What will we tell the children? Part (Sorry, I’ve lost count)

by David Safier

Cheating on high stakes, standardized tests again? And in Arizona? And at a charter school?

What will we tell the children?

Chester Newton/Sunnyside Charter and Montessori School in Camp Verde has been accused of "irregularities in the testing procedures and inappropriate assistance" in grades 3 through 8. The head cheat appears to be Principal Shirley Sullivan, who has since resigned.

In her letter to students, [school Director Betty] Chester stated the ADE had concluded that Sullivan "established a climate where cheating on the AIMS test, either between students or by adults offering inappropriate assistance to students, was both acceptable and expected. This occurred notwithstanding the fact Ms. Sullivan attended ADE training for test administrators."

Now, let's consider what the consequences should be for the school. Certainly, in a case of such pervasive cheating which, I'm guessing, went on for years (you don't get that kind of buy-in all at once), the ADE's Charter School Board should launch a thorough investigation. Every adult who possibly participated in the scheme should be brought on the carpet by the Board, and many should be fired. Every effort should be made to find out if Chester was aware of what was going on, and if so, the school's charter should be yanked. These measures should be taken both to rid the system of a school with a culture of corruption and to send a message to all schools in the state: mess with the AIMS test at your peril.

Here's what it looks like the consequences will be. Since the tests have been invalidated, the school will be labeled "underperforming" for the year because it has not shown evidence of making Adequate Yearly Progress. That's it.

Action is not immediate from the Charter Board. The situation will come up at the time of charter renewal.

It happens the school comes up for renewal in 2013, so "the situation" will come up soon. But as is standard operating procedure for the Board which is supposed to exercise oversight, the Charter School Board doesn't sound terribly concerned about a very serious infraction.

NOTE: Lest we forget, Carpe Diem Charter in Yuma had a high level of erasures on its AIMS tests last year, and the number of wrong-to-right changes was way, way above average. It's close to a slam dunk case of adults changing students' answers. But the state is doing nothing. It didn't even send in monitors to watch the AIMS testing this year to assure no hanky panky happened this time.