In a stunning new cheating scandal, a student has been forced out of the city’s top public school — Stuyvesant High — over allegations he used a cell phone to give test answers to more than 50 other students.

The new security measures were developed in response to the NY college-test cheating scandal where college students took the ACT and SAT for high school students.

The Hong Kong-born owners of the N&Y Professional Service Line school in Brooklyn are charged with fraud for what prosecutors say was getting commercial driver’s licenses for people without the necessary skills.

A teacher and principal confessed to “unintentionally violating testing protocol.” Those who rescored the tests discovered that 44% had been given scores that were too high.

Clearly, the SAT scandal continues to make waves. In New York, legislators will have the opportunity to vote whether cheating on educational tests is a felony offense.

As one clinical psychologist said, “These exams, as research instruments, are priceless! They cannot be replaced!” Clinical psychologists have done their best to safeguard the security of these exams, but pressures from website operators and lawyers seeking disclosure of questions has taken a toll.

“We launched Identica to enhance the security of our exams, which are widely used for immigration and citizenship, higher education and business, and need the highest levels of integrity,” Sarah Corcoran, Director at Cambridge Assessment stated.

-The recent SAT scandal suggests that facial recognition may have been used to prevent or at least verify instances of exam fraud. The NY DA and senators have raised the issue as one that ETS and the College Board should consider.
-Such technologies require investment, but maybe the time is ripe for the testing industry to be using these technologies.

New York State has decided to conduct a review of test security and cheating resolution procedures used by the State Education Department. This sounds very much like a Test Security Audit that, we, at Caveon routinely conduct. This is a good step and should improve exam security.