Serverna Park High School Cheating Scandal

Yesterday I noted a story out of Anne Arundel County Maryland featured in the Baltimore Sun about Severna Park High School, one of the top schools in the state and nation, and the cheating that appears to be plaguing the school. Today, the Sun is reporting that the College Board blames the school for the AP exam cheaing that was mentioned prominently:

The College Board chided an acclaimed Anne Arundel County high school yesterday for lax test monitoring that students say permitted cheating on the Advanced Placement U.S. history exam.

The AP program's parent company said an inexperienced proctor failed to follow rules banning cell phones and talking in the May 11 incident, which some top-ranked students at Severna Park High School have said is only the latest example of rampant cheating that has gone unchecked.

Such serious proctoring mistakes happen once or twice a year out of the more than 2.5 million AP tests administered nationwide, said the College Board, which also found "inappropriate behavior" among some of the students.

It and school officials, however, carefully steered clear of using the word "cheating."

Three unidentified girls will not be allowed to retake the test but can keep their history class grades, the school system said yesterday. The other 42 students in the "compromised" classroom must take the test again tomorrow.

If the reports about what happened in teh AP, detailed in this Sun article from yesterday, are even remotely true, the cheating is the right word.

These three young (I hate to use the word "ladies") women are be barred from taking the exam and I would hope that their registration fees are retained by the College Board.

School officials, including the Superintendent and the school's principal are being quite circumspect, but now that the story is out, it is going to be hard for these two men and many other adults at Severna Park to keep their jobs--and rightfully so.