Officials also repeatedly raised questions Monday about the state's report, saying they have "many concerns" about the data analysis done by vendor Data Recognition Corp. (DRC).
Though saying DRC had been a good partner for years, Daniel Piotrowski, the district's executive director of accountability and assessment, said the company did not look at long-term trends and did not typically do this type of analysis. He said DRC's examination of erasures was flawed, focusing too narrowly on wrong-to-right answer changes.
Still, deputy chief of accountability and educational technology Fran Newberg said, "We recognize the gravity of these potential allegations. And we want to pursue any cheating. We want to deal with it seriously. We want sanctions."
If the allegations are true, she said, "people can lose jobs and should lose jobs."
Beginning this school year, the district will revise its program for monitoring state exams, Newberg said. Under the current system, monitors trained by the state show up unannounced at schools to observe how exams are given.
"We feel proud of that system," Newberg said, "but we feel that that's not enough."
Under a tiered monitoring plan, schools with suspected testing irregularities may be prevented from opening testing materials themselves; there, central office staff would control testing materials, locking them up at the end of each day.
"The idea that we're policing ourselves - that doesn't go over well, as all of you know," Newberg said. "We want some outsiders to participate in this investigation."
As The Inquirer reported in May, multiple teachers at Roosevelt Middle School in East Germantown said they witnessed many test security breaches, and they attributed a remarkable two-year increase in state test scores to cheating.
