Contact: Marc Caposino, (202) 727-6436, [email protected]

Washington, DC – The OSSE request for proposal to investigate classrooms for test integrity closed Tuesday, February 7, and resulted in multiple bids. OSSE will make a recommendation for vendor selection by Monday, February 13, 2012 to the Office of Contracts and Procurement for final determination.

“We are committed to restoring and improving confidence in our standardized tests security and recognize that teachers and students are working hard on improving test scores. We believe wholeheartedly that the overwhelming majority of school leaders, teachers, and students are playing by the rules,” stated Hosanna Mahaley, State Superintendent of Education.

During the 2011 cycle, Phase One of OSSE’s enhanced test security protocols included, among others, adding seals to the test booklets, doubling the number of schools monitored by OSSE during test administration, and shortening the test booklet pick-up period.

Phase two of the enhanced security protocols was about strengthening and building community understanding and belief in the erasure analysis process, which has been broadly discussed in the local and national media. OSSE consulted with an independent advisory committee of national experts in the area of education assessment who recommended two new methods, bringing the number of analyses to 4 key measures used to test for anomalies in classrooms:

• Unusual student-level gains in achievement from 2010 to 2011
• Wrong-to-right erasure analysis
• Within classroom variances (new)
• Wrong-to-right erasure analysis for 2010 and 2011 (new)

The third and final phase of the enhanced process, as recommended by the national experts, is securing an independent third party to conduct follow-up investigations of the classrooms that were flagged for potential impropriety.

It is important to recognize that the subjects of all investigations are entitled to a fair and impartial process. The mere fact that a classroom has been flagged is not evidence of wrongdoing. At the end of the investigative process, schools with classrooms guilty of impropriety will be disclosed and scores will be invalidated.

This year’s analysis resulted in 35 (0.82%) classrooms being identified for further investigation out of 4,279 classrooms administering the DC CAS.

“The call for total transparency and accuracy demanded that we take the time to bring in an independent agency to put to rest any amount of suspicion regarding our student’s performance,” explained Hosanna Mahaley, State Superintendent of Education.