Department of Education January 17, 2012 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

In light of recent, high-profile reports of misconduct by school officials in the test administration process, the U.S. Department of Education (``the Department'' or ``we'') is seeking to collect and share information about best practices that have been used to prevent, detect, and respond to irregularities in academic testing. To that end, the Department is taking several steps, described below, to collect information and gather suggestions to assist State educational agencies (SEAs), local educational agencies (LEAs), and the testing-integrity-focused organizations that service them. The Department anticipates making use of this information to facilitate further dialogue and to help SEAs and LEAs identify, share, and implement best practices for preventing, detecting, and investigating irregularities in academic testing. First, the Department is issuing this request for information (RFI) to collect information about the integrity of academic testing. We pose a series of questions to which we invite interested members of the public to respond. Second, the Department will host a symposium where external experts can engage in further discussion and probe these issues in greater depth. Third, the Department will publish a document that contains a summary of the recommendations that were developed as a result of the RFI and the symposium, as well as other resources identified by external experts participating in the symposium.