Investigators will visit Atlanta next week in school testing probe

By Kristina Torres

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

An investigative firm hired to probe 58 Atlanta schools for possible cheating on state tests will be at city school offices Thursday and Friday to gather information and talk with administrators about the system's testing procedures.

The Utah-based Caveon Test Security has already begun to gather data and other information for analysis. The in-house visit will add to the firm's collection. It will also help investigators make recommendations on how to improve in time for when students take critical state tests starting April 20.

In an update Friday to a panel overseeing the investigation, Caveon President John Fremer said school officials have been cooperative. Less so have been state officials, Fremer said, an assertion those state officials rejected.

According to a state report released last month, 191 Georgia schools required investigation because they showed unusual patterns of erasures -- unusually large numbers of wrong answers changed to the correct ones -- on the state's Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests last spring. The tests are taken by students in first through eighth grade and are used to help determine whether schools meet federal benchmarks.

Atlanta had the most schools flagged in any system, more than two-thirds of its public elementary and middle schools. Atlanta school board members sought outside help. That process is being overseen by the 15-member panel, which includes a who's who of city business and community leaders. The panel last week hired Caveon, which is known nationally for the same type of testing analysis used by the state.

The state since last month has given systems school-level, classroom-level and, as of March 12, student-level spreadsheets on which their report is based. Earlier this month, state officials also advised systems they would be allowed to see students' actual answer sheets but under severe restrictions, including a viewing deadline of March 31.

Since Atlanta's investigation is being done independently of the system's central office, it is Fremer and his team who will view the answer sheets. An Atlanta spokesman said Friday all information including the spreadsheets have been passed on for Fremer's use.

Officials with the Governor's Office of Student Achievement, which released the report, said the local systems don't need the actual tests to scrutinize testing protocols and security. Fremer, however, wants raw data that captures such things as the total number of correctly answered test questions -- data that goes beyond erasures and answer changes.

Neither side seemed keen Friday to get in a back-and-forth about the issue. Kathleen Mathers, the Student Achievement Office's executive director, said her office has not received a data request from Fremer. She also said systems needed to concentrate on "a rigorous chain-of-custody" investigation rather than number-crunching.

Gary Price, a partner with PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Atlanta panel's chairman, said he planned to reach out to Mathers to clear the air. The Atlanta panel will meet again Friday. Final investigative reports are due back to the state by May 14.