Parents of students at a much-heralded charter school in the Pueblo 60 School District have alleged that their children were encouraged to change answers in a state reading test.
In a report released Thursday, the district said its investigation of the matter had raised “credible questions” about testing at Cesar Chavez Academy. The district said it would more closely monitor testing at the school in the future.
But Lawrence Hernandez, the school’s founder, said he would resist efforts to apply more scrutiny. He said the district’s criticism was part of a long-standing vendetta it has against his school, whose high performance on standardized tests has long been a sore spot for the district.
There was no evidence of outright cheating on the 2005 CSAP test, said John Brainard, director of assessment for the district. However, he said he hopes to work closely with Hernandez to prevent future questions from being raised on the handling of the state test, which measures students’ skills in math, reading, writing and science.
Brainard denied that the district’s investigation of the matter was anything more than a response to allegations.
Hernandez, meanwhile, said allegations that teachers instructed students to change answers are “totally fabricated.” Hernandez said he has no intention of allowing the district to come in and monitor the annual administration of the Colorado Student Assessment Program test.
But Brainard said he is prepared to order changes, including active monitoring of the test.
“I’m prepared to follow whatever I’m allowed by district policy, the charter policy or the state,” he said.
The 5-year-old academy founded by the former Harvard University education professor and his wife serves roughly 650 students in kindergarten through eighth grade. It has been recognized statewide for producing high- achieving students, despite serving a population that is 80 percent minority, 65 percent poor and 13 percent special education. Ten percent are learning English.
Its high performance – last year it was rated “excellent” on the state’s annual report card for schools – comes as the district is losing students, and state dollars that fund students, Hernandez said.
District officials said they have no agenda. Anonymous allegations of cheating have been raised in the past, said Greg Sinn, district spokesman. However, he said, this is the first time parents have identified themselves and provided enough information to merit an investigation.
Third-graders at the school took the reading CSAP in February this year. During the week of March 1, Brainard said, he received four calls from parents.
They alleged their children had taken the exam and turned it in in the morning. Later in the afternoon, the report said, “their students were called out of class, taken to another room, and reviewed their test with an adult. In all instances, the parents reported that their students were encouraged to change their answers to the writing questions after prompting from the adult.”
As part of his investigation, Brainard traveled to Indianapolis where CTB-McGraw, the company responsible for scoring the test, examined open-ended short- answer questions on the academy’s third-grade reading exam.
Of 68 booklets examined, 42 had notable changes or erasures, Brainard’s report said. However, the district could not pin down whether students made changes to questions during the allotted testing period or after they had already turned in the test.
Hernandez said he is not surprised there were changes to answers.
“We teach our kids to draft and redraft everything they write,” he said.
State Education Commissioner William Moloney, who regularly lauds Cesar Chavez as a model school, reserved judgment, saying he had not seen the report. “Much evidence indicates it’s an extraordinarily successful school,” he said.
The students’ scores on the test have been accepted by the state because the deadline for reporting problems ended in June.
Staff writer Karen Rouse can be reached at 303-820-1684 or krouse@denverpost.com.
