Education Department vows Clarksdale cheating probe

The Mississippi Department of Education will launch a full-blown investigation into cheating allegations at Heidelberg Elementary School that were revealed Wednesday by The Clarion-Ledger.

"We take allegations of cheating or testing irregularities seriously because ultimately such behavior is a disservice to students and their parents," said Carey Wright, state superintendent of education.

Clarksdale Municipal School District Superintendent Dennis Dupree said he's not worried.

"If the state department comes in and investigates, let them," he said. "They won't find anything."

He also vowed to conduct his own investigation, but not into the cheating allegations; Dupree wants to know who gave student test data to The Clarion-Ledger.

In a heated meeting Wednesday at Oakhurst Intermediate School, Dupree reportedly threatened teachers with job loss and lawsuits if he found out any of them helped the newspaper with its reporting.

Heidelberg students go to Oakhurst after leaving fourth grade. The test data obtained by The Clarion-Ledger show many Heidelberg students who had scored advanced on their statewide assessments in May could barely read or do basic math when they arrived at Oakhurst in August.

Staff at Oakhurst confirmed the findings, saying the children performed below where their test scores would have predicted. Several Oakhurst students who previously attended Heidelberg also said testing at the elementary school didn't follow protocol.

Dupree "kept saying, 'Whoever leaked this data, I am going to find you. Until my last day on this job, I will not stop until I find you,'" said one person who was at the meeting but would not be named for fear of job loss.

Another person at the meeting said Dupree was irate and berated them, saying they should be ashamed of themselves and didn't deserve to be in the teaching profession.

"'Suit up, because I'm coming for you,'" the person recalled Dupree saying.

At least three people said Dupree never asked those gathered to explain the student data or what they saw in the classrooms that led them to believe testing irregularities had occurred. He simply yelled at them and left.

Dupree admitted he met with Oakhurst staff but denied having threatened anyone. Faculty and staff can talk to the media without fear of losing their jobs, he said, but it was wrong for someone to have shared student test data. That was his main concern.

"I will investigate that and try to find out where it came from," he said. "Everything that I do will be within the law."

In addition to its investigation at Heidelberg, the Department of Education announced Wednesday that it will re-examine how it handles test irregularities. Currently, it flags school districts with unusual data and asks those districts to conduct their own internal reviews.

Twelve districts last year were flagged for irregular test data across 17 schools, including Heidelberg.

All but one district had cleared themselves of any wrongdoing: Jackson Public Schools admitted to having found instances of teachers at Boyd Elementary School coaching and assisting students taking the Mississippi Curriculum Test, said James H. Mason, MDE's director of student assessment.

JPS subsequently got a warning letter from the state, saying it risked accreditation probation.

But rather than punish an entire district for cheating within just one building, MDE wants to change state policy so it can put individual schools on accreditation probation. Wright said the agency will make that recommendation to the state Board of Education.

If cheating has occurred at Heidelberg, it might be just the tip of the iceberg, said Bob Schaeffer, public education director at the National Center for Fair & Open Testing.

Schaeffer said when schools resort to cheating to boost test scores, other schools sometimes follow suit to keep pace.

That's especially the case, he said, in districts that lavish praise on principals of high-performing schools while ostracizing and threatening those at lower-performing schools.

"That's exactly what happened in Atlanta," Schaeffer said. "There were financial bonuses for high-score-gain principals. And she yelled at people, she threatened people's jobs that did not get score gains."

Former Atlanta Public Schools Superintendent Beverly Hall was indicated last year, along with 35 educators, after the discovery of widespread cheating in the district.

Schaeffer said states must take proactive measures to crack down on cheating, send in their own investigative teams and not let school districts police themselves.

But Mason defended MDE's practice of self-policing. Districts are responsible for ensuring accurate testing, but the agency sends auditors throughout the state to monitor the process. It also scrutinizes test results from every school and flags those with irregularities.

When it asks flagged districts to conduct their own reviews, Mason said, it's because teachers and students are more likely to reveal problems to their own district officials than they are an outside state investigator.

But the district does conduct its own investigation when warranted, Mason said, pointing to its 2012 review of testing irregularities at JPS's Watkins Elementary School that led to the suspension of then-Principal Lisa Andrus-Johnson.

MDE also relies on tips from educators, students and parents.

"We are encouraging anyone with first-hand information of any cheating or testing irregularities in any school district to immediately contact the MDE's Office of Student Assessment," Wright said.

To contact Emily Le Coz, call (601) 961-7249 or email elecoz@jackson.gannett.com. Follow @emily_lecoz on Twitter.