Education

D.C. to Review Test Scores

After evidence of widespread fraud.

The D.C. Board of Education will hold hearings next week to review a report in USA Today that standardized tests in the district show high rates of “erasure”—evidence, some say, that teachers were changing answers from wrong to right after students handed them in. The revelation is a black eye for former school chancellor Michelle Rhee, a high-profile school reformer who touted improved test scores despite losing her job in 2010 when D.C. elected a new mayor. Rhee said the USA Today report “absolutely lacked credibility” and said, “It isn't surprising that the enemies of school reform once again are trying to argue that the Earth is flat and that there is no way test scores could have improved ... unless someone cheated."