Probe of Charter School Tests Is Inconclusive

PACOIMA — Los Angeles Unified School District officials have completed their investigation of alleged cheating at a nationally acclaimed charter school but said Wednesday their inquiry failed to produce any definitive conclusions.

More erasures appeared on the tests taken by first-graders at the Vaughn Next Century Learning Center than on the tests taken by their counterparts at a nearby charter school, but what prompted the changes could not be determined, officials said.

“Because there were more erasures doesn’t mean there was something nefarious,” said Joe Rao, the school district’s administrative coordinator for charter schools. “There’s nothing you can hang your hat on to say what it means. There’s no conclusion and that’s the bottom line.”

District officials launched their review in late August after receiving an anonymous tip alleging irregularities on standardized tests taken last spring at Vaughn.

In October, after completing the first leg of their investigation, the officials exonerated a fourth-grade class of any wrongdoing on the Stanford Nine test. But the second half of their probe, revealed Wednesday, proved to be “inconclusive” on the question of whether cheating occurred among first-graders on the Spanish-language Aprenda test.

Officials compared test results from three first-grade classes at Vaughn with four first-grade classes at nearby Fenton Avenue Charter School. Each of the Vaughn classes showed a higher percentage of changed answers, though not all were changed to the correct response.

No Vaughn students or teachers were interviewed during the district’s four-month investigation, in which only Principal Yvonne Chan and her testing coordinator were questioned. Rao said the review took so long to finish because the analysis of the test was time-consuming for the small staff that handled the project.

Rao said the high number of erasures meant that “something was different. Maybe test directions or test guidelines weren’t followed exactly.”

He said he was satisfied with an internal investigation that Chan completed in October, which concluded that no teacher had changed answers to boost results. Chan’s inquiry, however, led to a written reprimand for an unidentified third-grade teacher for offering encouraging remarks such as “Do you remember the formula?” on the Aprenda test, in violation of standard testing practices.

On Wednesday, Chan said the results of the district investigation vindicated her school.

“This . . . verified our belief right from the start that there was no cheating and that our kids do approach a testing situation pretty intelligently,” she said. “It really brought us closer as a faculty. Yes, it’s frustrating, but the beauty is that it propelled us to have our own testing system now.”

After the district launched its investigation, Chan decided to introduce a separate standardized test--the Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills--to her school each fall and spring to chart its own students’ progress. The test was given in November and will be repeated in May.

Students also will take the same standardized tests administered throughout the district each spring, to serve as a basis of comparison with other schools, Chan said.

Rao said he suggested that Vaughn review its testing procedures and guidelines, stressing the importance of following them closely. He said the district has no plans to conduct further investigations.

“This is the end,” he said. “We’re going to let it die.”