How the Herald-Leader investigated three years of cheating on tests in KY schools
For nearly a decade, Herald-Leader education reporter Valarie Honeycutt Spears has been reviewing violations by students and teachers on state-mandated tests for K-12 public school students across Kentucky.
In 2023, she began filing requests for data under the Kentucky Open Records Act. She received and analyzed copies of the testing violations for 2022 that revealed numerous glaring incidents of cheating described in letters from the state education commissioner at the time to superintendents.
Honeycutt Spears obtained other testing violations through public records requests, and the pattern of violations continued in 2023 and 2024.
Honeycutt Spears reviewed 1,249 allegations of testing violations for 2022-2024. Of those allegations, 1,201 were ruled to be valid violations, and 157 were incidents of cheating.
The Kentucky Department of Education quickly responded to three major Open Records Requests for testing violation letters and several follow-up requests for documents. Most superintendents and school district spokespersons across the state, including Jefferson County’s Mark Hebert and Fayette County’s Dia Davidson-Smith, who left the district June 30, responded to questions about the violations.
Honeycutt Spears exchanged several emails with Kentucky Department of Education staff about the process of determining testing violations.
In the past, the education commissioner appointed members to the Testing Board of Review representing various divisions within the state Department of Education or agencies outside the state education department.
The Testing Board of Review made a recommendation to the state education commissioner as to what should be done about each allegation.
Because of a regulation that was amended in December 2024, the Testing Board of Review no longer reviews these allegations. An investigator makes recommendations instead of the Testing Board of Review.
State officials decide which violations result in training for staff or invalidating scores by deciding whether there was intent and whether the integrity of the test was compromised.
A student’s academic record isn’t affected by the state’s decision. Students retain their scores, but the school receives a zero for that student for accountability purposes.
“Once again, the Herald-Leader is leveraging Kentucky’s Open Records Act to obtain key public documents that examine how efficient our government and state agencies are working,” said Richard Green, the news organization’s executive editor. “It’s a public service we know our readers and subscribers expect of us.
“In this case, Valarie’s astute analysis reveals not only examples of students cheating, but also their teachers. It’s an illuminating examination of a rising problem in Kentucky. We hope this investigative package will shed light on the issue and result in positive, sustainable change.”
This story was originally published July 16, 2025 at 5:00 AM.