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Philander Smith president denies college involved in cheating

8/18/2000

By United Methodist News Service

The president of United Methodist-related Philander Smith College in Little Rock, Ark., is denying a news report that her school was involved in a test-cheating scheme.

The Associated Press reported Aug. 17 that at least 52 teachers were allowed to cheat on state-required competency exams by paying bribes to the supervisors for extra time and answers. The test, required of teachers in 34 states, was administered by Educational Testing Service (ETS) of New Jersey, a nonprofit national test provider. ETS said it questioned the results of a test given in 1998 and turned the materials over to the FBI in Little Rock.

The FBI had no comment when contacted by United Methodist News Service. A call to the U.S. Attorney's office in Little Rock wasn't returned by deadline.

The test in question, reportedly involving teachers from Mississippi, Georgia, Louisiana, Tennessee and Arkansas, was given in spring 1998 at Philander Smith College. The testing service has since cancelled the scores of those teachers and notified the relevant state education departments, according to a statement issued by ETS on Aug. 15.

College President Trudie Kibbe Reed said the school did not extend the hours of the test or receive any form of compensation for the test services. The college, she declared, is not under investigation and has been approved by ETS for use as a future testing site following a visit to the campus since the initial investigation.

A former college employee is believed to have been involved in the test scheme, she said.
The employee, who is reported to have given the test in question, resigned within six months of Reed taking office in mid-1998 and was gone before the school was notified of the alleged activity, Reed said. The employee resigned for unrelated reasons, she said.

ETS, which also administers the better-known SAT and GRE tests, said that the private, liberal arts college has been a test site for more than 20 years and continues to be one.

"I have been assisting the Educational Testing Service, the U.S. Attorney's Office and the FBI to bring justice to this case and to ensure that all parties involved are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law," Reed said.

Tom Ewing, speaking for ETS, said that, contrary to allegations in the AP story, there is no expectation by ETS that either the testing service or Philander Smith College would be charged. ETS discovered the scheme and turned its investigation over to the FBI when it realized that the agency had jurisdiction, he said. He confirmed Reed's statement that only one college employee was involved.

"Our institution has existed for 123 years to provide a quality education to African-American students," she said in a written statement. "It is a crime when the integrity of our institution is compromised by one person's greed and lack of loyalty to the mission of our campus."

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