Jesus Help The Children: School Districts From Philly To D.C. Being Investigated For Cheating On Standardized Tests Too

The sh*t has officially hit the fan.

After news broke last week that Atlanta teachers cheated to make their kids – and their teaching skills – look better than they are, several other school districts are being investigated… But that’s not necessarily a good thing.

As Atlanta deals with the fallout of a report that exposed widespread, systemic cheating by educators on standardized tests, more and more such episodes — and their aftermaths — have unfolded from Washington, D.C., to Pennsylvania.

The rigor and scale of Georgia’s independent investigation — believed to be the deepest look into teacher cheating in U.S. history — will either spur states into action when it comes to questioning rising student test scores or scare officials away from drawing attention to potential flaws at their schools.

“On the one hand, we’ve got new administrations at the state level which are quite willing to reveal problems with the previous administration,” said Jeffrey Henig, a professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College. “By the same token, in a lot of states there’s going to be a preference to not find out if there’s large-scale cheating, to avoid undertaking this kind of investigation, as the result will be questioning their own claims of academic success.”