Cheating to the Test: CSPC Fellow, Jeremy Kaufmann, Analyzes K-12 Testing Integrity, Will Present Findings at Conference in Washington, DC

Senior Public Policy Minor, Jeremy Kaufmann '12, selected as the representative of Dartmouth College to be a fellow at the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress (CSPC), has completed his research on a controversial topic in the education policy sector—teacher/administrator cheating on standardized tests relating to adequate yearly progress (AYP) under the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB)—and will be presenting his findings to the CSPC national conference in Washington, DC on March 28-30, 2012.

His paper, "Protecting the Veracity of Our Children's Test Scores: How Race to the Top Funding Can Spur Testing Integrity Reform," analyzes the recent waves of cheating by teachers and administrators in school districts across the nation and identifies patterns of cheating as well as possible remedies. He also challenges the Obama Administration and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, to link future Race to the Top funding to demonstrated emphasis on testing integrity.

"Given the success that Race to the Top has had in encouraging states to tackle other challenging educational policy problems, there is no doubt that including testing integrity guidelines in the Race to the Top application would prompt schools to give this entrenched problem a second look. The truth is that this rather unpleasant problem of teacher cheating comes down to incentives and responsibility—without some type of reform, teachers will continue to have incentives to cheat and district administrators will continue to look the other way."