Results of ACT Investigation in Perry Co Point to Altered Tests

Students tell ACT Investigators

Proctor Gave Answers During the Test

Supt searches for Explanations

This from the Hazard Herald:

Altered exam responses, multiple handwriting sources and statements from students were all given as evidence by a national testing organization to cancel test scores for several students at two Perry County high schools during an investigation in 2010, according to documents obtained in an open records request by the Hazard Herald.

The findings of ACT’s investigation into allegedly compromised test scores at Perry County Central and Buckhorn High School were noted in letters from ACT to Superintendent John Paul Amis and the high schools’ principals dated November 23.

Though ACT has made no finding of fault by any particular local testing administrator, it does list the organization’s key findings following the investigation which concluded in November, most notably that ACT “found evidence indicating that answer sheets for a significant portion of the students tested at PCCHS were manipulated.” ...

Fifty-nine students from Perry Central took the ACT exam again in October after their initial scores were canceled. According to ACT, the average composite scores decreased by more than one point, and 59 percent of the scores decreased from the initial exam.

ACT investigators found similar aberrations on the 2009 PLAN and ACT exams from Perry Central...

Superintendent John Paul Amis tried to explain the situation to the Herald:

ACT says there were: a high number of erasures from incorrect to correct responses.

Amis says: "...while it wouldn't happen very often, a student taking the test could go back and review answers and find that they were bubbled in out of order or on the wrong page of the answer sheet and have to change them before the time allotted ran out."

ACT says there were: slash marks on answer sheets that forensic handwriting analysts deemed were the result of someone other than the student marking responses on the test.

Amis says: “I don’t think that’s anything abnormal.”

ACT says: an adult proctor provided students with answers during the test,”

Amis says: “I could not find any student that felt like teachers provided answers to them.”

The Kentucky Department of Education forwarded ACT’s findings to three government agencies for further review: the Kentucky Attorney General’s Office, the Education Professional Standards Board and the Office of Inspector General.