Animo Leadership Charter High School

“Cheating on state tests found at two Los Angeles schools.” Los Angeles Times (CA), 9/5/2011

The state has thrown out the test scores of a top-performing Los Angeles school and of the highest-scoring campus in the nationally known Green Dot charter group after cheating was uncovered involving several teachers.

Short Avenue Elementary in Del Rey and Animo Leadership Charter High School in Inglewood were barred from receiving academic rankings released last week by the California Department of Education. That action deprived the schools of the state rating that has become the key figure used by parents and officials to judge campuses in California.

At Short, three teachers are accused of changing answers or coaching students to the correct answers or both. At Animo Leadership, a science teacher is accused of fixing wrong answers...

Locally, at six charter schools operated by Crescendo, principals were ordered last year to require teachers to review the state tests in advance and then use that material to prepare students. L.A. Unified recently closed those schools in the aftermath of the scandal...

At Animo Leadership, students alerted adults of possible cheating.

When students received their booklets to resume testing, at least two 11th-graders noticed that their answers to the physics test appeared to have been changed since the previous day, said Marco Petruzzi, Green Dot's chief executive...

State records indicate that a staff member is suspected of "accessing 11th-grade answer documents and altering answers" on the physics exam, said John Boivin, administrator for the testing office at the California Department of Education. As many as 148 students out of 604 could have been affected...