Posted on 04/21/2009 7:16:40 AM PDT by Born Conservative
A 10-year-old Westmoreland County boy "playing school" cracked the tight security surrounding Pennsylvania's standardized assessment tests by obtaining the codes to place an online order for a box of the closely guarded exams.
State Education Department officials were shocked by the events involving the student, a fifth-grader at Bovard Elementary School in the Hempfield Area School District.
"We've never had a security breach of that nature," Education Department spokeswoman Leah Harris said. "Only the school district's test coordinator can order tests. It's a very secure system."
But Rebecca Costello, director of pupil services at Hempfield, confirmed the student simply faxed an order from his home for the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment tests, commonly known as the PSSAs.
Costello said the Hempfield boy sent the order to Data Recognition Corp. of Maple Grove, Minn., the company that produces the exams for Pennsylvania, Ohio and several other states.
The youngster began by completing an order form on the Education Department Web site where he found two codes needed to complete the transaction. He listed his home address, the name of his school and his teacher's name on the paperwork, Costello said.
The box of tests was sent to the school district's warehouse.
Costello said the student did not intend to cheat on the tests, which were administered at Bovard in March.
"He purposely requested the tests to come on the last day (of testing) because he didn't want to see the test before he took it," Costello said. "He wants to be a teacher. He wanted to play school.
(Excerpt) Read more at pittsburghlive.com ...
Ping
Obviously.................
This kid wanted to play school. Excellent. We have a man in the White House who wants to play president.
I am impressed that this fifth grader managed to manuver this "very secure system." I just hope his parents are able to channel his talents appropriately. I'd hate to see him end up as one of those lame geeks who think it's "cool" to spend their time developing computer viruses instead of having an actual life.
quick! put the kid on ritalin. he thinks independently and is therefore a danger to the zero in chief.
“...Costello said the student did not intend to cheat on the tests...”
Let’s see...he “cheated” the system to get the tests, but he didn’t intend to cheat. Interesting observation.
That's their story and they're sticking to it. The administrators apparently have a problem with reality.
Guess this is a good enough reason for Home Schooling?
Give that boy an “A”! Then hire him for cracking codes in the government.
Many school administrators and teachers are out of touch with reality...
Out of curriosity I checked online for the test psychologist use to determine what kind of mental illness you have. The so called secure system is just making the cost of the material prohibitlvy expensive for anyone outside of a hospital or univeristy to purchase. I am willing to bet this is how most of these testing centers opperate.
My guess, as a security expert, would be that the adults made themselves a system without an actual security expert’s advice, and thus made a system that they couldn’t break, and assumed that if they can’t break it, no one can. It probably seemed difficult to them to get through the order process. However, the child, who no doubt is far more computer- and technically-savvy than they are, found it trivial to overcome what is apparently “security through obscurity”, and placed the order.
These administrators are probably the same people who had to ask the child in the house to program the VCR.
Apparently not.
The PSSA is not a psych test; it’s a standardized test given to all students in PA (including Special Ed) to comply with No Child Left Behind. There’s no reason for anyone other than schools to have this test.
ping
I am no security expert but this does not sound like a hack to me.
First the codes needed to order the test are available to be found on the Ed Dept’s website.
Next he used his teacher’s name not the test coordinator’s name who is supposedly the only person eligible to order the test.
Too me this sounds like simple laziness and incompetence on the part of the Ed Dept (the codes should have been emailed or snail mailed to the approved persons) and failure to follow procedure on the part of the testing company (they did not check the teacher’s name against the approved list of eligible persons).
The kid just managed to exploit these weaknesses buy simply surfing the net and filling in forms.
As secure as the CIA “torture” documents.
Only because no one ever tried or you simply never discovered the security breach.
On the other hand who would want the test in the first place. This is a fifth grade test not SAT or GED.
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