This is good to see as well:

A D.C. government education agency is seeking an outside firm to investigate the city's 2011 standardized test scores.

Officials said the probe will be part of a strengthened set of procedures to ensure the validity of results on the annual D.C. Comprehensive Assessment System. Scores from previous years have come under scrutiny. In May, the District invalidated some 2010 results at three schools after an investigation found evidence of or reasons for a strong suspicion of cheating.

"Testing impropriety is an issue this agency takes very seriously," State Superintendent of Education Hosanna Mahaley said in a statement Friday. "Any violation of security undermines trust and faith in our entire educational system by casting doubt on the positive growth we have begun to see citywide."

The outside firm will review individual classroom results that have been flagged for scrutiny, based on a new set of measures education officials developed to improve test validity, Mahaley spokesman Marc Caposino said Saturday. The measures include monitoring for surprising jumps in performance, unusually uniform classroom performance on tests, and high numbers of answers that have been erased and changed from wrong to right.

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