MADERA – Cheating on a test in elementary school is something you might expect from a student. When it is done by a sixth-grade teacher on their entire classroom’s state-testing, well then there is a much bigger problem. This is the situation that district officials are now dealing with at Madera Unified. In mid-May of this last school year a sixth-grade teacher was removed from his classroom and placed on paid administrative leave pending a state and district investigation.
During the English components of the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress testing, an investigation was conducted by the district’s Human Resource Director Kent Albertson and the school’s principal to determine if the teacher in question violated the state’s mandatory instructions regarding prompting or correcting students during the testing process.
Before the mathematics component could start, district administrators questioned students from the teacher’s class. What they found was that if students needed help during the test, they were told to stand by their desk and the teacher would come to them and help the student. According to the rules of the test the only students eligible for assistance during the test are special needs students with an IEP or 504 plan. Ironically the reason this teacher was caught was because of a special needs student’s complaints that the teacher helped all the other students except him.
According to a few teachers BVN spoke with, this teacher was on the district’s radar for having unusually high test results compared to his fellow teachers for several prior years. As part of this year’s investigation, the district compared previous year’s student test results after their sixth-grade experience with this teacher and found the students were struggling during seventh and eighth grade testing, even though they performed above average during sixth-grade year.
The principal of the school informed this teacher he was being placed on administrative leave pending an investigation. According to witnesses and in front of his own students, the teacher yelled at the principal “This is bull***t!” The teacher was removed from the school site around the 18th of May and did not return to the campus for the remainder of the school year.
Madera Unified Superintendent Todd Lile would not comment on the investigation stating it was a personnel matter. However when we asked if there was a sixth grade class within the district that had its English components of the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress results nullified, he said he could confirm that was true.
A phone call by BVN was made to this teacher’s Fresno residence where he was given a chance to tell his side of the story. He told Big Valley News that he has had enough of all this and wants to put this issue behind him. When we asked him if he was still employed by Madera Unified he said “yes” and still assigned to the same school he has been teaching at for several years.
Big Valley News has decided to not release the name of the teacher nor the school where the cheating occured believing that there is still an ongoing investigation. Also we have learned that the state would more than likely also be conducting an investigation into this incident of cheating and there may be a review of this teachers credential.
We will keep you updated on this story as it progresses.
