Philadelphia’s school cheating scandal

Guests: Kristen Graham, Dale Mezzacappa and Andrew Porter

When five Philadelphia public school educators were criminally charged with crimes connected to tampering with school tests, the School District of Philadelphia joined the growing list of school systems around the country dealing with similar scandals. The local case involves a former principal and four teachers working at Cayuga Elementary who over a period of four years changed and gave students answers to the Commonwealth’s standardized tests and also encouraged teachers to review the tests before they were administered. Local education writers KRISTEN GRAHAM of the Philadelphia Inquirer and DALE MEZZACAPPA of the Philadelphia Public School Notebook, have been reporting on the case. They join us to explain it along with ANDREW PORTER, Dean of the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania whose research focuses on student assessment.