Guest Opinion | PUSD’s Investigation Responding to Roosevelt Whistle-blowers Covers Up Cheating Rather than Uncovering It – Part 2

When Juan Ruelas was its principal in 2011, Roosevelt Elementary School lost its Blue Ribbon School nomination because it was caught cheating on student testing. Pasadena Unified School District Superintendent Brian McDonald justified ignoring the Madison Elementary School community by appointing Ruelas as Madison’s Principal because of Ruelas’ supposed solid educational accomplished in improving Roosevelt test scores. With continuing resistance to Ruelas’ appointment as Madison’s Principal, the question lingers as to whether the 2011 investigation – which was prompted by anonymous whistle-blowers – was a good faith PUSD investigation that uncovered all of the cheating. Or was the investigation intended to cover-up all but a tiny fraction of the cheating?

In Part 1 of this series, we discussed the indirect evidence that the Roosevelt cheating investigation was a cover-up rather than an investigation intended to uncover all cheating because: (1) The unexplained disappearance of the Roosevelt investigation records warrants concluding that they have disappeared because they would reveal that the investigation was a cover-up. (2) The Sierra Madre Elementary School cheating investigation reveals a pattern of investigations designed to cover up cheating, not to uncover it, because it occurred at the same time, because it was overseen by the same administrators, because records survive of it, and because the surviving records show that it was designed to cover-up more widespread cheating than PUSD admitted occurred.

We promised that a Roosevelt whistle-blower would surface at last Thursday nights’ PUSD Board meeting and that in this part-2 we would discuss the implications of direct evidence of Roosevelt cheating that has not been admitted to by PUSD.

Whistle-blower Mary Hanson’s observation of 2010 cheating

Mary Hanson is a former Roosevelt teacher whose sworn testimony was presented at Thursday’s PUSD Board meeting. Hanson acknowledged that she was one of the Roosevelt teachers who sent anonymous emails blowing the whistle on Roosevelt’s cheating on tests – one to the PUSD Board in May, 2011, another to the California Department of Education in August, 2011, and a third to the CDE again in January 2012. Their whistle-blowing caused the 2011 investigation that ultimately admitted there were test irregularities concerning three second-grade students during Roosevelt’s 2011 STAR testing.

Hanson’s sworn testimony about Roosevelt cheating was 2010 cheating, not the 2011 testing concerning which PUSD admits there was some cheating. Hanson’s declaration indicates that she directly observed a Roosevelt employee in May 2010 changing answers on test booklets. Her testimony also provides indirect evidence of two kinds of 2010 Roosevelt cheating: (1) One of her students who was taken out of her class in May 2010 for testing by Roosevelt’s testing coordinator obtained such a high score that she believes it could only be because of cheating. (2) Most of the Roosevelt teachers who discussed cheating with her in 2010 already knew or believed that Roosevelt’s testing administration involved cheating.

Hanson’s testimony about 2010 Roosevelt cheating during Ruelas’ first year as Roosevelt principal is consistent with both statistical evidence suggesting unadmitted 2010 cheating and opportunities for unadmitted 2010 cheating.

As reflected by the graph, Roosevelt’s API test scores jumped dramatically during Ruelas’ first Roosevelt year in 2010 – from an average of 796 to 831. Such sharp jumps often indicate test cheating and warrant further investigation by erasure detection testing to ascertain whether the changes from wrong-to-right answers significantly exceed the norm. See U.S. Department of Education’s 2013 “Testing Integrity Symposium: Issues and Recommendations for Best Practice,” pp. 9-10. But 2010 was the middle of the 3-year CDE suspension of erasure detection testing, so the opportunity for cheating by simply erasing and changing test booklets such as Hanson observed was available to be exploited by any administrator who knew there would be no erasure detection testing.

Library Coordinator Kyurklyan’s observation of 2011 cheating

Hakop Kyurklyan was a Library Coordinator at Roosevelt during the May 2011 testing who read his sworn testimony to the PUSD Board Thursday night. Kyurklyan testified that Ruelas pressed him into proctoring a 2nd grade class where he directly observed the teacher coaching students – the teacher was both walking around the classroom during testing pointing to test questions and doing the same thing when students attempted to turn in test booklets. Kyurklyan’s testimony is that he discussed that coaching with the teacher herself, with several other teachers, and with Ruelas.

Kyurklyan testifies he was interviewed by a private investigator hired by PUSD and that he told the private investigator about what he observed. Kyrurklyan’s observations alone indicate that Roosevelt’s 2011 cheating involved significantly more than the three 2nd grade students in a single classroom admitted to by PUSD. Kyruklyan’s declaration indicates that 2nd grade teacher Patricia Pinto and probably others were also interviewed; Pinto was subsequently paid more than $57,000 in hush money. As we pointed out in Part-1, erasure detection testing should have been but was not used on tests in a class at Sierre Madre Elementary School in 2011 where there were indications of more cheating than PUSD admitted. The 2011 Roosevelt investigation records have been lost, destroyed, or stolen, but, since the same administrators were over both the 2011 Sierra Madre and 2011 Roosevelt investigations, it is probable that PUSD did no erasure detection testing at Roosevelt, just as it did none at Sierra Madre.

More statistical evidence: the 2011 3rd grade class test scores

After the Hanson and Kyurklyan declarations were read Thursday night, Skip Hickambottom discussed with the PUSD Board the following chart which tracks the regression of scores with the 2011 Roosevelt 3rd grade class.

Hickambottom made the point that the statistical data underlying this chart is consistent with substantial cheating with 3rd grade classes in 2011 – i.e., extremely high scores followed by precipitous drops as the class became the 4th and 5th grades. This evidence tends to indicate that there was uninvestigated cheating in 2011. The probable reasons that the high scores could not be repeated in 2012 and 2013 are that (1) Roosevelt got caught cheating in 2011 and had to be more careful beginning in 2012 and (2) the CDE’s reinstituting erasure detection testing in 2012 deterred the teacher-coaching and booklet-alteration cheating testified to by Hanson and Kyurklyan.

Part-3:

How does PUSD enforce silence?

Hanson’s direct observation of uninvestigated 2010 cheating, Kyurklyan’s direct observation of significantly more Roosevelt cheating than just 3 students in 2011, and the 3rd grade regression statistics are strong evidence that Ruelas’ high test scores at Roosevelt were driven by extensive cheating. That evidence adds to the evidence discussed in our previous Part-1 Op-ed.

Most of this information has been readily available and called to the attention of the PUSD Board and administration, but somehow nothing has been done about it? Why? In Part-3 to this series, we will explore how PUSD enforces silence about the corruption from a cover-up-cheating culture.

Skip Hickambottom and Dale Gronemeier are local civil rights attorneys; they represent Madison parents, teachers and community members who are demanding that PUSD reopen the investigation of cheating at Roosevelt during the time Ruelas was Principal. The Hanson and Kyurklyan declarations are available upon request to the attorneys’ assistant Marcela Sanchez at msanchez@dgronemeier.com.