The Baltimore Sun reports that education officials have uncovered rampant cheating at George Washington Elementary School. According to the Sun, school administrators may have cheated their way to better test scores, helping them win the prestigious Blue Ribbon Award, reserved for the top schools in the nation.
Officials discovered that wrong answers on the tests were erased and the right ones filled in.
At the center of the scandal is 60-year-old Susan Burgess. WJZ spoke to the principal in 2007 when the school received the designation.
“The misconception is that the city schools are not meeting the needs of the children and are failing and that’s not true at all,” said Burgess.
At the time Burgess was hailed as an educational hero, turning one of the poorest schools in the city into one of the most successful.
Read the rest Rampant Cheating Found At City Elementary School – wjz.com.
It will be interesting to see if artificially inflated scores results in a corresponding deflation below what would have happened naturally. The negative results could spread to students’ esteem and willingness to cheat.