Despite Sweeping Scandals, Big States Don’t Check For Cheating By Teachers

This summer, as students enjoyed their summer vacations, education officials in many states were busy handling sweeping investigations [1] into teacher cheating [2]. In one school district in Atlanta, at least 178 teachers and principals were implicated in a widespread falsification of student test scores [3]. They had taken students' standardized test sheets, erased wrong answers and replaced them with the right ones. One teacher told investigators that the district was "run like the mob" and that she was afraid of retaliation if she didn't participate.

The cheating in Atlanta was uncovered in part thanks to two simple checks that states can conduct to look for suspicious test results.

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