Very non-egalitarian results when Pennsylvania schools crack down on cheating.
In Philadelphia, standardized test scores climbed steadily from 2002 to 2012, but there were reasons to think the gains were phony. A spot check by the Pennsylvania Department of Education found a suspicious number of test papers in which incorrect multiple-choice answers had been erased and the right answer chosen instead. This was strong evidence that teachers were correcting the tests after students handed them in.
Last year, test procedures were changed in Philadelphia and Hazelton: Teachers were not allowed to give the test to their own students, and in 11 schools the test papers were locked up until test time.
. . . .
In math, for example, the white pass rate dropped less than a half percent—a figure entirely within the range of natural yearly fluctuation—while the black pass rate dropped nearly five percent (see graphs below). The white decline was concentrated in the Philadelphia school district, which has few white students, whereas black and Hispanic declines were state wide. There were similar drops in reading. It is safe to say that were it not for the altered tests of black and Hispanic students there would essentially be no cheating scandal at all.
(Read more)