Prosecutors across the country are beginning to bring criminal charges in cases where students have been accused of cheating on standardized tests.
The most publicized comes out of New York State. In November 2011, two students turned themselves in after being charged criminally for receiving payments to impersonate other students who were taking the ACT or SAT examinations.
Michael Pomerantz, 18, and an unidentified teenager turned themselves into Nassau County prosecutors before being taken to district court for arraignment. Pomerantz is one of five current or former students at Great Neck-area public and private high schools charged with accepting payments of between $500 and $3,600 to impersonate other students on SAT and ACT college entrance exams.
More recently, hundreds of high school seniors who attend a highly regarded high school in Dallas, Texas are also being accused of cheating. According to the Huffington Post more than 200 students are implicated.
Now, officials at the southeast Houston Clear Creek Independent School District are investigating how around 200 students at Clear Lake High School acquired test answers before the exam in December.
Educators at Clear Lake realized that about a third of the exams had identical answers. As a result, administrators nulled all 600 tests, and offered the students two options: take the test again or have their final grade calculated without a final exam grade.
It is unclear whether any of the Texas students will be facing criminal charges. These cases do, however, raise the question of how similar incidents might be treated under California law.
The short answer is that high-school students who cheat on standardized tests in California could be charged with several crimes, including felonies. The most obvious charge would be for forgery, which is defined in section 470 of the California Penal Code. In addition, prosecutors could bring charges for False Impersonation, which is defined by Penal Code section 529, as follows:
529. Every person who falsely personates another in either his
private or official capacity, and in such assumed character either:
1. Becomes bail or surety for any party in any proceeding
whatever, before any court or officer authorized to take such bail or
surety;
2. Verifies, publishes, acknowledges, or proves, in the name of
another person, ANY written instrument, with intent that the same may be recorded, delivered, or used as true; or,
3. Does any other act whereby, if done by the person falsely
personated, he might, in any event, become liable to any suit or
prosecution, or to pay any sum of money, or to incur any charge,
forfeiture, or penalty, or whereby any benefit might accrue to the
party personating, or to any other person;
Is punishable by a fine not exceeding ten thousand dollars
($10,000), or by imprisonment in the state prison, or in a county
jail not exceeding one year, or by both such fine and imprisonment.
Emphasis added.
There are two aspects of the definition of false impersonation that are especially problematic as they apply to cases of alleged cheating on standardized exams. First, the crime applies to conduct that is private. Thus, the fact that the SAT is created and administered by a private company would appear not to matter. Second, false impersonation is broadly defined to include any written instrument; prosecutors would likely argue that the exam itself is the written instrument. Moreover, any person who was deemed to have benefited from the alleged cheating could be charged with entering a conspiracy to commit false impersonation.
The recent cases in New York and Texas suggest that prosecutors are less likely to view cheating on exams as purely private matters to be settled between the schools and the students. Whether they realize it or not, California students who are caught up in allegations of cheating on exams may be taking legal risks that they and their parents often do not foresee.