KY legislator: Why are so many students & teachers cheating on mandatory tests?

A co-chair of the General Assembly’s Interim Committee on Education says he wants to put the issue of students and teachers cheating on statewide mandatory tests on a meeting agenda by December.

“It’s a very serious problem,” said Sen. Steve West, R-Paris. “It’s on our radar.”

Given that K-12 testing violations have nearly doubled in Kentucky over the past 10 years, West said, he thought the number of cheating incidents were probably higher than those that came to the attention of education officials.

In a monthslong review of test violations, the Herald-Leader found of the 1,201 violations since 2022, at least 157 Kentucky students and teachers (mostly students) either blatantly cheated or were caught as they tried to cheat on state-mandated tests in 2022, 2023 and 2024.

Test violations of every kind have increased significantly in 10 years.

There were 422 violations in 2023 and 430 in 2024 alone. That’s an increase from 312 violations in 2016-17; 261 in 2015-16; and 241 in 2014-15, according to previous Herald-Leader coverage.

Students used their cellphones, prohibited websites or even hidden scraps of paper to cheat. Teachers gave answers to cheating students or failed to watch them closely enough.

“It’s most troubling when the teacher is involved with the cheating,” he said.

In addition to academic subjects, West said, “they are supposed to be teaching ethical standards.”

West said two immediate concerns were why students had cellphones in their possession when they took tests and why they were able to access test answers by opening a separate browser.

West said he thought a committee meeting in advance of the 2026 General Assembly which begins in January would “bring more transparency” to the issue of cheating on mandatory statewide tests.