NY plan takes test grading from teachers

Centralized electronic scoring of standardized state tests given to millions of elementary and secondary students each year would replace hand grading by local teachers under a sweeping proposal to prevent tampering outlined Thursday by education officials.

As envisioned, the measures would eliminate local grading of answers on multiple-choice question and longer written answers. This would be done by transmitting answers electronically to a pool of experienced graders across the state, who would assign scores from afar.

Electronic scanning would simultaneously score tests and check for cheating -- for example, by analyzing erasures to see if they result in unusually high numbers of correct answers. And centralized grading would be massive; the state administers about 6 million tests annually, at a cost of $38 million.

Some local school leaders regard the plan as overkill. But state officials contend sweeping measures are needed to ensure test integrity -- especially as test scores are increasingly used in rating teachers' and principals' job performance. Under a new state law, approximately 52,000 teachers and other school workers statewide, and 7,000 on Long Island, are to be evaluated partly based on scores by the end of the school year.

"Cheating scandals in Atlanta, Philadelphia and other cities around the country have fostered growing concern about the integrity of standardized test administration and scoring," states a memorandum posted by the State Education Department on its website.

The memo is signed by Education Commissioner John B. King Jr., and by his executive deputy, Valerie Grey, who has headed a review of testing procedures since July. The state Board of Regents will review the recommendations Monday in Albany.

The anti-cheating initiative would begin with relatively small steps -- for example, training and certifying all school staffers who score state tests given in grades 3-8. The move toward centralized state-level scoring would follow further study by education department personnel. The memo gives no target date for that.

Currently, tests are graded largely through a combination of hand-scoring in local schools and electronic scanning in the regional Board of Cooperative Educational Services.

Initial local reaction to the plan was unenthusiastic.

"It appears to be overkill," said William Johnson, superintendent of Rockville Centre schools and a former president of the State Council of School Superintendents. Johnson said he needed more time to study the proposal.

Albany officials say centralized grading could be cheaper than the current system. Many local educators are skeptical.

"Are they under the impression that there was so much cheating in the past, that they wanted to take scoring out of the hands of teachers where it's been for a hundred years?" said Jeff Rozran, president of Syosset's teacher union and a board member of the New York State United Teachers union.

King's announcement last month that he was reviewing scoring procedures followed allegations by Georgia state investigators that educators in 44 Atlanta schools had tampered with student tests. It has been described as the nation's biggest cheating scandal ever.