This Associated Press story which appeared in the San Diego Union Tribune caught my attention. While cheating on tests isn't new, I thought what was interesting was how the kids were cheating.

The testing service began an investigation after school officials suspected some students cheated on the exam. The probe revealed some students cheated on their statistics and economics tests by swapping formulas over cell phone text messages, Fish said.

How in the heck could the people administering the test not see kids sending or reading text messages? Even if the kid had their phone in their lap, I can't imagine how the staff wouldn't see it, or the apparent sudden interest that students had in their lap? Even discounting the technology, might that not suggest a paper hidden in their lap? Weird.

7/8 Update: Friend of Dave Bob pointed out that his company has cell phone detectors that the school could have used to detect the presence of operating cell phones, even phones in stand by. Hopefully this school will now be in the market for some of these. From another article I read, it seems that the school had an insufficient ratio of proctors to test takers and they had the student's chairs too close together. Both of these issues led to the problem.