Possible Hacker Gets Hold of Montclair Students' Tests

A hacker accessed and posted on a public website more than a dozen assessments meant for Montclair public school students, Superintendent Penny MacCormack told parents in an email sent to homes Sunday night.

An investigation is underway to determine who may have accessed the district’s website and posted 14 of more than 60 assessments on a public website, MacCormack said. The district learned of the breach on Friday. 

“Once I became aware of this breach, action was taken to preclude anyone without authorization from accessing any additional assessments,” MacCormack said.

She said even though they were only available for a “short time” the integrity of the testing has been compromised and could lead to skewed results if the assessments were made by available to students.

The quarterly assessments were created over the summer to be used during the school year to prepare the district for testing to the Common Core State Standards starting in 2015.

The first of these quarterly assessments are scheduled to be given next week, MacCormack said. Those assessments will be given as planned since they are not among those accessed by the hacker, she said.

New Jersey is one of 44 states to adopt the Common Core State Standards.

A number of parents, teachers and other members of the Montclair school community have been vocal about their opposition to the Common Core and the quarterly assessments, saying students are over-tested and that they are not the best way to measure student achievement.

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