AUSTIN (CBSDFW.COM/AP) – The Texas Education Agency has no plans to investigate suspicious test scores in Houston, Dallas and other state school districts that point to the possibility of cheating.
And the agency is questioning the methodology of a new report that indicated suspect scores.
Agency spokeswoman Debbie Ratcliffe said Monday that authorities had contacted districts that were implicated to ensure they were analyzing necessary data and talking to school principals.
But she said uncovering wrongdoing is up to individual districts.
There have been several allegations of cheating on standardized tests at Dallas ISD schools during the past few years. Some of the accusations have involved faculty and staff members.
The Atlanta Journal Constitution published Sunday an analysis of test results for 70,000 public schools and found that standardized test scores in hundreds of systems nationwide exhibited suspicious patterns.
Ratcliffe questioned its methodology since the newspaper tracked scores by school, not by student. She said that could affect results by 20 percent.
(Copyright 2012 by CBS Local. The Associated Press contributed to this report. All Rights Reserved.)
