University Preparatory Charter High School in East Oakland bills itself as a high-end academy where students attract recruiters from the nation’s top universities.
Photos of young scholars in caps and gowns grace its Web site above the names of colleges that accepted them — Oberlin, Dartmouth, Pomona, Whitman.
But that bright image belies a grim truth: Someone at this inner-city public school, also known as Uprep, is cheating.
The state Department of Education has just concluded for the second year in a row that one or more adults interfered with state-required testing at the school. This spring, state investigators seized copies of 2005 tests being illegally used to prepare students for the 2007 exams.
State rules require that test booklets be turned in at the conclusion of testing each year because many exam questions remain the same. At Uprep, someone photocopied the 2005 test books and kept them.
“That’s a fairly significant security breach,” said Deb Sigman, testing director for the state Department of Education. “California statute specifically prohibits any preparation that is specific to this test.”
Last year, investigators found that someone changed hundreds of test answers from wrong to right before they were sent to the state.
In a rare move clamping down on a charter school’s autonomy, the state is ordering the Oakland school district to take over Uprep’s testing, Sigman said.