What is ‘cheating’ on tests? What does that word mean?

I’m reading with horror –as many of us are– story after story about the cheating mess on tests in Atlanta, focusing on 2009 state tests. OMG. What are we doing here?

But then I wonder, what is ‘cheating?’ What does that word mean? As I see it, it’s a way of pretending that a  reported score on a test is valid and actually tells us how the student performed and what that student actually knows on that test.  Apparently, this cheating scandal (along with others recently reported) shows that many reports had been tampered with in various ways and were not valid. Scores were too high–and did not actually show what students know and can do. Tragic.

And to this mess, I would add my concerns about state and testing policies that allow students to take tests that are not valid from the get go. That is, tests that have been modified in significant ways and no longer measure what they purport to measure. Yet,  reports of those tests are issued and claim to report valid results. In these situations of test modification, we can’t blame teachers or students or any of the players on the ground. These are policies set at the top– by companies or states or other test makers   Examples? 

How about the fact that the SAT and ACT now allow extended time on those critical tests for some students without letting anyone know that the tests were modified? http://www.collegeboard.com/ssd/student/index.html#apply.

How about reading a reading test to a student who can’t read or giving a calculator to a student who can’t add and subtract–and then reporting the tests as if they are valid. See, e.g., Massachusetts policy.  http://www.doe.mass.edu/mcas/participation/sped.pdf

Isn’t this a form of ‘cheating’ also?  Certainly it cheats the student from knowing what he can and cannot do.  What do we actually mean by ‘cheating?’  And who is cheating whom?