| A cheating scheme just uncovered in New York in which a college student took the SAT exam for younger teens — for a fee — is bringing new calls for increased test security and questions about whether cheating is on the rise in the era of high-stakes tests. Six minors and a 19-year-old were arrested in the cheating scandal and prosecutors have said they are looking to see if more people were involved. The SAT cheating scandal comes on the heels of a number of recent episodes in school districts around the country in which teachers and principals have been accused — or suspected — of cheating on high-stakes standardized tests, the most prominent in Atlanta. Are we in a cheating epidemic? There isn’t definitive data to reach that conclusion, though surveys suggest a big percentage of students cheat — and have for a long time. The Center for Academic Integrity at Clemson University has reported that more than 75 percent of college students cheat in some way on school work or exams at least once during their undergraduate careers. The nationwide rate of college students admitting to cheating on tests and exams is 22 percent. Of course, it’s not likely they waited until college to start to cheat. Yet it is worth remembering that people have been cheating on tests since the first tests were given (really, scholars say there was a great deal of cheating on civil service exams in ancient China). What has changed over time are the ways that people come up with to cheat. According to FairTest, or the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, a nonprofit that works to end the misuse of standardized tests, the method used by the students in Great Neck, N.Y., impersonation, appears to be the least of three types of admissions test cheating cases. The most common is “collaboration” (aka copying from someone seated nearby at the test center). Bob Schaeffer, public education director of FairTest, said that more than 2,000 potential cases on the SAT (out of 2.5 million tests administered) are flagged for investigation each year (either as a result of “whistleblower” complaints or large score changes from previous administrations) with about 1,000 sufficiently confirmed for the Educational Testing Service, which scores the SAT for the College Board, to withhold scores. The second broad grouping is “prior pnowledge,” in which a test-taker gets an advance look at questions and/or answers.
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