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NEWS: At school under scrutiny, students offer accounts of cheating

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The test was a joke.

That’s how several graduates of a Bronx high school under investigation for inflating test and graduation rates have characterized a Regents exam they took nearly two years ago.

During the 2010 Algebra 2/Trigonometry Regents exam at the Theatre Arts Production Company School, the students said they were the beneficiaries of a rogue proctor who repeatedly broke rules during the duration of their testing period. The proctor, their teacher during the school year, roamed the room quietly and alerted students to questions they had answered incorrectly. When students asked for help, she responded with individualized attention. Students said they were allowed to talk openly and compare answer sheets.

In at least one case, the proctor even helped a top-performing student cheat when he hadn’t asked for help.

“I handed it in and she handed it right back to me,” the student said. “She told me, ‘These four questions are wrong. You should change them.’”

The exam experience was so well known around the school that it became an inside joke because almost everyone passed and moved onto calculus for their senior years.

“The students joked about it because everyone knew it was going on,” said another student who took the test. “She would pass by, look at our papers, and if we had the wrong answer down, she would point to the right answer and then quickly walk away.”

Eventually the exam became an open secret among students and even other teachers, the students said. It even became fodder on a Facebook group for the school.

The accounts came from four former students of TAPCo who took the test in June 2010. Their perspective provides a snapshot of how cheating can take place inside a classroom when a teacher is alone with his or her students on test day, a circumstance that new state policies created in response to cheating concerns would not prohibit.

Now freshmen in college, the students would only speak for this story if they could remain anonymous in order to maintain a relationship with their old school.

A database of state investigations into cheating that the New York Times published last week, which details test tampering allegations logged at more than 500 schools, seems to support the students’ accounts. According to the database, a case was opened after an erasure analysis found scrubbing “irregularities” on a Algebra 2/Trigonometry Regents exam.

The case was referred by the New York State Education Department to Thomas Fennell, a chief investigator in the city’s Office of the Special Commissioner of Investigation. Fennell in turn referred it to officials at the Department of Education’s Office of Special Investigations where it remains open, the documents show. The students interviewed for this story said they had not spoken with any investigators.

For TAPCo, it’s the latest in a string of alleged academic indiscretions. TAPCo’s administration is also being probed for falsifying student transcripts in an alleged attempt to inflate graduation rates. Two years ago, TAPCo achieved a 94 percent graduation rate and last year earned the city’s highest progress report score. Last week, however, city officials did not give TAPCo a progress report because of “concerns” with the school’s data.

The teacher, Anastasiya Kornyeyeva, remains at the school, but declined to comment for this story.  The school’s principal, Lynn Passarella, did not respond to emails seeking comment.

More than a year after they took the test, the students criticized their former teacher for the help, saying that many of the students should not have been promoted.

“The test was pretty pitiful,” said the top-performing student. “It was pretty unfair overall for the fact that a lot of students didn’t learn the material.”

Another student said that while she liked Kornyeyeva as a person, she disapproved of what the teacher did.

“Ms. Ana is very sweet,” the student said. “She’s a nice person and all, but she shouldn’t have done what she did because it’s not fair to the students.”

Three of the four students said they were now enrolled in remedial math courses in college.

Current and former colleagues praised Kornyeyeva and some said the pressure to cheat came from the administration and an environment where job security and compensation can hinge on test scores. One teacher described Kornyeyeva, who is from Ukraine, as “an extremely, extremely bright mathematician.”

Another teacher at the school who is familiar with the investigation said that teachers shouldn’t be allowed to proctor their own tests because it created an environment ripe for cheating. Another subject, U.S. History and Government, is also under scrutiny and a separate state document that accompanied the database suggests that allegations were leveled against English, global studies, and Spanish scoring as well.

“The system is set up for wrongdoing,” he said.

According to a biography on the school’s website, Kornyeyeva received a master’s degree in mathematics from the National University of Ukraine in Kiev and a master’s in teaching at Hunter College. Before working at TAPCo, Kornyeyeva worked for four years at Martin Van Buren High School in Queens.

Her “personal message” on the page: ”Every student succeeds.”


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