresno, a teacher allowed fourth-graders to use dictionaries for the writing test.

* In the El Monte City Unified School District, a teacher reviewed 24 students’ responses and told them to erase some answers. The teacher then re-administered the test.

* In the San Bernardino City Unified School District, a teacher told her 17 third-graders to review their answers, and then hinted that “no more than four have a ‘no choice’ response.”

* In the Westminster Elementary School District, a teacher gave a pretest spelling quiz using words that were on the reading vocabulary exam to her class of 20 third-graders.

* In the Napa Valley Unified School District, a teacher taught a math lesson during the test on concepts that had not been taught during the year.

* In the Poway Unified School District, in San Diego County, a teacher collected writing exams during the testing period and returned them to students with suggestions to correct them.

* In the Stockton Unified School District, someone tampered with answer documents for 184 seventh- and eighth-graders.

Marvin Jones, director of research and evaluation for the Bakersfield Unified School District, said sometimes teachers get confused between “trying to provide direction and encouragement for the students, and when [they are] crossing the line and actually coaching the student to the right answers.”

The latest records revealed four proven incidents in the Bakersfield district since 2001. In two cases, teachers provided “inappropriate assistance” during the test.

In another, a teacher wrote test questions on the board and worked them with children during the exam.

The state documents previously released showed that the state’s computers had flagged test results for five Bakersfield classrooms with a lot of erasures. District officials concluded that three teachers had coached students to change answers.

Jones said teachers are now more aware of how to administer an exam properly. When the district brought the incidents to the staff’s attention, “I think that in itself made a difference, and I hope it would deter anyone else.”

Regina Rossall, district superintendent for the Westside Unified School District in Palmdale, said “most teachers have a high sense of integrity.”

According to records, a teacher in the Westside district told 37 fourth-graders during last year’s state testing to write a first draft of an exam essay, edit it and then copy the revised version into their test books. Rossall said that teacher did not realize such a procedure was against the rules. This year, “we absolutely went over every single rule,” she said.

As for teachers who have been caught more blatantly cheating, Rossall said many feel pressure because “this is a huge stakes test.”

“I mean, that’s a report card in the end,” she said. “That’s how the public is measuring our schools.”