HIGHER TEST SCORES JUST PROVE CHEATING.

Byline: Alan Bonsteel

ON Monday the California Department of Education will release the results of the third annual Stanford 9/STAR series of tests of California public school students in second through 11th grade.

These tests tell us virtually nothing about how our children are doing in school, because cheating is rampant.

The department violated rule No. 1 of meaningful test giving: Make sure the test is secure and that test takers don't know the questions in advance. Every question on this year's Stanford 9 test has been repeated from the previous two years. Old copies of the test are easily available, having passed through the hands of about 250,000 teachers.

Some school districts have purchased versions of the Stanford 9 test used in other states - which are virtually identical to California's - and give them as practice tests, allowing the students to see the questions and discuss the correct answers with their teachers before the ``real'' test.

Further, the Stanford 9 is an off-the-shelf nationally ``normed'' test, and no one claims that it is in alignment with California's official curriculum.

The STAR ``augmentation'' of the Stanford 9 is intended to be more aligned with California's curriculum, but that alignment is far from perfect. Even on the STAR test, much of the material has nothing to do with what is supposed to be taught in our classrooms.

And while, for the first time, 25 percent of the questions on the STAR are new ones rotated into the test, that means that 75 percent of the STAR questions are recycled ones, available to anyone who asks around for old copies of the test.

The full results of the Stanford 9/STAR test have been delayed yet again this year. We're supposed to know how individual schools are doing compared with other schools serving families of the same socioeconomic status - the similar-schools rankings. This year, however, two-thirds of all districts turned in test papers without the demographic data properly completed. Thus, we'll know the raw scores in mid-July, but we won't know the similar-schools rankings until September.

When they do come out, they won't be any more meaningful than the raw scores. Not only will cheating be just as much an issue, but in some districts the demographic data are filled in by young children, making the whole exercise a joke.

Further, the California Department of Education's claims about the numbers of eligible students taking the test are phony. They are based on the claims of individual districts, which are not audited. For example, the Contra Costa Times last year discovered that while Contra Costa County districts claimed 95 percent participation by eligible students, the real participation level in that county was only 85 percent.

California's test scores in previous years have started low in the earlier grades and then fallen off a cliff as students approached graduation in the higher grades. Perhaps the reason for this is that the only test teachers have to take for certification in California, the CBEST, is easier than the Stanford 9/STAR series. The CBEST is being challenged in court this year - yet again - by public school teachers who claim that it is discriminatory, and for the first time, the state of California, via its attorneys arguing the case, publicly acknowledged that the CBEST is an ``eighth- to 10th-grade level examination.''

The Stanford 9/STAR test is exactly what one would expect from a public education establishment that wanted test scores to go up every year, regardless of true student-achievement levels. It is an embarrassment to the people of California and an indictment of a public school monopoly that will do anything to avoid accountability for its failure to educate our children.