Pearson isn’t alone in monitoring students’ social media. Â Smarter Balanced does it as well.
According to the Daily Herald:
Luci Willits, deputy executive director of Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, said her group uses student workers to do hashtag searches online to see if anyone is posting the test itself. Last year, when 4 million students took a trial run version of that test, she said about 75 breaches were discovered.
Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium is giving Common Core-measuring exams in 18 states this spring.
“Copyright and test security are not new issues in testing. What’s different is the social media aspect,” Willits said. “You wouldn’t approve of a student taking copies of the test and handing it out to friends or posting it on the locker.”
It should be noted that tweets can be searched for keywords and hashtags if a student’s Twitter account is open for the public to see. Â Also unlike Pearson it appears that Smarter Balanced is just looking for students who tweet the test. Â What isn’t clear is what Smarter Balanced does when they find a breach.
Executive director Willits said. “You wouldn’t approve of a student taking copies of the test and handing it out to friends or posting it on the locker.” The problem with this comparison is that such an action would spark an in school investigation that would be handled by THE SCHOOL or at most by the district. Smarter Balance is an outside private business that has NO business looking at our children. The comparison is invalid.