| Reports of MCAS cheating on the rise 7/17/2005 12:46 PM By: The Associated Press Education officials in Massachusetts are concerned that cheating on the MCAS exam appears to be on the rise. The state Department of Education documented 35 instances of cheating on the exam during the 2004-2005 school year. That's up from 21 reports of MCAS cheating in the previous school year. According to The Boston Sunday Globe, nine of the 35 cases remain under investigation. Four of the cases involved adults. Some students passed notes and snuck in calculators, while more than a dozen plagiarized essays. Those cases represent a small percentage of the 1.2 million tests administered this spring. But educators fear that cheating will increase sharply as the state gives more tests, which are a high school graduation requirement. To comply with federal law, the state is preparing to give reading and math tests to every student in third through eighth grades. http://www.capitalnews9.com/content/headlines/?ArID=140545&SecID=33 |