NEWS

State Ed Dept seeks $1M for new cheating investigations

Emily Le Coz
The Clarion-Ledger

The Mississippi Department of Education will request $1 million in its fiscal 2016 budget to fund cheating investigations like the one it launched in May of the Clarksdale Municipal School District.

State Board of Education members approved the new line item at a meeting Wednesday in Jackson.

Currently, the agency has no funds set aside for such investigations and had to borrow money from other areas within the department to fund the current one, said department spokesman Pete Smith.

The Department of Education signed two contracts with Utah-based Caveon Test Security in the past two months totaling nearly $300,000 to investigate allegations of widespread cheating at Clarksdale's Heidelberg Elementary School.

The investigation recently entered its second phase, which includes a detailed accreditation audit.

State Superintendent Carey Wright said earlier this month that she's considering other investigations into schools whose statewide assessment scores also raised red flags. Although she didn't mention specific sites, she said it's a decision the state will make jointly with Caveon.

"When we get done with Clarksdale, we might have to add another investigation," Wright said. "We're already looking at other areas of the state."

The Clarion-Ledger first uncovered claims of cheating at Heidelberg based on interviews with former teachers and students. Students said teachers either provided them answers on tests or allowed them to turn in blank test sheets that later were filled in by somebody else.

Teachers said Heidelberg Principal Lowanda-Tyler Jones told them to help students during the tests. She has denied any cheating occurred during the end-of-year statewide assessments.

The newspaper also obtained data showing some of the top-scoring Heidelberg kids could barely read or do basic math when they advanced to Oakhurst Intermediate school just months later.

Oakhurst Principal Valencia Rhodes, whose teachers claim Clarksdale Superintendent Dennis Dupree blamed them for leaking information to the newspaper, is no longer serving in that role. The Clarksdale Municipal School District website says it's seeking a principal for the school, which serves fifth- and sixth-graders.

Rhodes would not comment.

Dupree, who attended Tuesday's MDE board meeting, also would not comment.

Since its original investigation, The Clarion-Ledger reviewed test scores statewide and identified several dozen schools whose scores defied statistical probability.

Contact Emily Le Coz at elecoz@jackson.gannett.com or (601) 961-7249. Follow @emily_lecoz on Twitter.