N.Y. test-cheat scandal snares more students
GREAT NECK, N.Y. - At least 20 current or former high school students from an affluent New York suburb of high achievers have been charged in a widening college-entrance-exam cheating scandal that has raised questions not only about test security but also about the pressures to score well.
GREAT NECK, N.Y. - At least 20 current or former high school students from an affluent New York suburb of high achievers have been charged in a widening college-entrance-exam cheating scandal that has raised questions not only about test security but also about the pressures to score well.
Thirteen students from the Great Neck area, a cluster of Long Island communities with top-ranked schools that send virtually all their graduates to college, were implicated in the latest round of charges, filed Tuesday. Seven others were arrested in September.
Prosecutors said 15 high school students hired five other people for anywhere from $500 to $3,600 each to take the SAT or ACT for them. The impostors - all college students who had attended Great Neck-area public and private high schools - fooled test administrators by showing up for the exams with phony ID.
"This is a system begging for security enhancements," Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice said.
Prosecutors actually suspect that 40 students were involved in the cheating, but the two-year statute of limitation had expired for the others, Rice said.
All the defendants except three, who were awaiting arraignment, pleaded not guilty.
The scandal prompted New York state lawmakers to convene a hearing on test security, and a firm run by former FBI Director Louis Freeh was retained by exam administrators to review procedures.
The students who hired ringers registered to take the exam at different high schools from those they attended so their teachers wouldn't realize what was going on.
Among the new defendants, those accused of taking the test for money are Joshua Chefec, 20; Adam Justin, 19; Michael Pomerantz, 18; and George Trane, 19. Chefec goes to Tulane University. Justin attends Indiana University, and Trane is at Stony Brook University. Prosecutors did not immediately know where Pomerantz is a student.
Chefec, Justin, and Trane surrendered Tuesday and were charged with scheming to defraud, falsifying business records, and criminal impersonation. They each face up to four years in prison if convicted. Pomerantz is expected to turn himself in next week.
The students accused of hiring others to take the exam are not being identified because they are being prosecuted as juveniles. They were charged with misdemeanors.