Caveon's biweekly Cheating In The News newsletter is up. One link explains why everyone drives badly in France and why the unemployment rate is so high - because every one is spending time and money on James Bond-ian schemes to get around the driver's license exam. I bet the new Texas A&M Aggie Honor System Council would have those vibrating socks confiscated in a heartbeat.
And speaking of cheating, some school do it too; University of South Florida officials have resigned after hiding low test scores of incoming freshmen.
Two top University of South Florida admissions officials resigned after a university investigation showed they ordered below-average entrance exam scores by USF freshmen dropped from reports filed with the state. One of the officials involved said Thursday that USF was following the lead of other state universities and that top school administrators knew about the adjustments.
The deletions involved scores on either the SAT or ACT for about 900 students admitted in summer and fall 2004, according to an internal audit. The deletions came in reports filed with the state Department of Education, the audit states...
Standardized test scores are important to both students and the schools they attend. They are a key factor in determining admission and reflect a school's academic quality...
School auditors noticed that deleted test scores all fell below the university's fall 2003 freshman average of 1084 on the SAT and 26 on the American College Test. USF's average SAT score trailed the University of Florida, where the average for fall 2003 was 1290, Florida State University (1210) and the University of Central Florida (1174).
University spokeswoman Michelle Carlyon said school officials were looking into whether the deletions inflated USF's average test scores and, if so, by how much.
One of those officials insists that USF did nothing wrong, or even out of the ordinary:
Until summer 2003, if a student admitted to USF took the SAT or the ACT more than once, the school reported to state education officials the score received on each sitting, [Dewey Holleman, 41, director of undergraduate admissions]
said. In summer 2003, admissions officials learned other state universities weren't playing by the same rules, Holleman said. Some reported the highest scores to the state and excluded the lower ones, he said.
USF adopted the same practice, which Holleman said is not misleading because only the highest score is used in deciding to admit a student.
"No admissions decisions were affected, and the average [university] SAT score was correct,'' he said.
Admissions officials weren't trying to fool the state, because the state education department already receives the results of all the standardized tests Florida high school students take, he said.
I doubt that last point gets USF off the hook; the matter of whether the state has the scores doesn't affect whether, or how, USF was supposed to report them.
Posted by kswygert at September 24, 2004 02:47 PM