Allegations have surfaced about instructors manipulating scores on tests at Cal Fire’s firefighting academy in Ione, according to a recent news report.
The Sacramento Bee reported that Shannon Browne, who writes test materials for academy cadets and records the scores, told investigators that instructors routinely threw out results for questions that some firefighter cadets couldn’t answer, and the Bee had obtained access to concerns about rampant cheating discussed in 13 hours of audio recordings of witness interviews with the California Highway Patrol.
The recordings contain interviews with 11 people, a small number of the 163 interviewed. Those accounts, along with reports from two former cadets who came forward to speak about their own experiences, depict a culture in which test scores were routinely manipulated and exam answers widely circulated in an effort to graduate as many cadets as possible, the Bee report said.
The allegations come during a difficult period for the agency, which has had to contend with a scandal sparked by the murder of an academy instructor’s mistress that ballooned into a wide-ranging investigation of academy activities and led to numerous cases of discipline.
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