This Company Is Creeping Social Media For Cheating Students

​Does tweeting about a test question after the fact count as cheating? And even if it does, is lurking on students' pages to stop it a judicious move or just plain creepy?

These are questions being asked by parents, students, and educators after textbook publisher and testing company Pearson was caught monitoring students' online activity. It was revea​led last week that the company has been creeping on students' social media accounts to look for evidence of cheating.

Pearson was contracted by 12 states to administer a new standardized test called the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC). It was given to students for the first time this school year.

But according to a leaked email, after one New Jersey school district had administered the test earlier this month, local superintendent Elizabeth Jewett sent out an email to other superintendents indicating the state's Department of Education (DOE) had contacted her with a "Priority 1 Alert."

Apparently, after taking the PARCC test, one student had tweeted something related to a question, and Pearson had notified the DOE, according to Jewett's email. The DOE then contacted Jewett and asked her to discipline the student.

"The student deleted the tweet and we spoke with the parent—who was obviously highly concerned as to her child's tweets being monitored by the DOE," Jewett wrote. "The DOE informed us that Pearson is monitoring all social media during the PARCC testing."

Bob Braun, a retired journalist, published the le​aked email on his blog, prompting both Je​wett and Pearson to publicly confirm what had happened. In a pub​lished response, Pearson said it monitors online activity to make sure nothing is shared that could "jeopardize the integrity of the tests and call into question the validity and accuracy of students' results."

The response states that Pearson "absolutely" does not spy on students, but then continues to explain that it "is contractually required by states to monitor public conversations on social media to ensure that no assessment information (text, photos, etc.) that is secure and not public is improperly disclosed."

If it notices what it calls a "breach of test security," Pearson says it notifies the state education department where the leak has occurred and they work together to decide how to proceed.

On the one hand, it's understandable that Pearson wouldn't want its tests shared online. It makes money by developing and administering this test. If a student were to, say, take photos of half of the pages and tweet them out, it would cause a lot of headaches. But is creeping on students' Twitter profiles really the best way to curb cheating?

"No one should be cheating. We condemn cheating," said Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers union. "But to what length should a private company or a state Department of Education go? This is going to a length that trumps the needs and interests of children in favor of a private corporation. At what point does someone sanely say, 'what are you doing?'"

Weingarten and the AFT have come out strongly against Pearson's actions, and started an online peti​tion that demands Pearson end its monitoring tactics. Weingarten said they've already gathered more than 10,000 signatures.

AFT and Pearson were embroiled in a si​milar battle last year when the testing company helped design and administer a standardized test in New York State. Part of Pearson's contract stipulated that educators could not talk publicly about the content of the test, a provision AFT dubbed a "gag order," that limited important feedback and discourse.

But teachers themselves have been on the other side of this debate in the past—and some educators have gone to extreme lengths to supervise students' behavior online. One school district in Pennsylvania paid a high school j​unior $175,000 in 2010 after it was sued for remotely accessing students' school-loaned laptops when they were working off school property. In 2012, a principal in Missouri resigned from her post after she was accused of making a fake Faceboo​k profile in order to friend and spy on students and parents.

When students are using the technology at hand for both good an​d bad, it's tempting for teachers to want to use it to keep kids in line. But Weingarten argues the benefits are not worth the costs.

"The State of New Jersey asked a superintendent to discipline a child who had a tweet that referenced something on a test," she said. "If that's not Big Brother, what is?"