photo by: Scott Rothschild

KU Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little; Neal Kingston, director of KU's Center for Educational Testing and Evaluation; and Rick Ginsberg, dean of KU's School of Education, are shown in this October 2010 file photo at the State Board of Education in Topeka.

The Associated Press this past weekend (seen here in USA Today) broke down a pretty big cheating scandal that unfolded over the course of 15 years in the South, involving the tests that prospective public-school teachers take to qualify for their jobs. Prosecutors say a longtime teacher made himself tens of thousands of dollars from teachers (one of whom, allegedly, was a former NFL wide receiver) who paid him to send a ringer to take their qualifying exams for them.

For the story, the AP pretty extensively quoted (and pictured) KU testing guru Neal Kingston. Kingston is the director of the KU Center for Educational Testing and Evaluation, and he leads a $22 million project that sprang from what is now the second-largest grant in KU history (now ranking behind this one) that aims to produce new testing systems for elementary and secondary-school students.

Kingston told the AP that cheating on tests — among college students or people trying to qualify for jobs or licenses — is on the rise in general, perhaps helped by technology that allows ever-more ways to cheat.

“People often don’t see it as something wrong,” Kingston said.

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