The Echo

The Miller-McCoy investigation began in the spring of 2010 when several staff members alleged that, just days before students were to take high-stakes tests, school administrators had given teachers math questions or essay topics that were uncannily similar to those that appeared on the state exam days later. Three staff members came in to meet with RSD personnel, while two others provided interviews; all told, nearly 20 percent of the school's teachers raised concerns. The administrators asked teachers to use the questions to prepare students for the exam, according to the RSD report on the matter and interviews with three of the teachers. Most schools receive sealed copies of high-stakes tests at least a couple of days before students take them. State regulations call for the tests to be stored, unopened, in a locked room or cabinet. Tiffany Hardrick, a co-principal at the school, said she has never seen the actual test questions and does not remember where the tests were stored. "At the end of the day, the allegations were not true, and there was nothing to substantiate (them)," she said. No one alleged the kind of wholesale cheating discovered recently in Atlanta, where administrators apparently erased wrong answers and filled in correct ones to improve test scores. Miller-McCoy, which opened in 2008, received a school performance score last fall that included the results from the 2010 testing. At 72.5, the score was about average for RSD charters.