That's the kind of response you get. Some school officials say what's happening, at worst, is a bad, shared case of nerves brought on by the high-stakes testing. Spring fever hits, and then you've got high-stakes tests and children get nervous and faculties get uptight. Beginning next year, the test results will determine if a student is promoted. Results released last August showed that show 69.1 percent of elementary and middle school students performed at or above grade level during the 1998-99 school year, compared to 66.3 percent the previous year.
Critics say improvement came at the expense of some outcast students.
John Dornan, director of the Public School Forum of North Carolina, a bipartisan education public policy center, is dubious. But that's different from seizing on it and saying it's a widespread practice. There are rules designed to prevent such cheating. State law requires that students suspended for 10 or fewer days be allowed to take the tests. That means that schools cannot indiscriminately suspend students with bad grades.