The Scranton School District administration has issued letters of reprimand to five teachers and is recommending the firing of another after an investigation into suspected cheating on standardized tests.
A letter from the Department of Education to district Superintendent William King, obtained by The Times-Tribune on Monday, outlines the district's investigation. The state accepted both the district's investigatory report and the resulting actions, according to the letter.
Widespread cheating was not expected, nor was it found, Mr. King said Monday. He would not discuss any specifics of the investigation, citing confidential personnel issues.
Scranton was one of six districts identified by the state in September for possible manipulation of bubble sheets by adults. A forensic analysis by the state looked at PSSA scores from 2009 to 2011 and examined the rate in which answers were changed.
Six school districts statewide - Scranton, Hazleton, Harrisburg, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Reading - were under investigation. Scranton schools that included a grade level having a high number of wrong-to-right erasure marks for the 2009, 2010 and/or 2011 tests were:
- Charles Sumner Elementary
- John F. Kennedy Elementary
- McNichols Plaza Elementary
- Neil Armstrong Elementary
- Northeast Intermediate School
- Scranton High School
- South Scranton Intermediate School
- West Scranton High School
The state and school district had previously refused to identify the schools. Mr. King said he conducted a series of interviews of students and teachers at the schools, but was unaware why Sumner and West Scranton High were included on the list from the state, because no wrongdoing was found.
Mr. King refused to discuss what he found in the other schools.
This fall, Secretary of Education Ron Tomalis blamed a decline in test scores statewide on the cheating investigation and the additional security measures taken for the 2012 test. With extra security, a truer measure of student achievement was found, instead of scores being artificially inflated by the cheating of teachers or administrators, Mr. Tomalis said at the time.
The Scranton School Board has not yet acted on the termination because a meeting between the union and administration was scheduled, said Nathan Barrett, the board's vice president.
"I would hope the board stands behind (Mr. King's) recommendation," Mr. Barrett said. "I hope no one would condone this type of behavior."
Mr. Barrett said he could not name specific employees.
The instance that may lead to the termination involves a teacher changing a student's scores so that he or she went from basic or below basic levels to scoring at proficient levels on the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment test. That difference meant the student could have been put in more advanced classes, and possibly not given the support needed, Mr. Barrett said.
"I'm hoping it was an isolated incident," he said.
Mr. Barrett said he did not know specifics about what caused the letters of reprimand. Instances flagged by the state may have included a teacher telling a student to go back over an answer, he said. A termination must be a board action, and the teacher's name would be made public then.
Efforts to reach Rosemary Boland, president of the Scranton Federation of Teachers, were unsuccessful Monday.
Contact the writer: shofius@timesshamrock.com, @hofiushallTT on TwitterErasure marks
Scranton schools that had a high number of wrong-to-right erasure marks on PSSA tests were:
-âCharles Sumner Elementary
-âJohn F. Kennedy Elementary
-âMcNichols Plaza Elementary
-âNeil Armstrong Elementary
-âNortheast Intermediate
-âScranton High
-âSouth Scranton Intermediate
-âWest Scranton High