In the course of reporting Wednesday on the allegations of test tampering in the D.C. schools, I discovered a study commissioned by the school system that they apparently have never released. It may be unrelated to the greater issue of whether educators changed wrong answers to right ones to make their schools look good, but I thought I ought to report it even though it did not fit in my piece about Adell Cothorne.
D.C. schools spokeswoman Melissa Salmanowitz said D.C. leaders asked Caveon Test Security to interview educators at certain schools in 2011 about testing procedures on the DC-CAS annual test in 2010. Caveon had done an investigation of 2009 testing, some of which the school system revealed. But this 2010 testing study appears to have remained hidden and, according to Salmanowitz, will remain that way.
She told me about the study because she is trying to discredit Cothorne’s account, a version of events Cothorne has told PBS, a federal court and me. Cothorne has said that she found signs of test tampering at the Noyes Educational Campus when she was principal there from 2010 to 2011. Cothorne does not appear to remember a visit by Caveon to Noyes that Salmanowitz said took place on March 17, 2011, when she was asked about test security in 2010.