Four months after state investigators concluded that "adult interference" boosted test scores at two Camden elementary schools, little has been done to help students catch up.

The state has refused to invalidate the rigged 2005 scores at H.B. Wilson and U.S. Wiggins, which could have helped with eligibility for tutoring reserved for failing schools. The state says its hands are tied in instituting a tutoring program because of federal regulations.

For their part, district officials are still "assessing the damage" caused by cheating, interim Superintendent Leonard Fitts said in an interview last week.

"There's a good possibility that they [the students] missed out on some opportunities," Fitts said. "We have to compensate for losses that possibly occurred."

While it could not be determined how the former fourth graders would have performed without the interference, scores at both schools plummeted when state monitors were sent to supervise 2006 tests in the spring.

During the 2004-05 school year, 97 percent of Wiggins' fourth graders achieved proficiency in language arts, and 98 percent were proficient in math.

When those students moved up to fifth grade, 56 percent were proficient in language arts, a drop of 41 percentage points. Math proficiency was 62 percent, a 36-percentage-point decline.

Perhaps more telling is this: In 2005, 75 percent of the students were at the advanced proficient level. In 2006, only 6 percent were at the advanced level.

Parents and community leaders are criticizing the district and the state for failing to take aggressive steps to make up the academic ground lost by cheating at the two schools.

"The damage has been done to the children," said community activist Angel Cordero. "No healing has started."

Neither the state nor the district has held anyone accountable for the cheating in 2005.

But, as an Inquirer investigation showed, Camden has been afflicted by a culture of cheating dating to the 1980s, long before the 2005 school year came under state scrutiny.

In response to The Inquirer's findings, Gov. Corzine pledged that those who took part in the cheating would be held accountable. The state Education Department this month began analyzing test scores to root out possible cheating.

A criminal probe by the state Attorney General's Office is focusing on the alleged wrongdoers, and the district is conducting an internal investigation.

Tenure charges that could result in dismissal have been lodged against five teachers and aides implicated in an alleged phony-voucher scheme at the schools.

Nevertheless, Candy Causey, the mother of a kindergartner and a second grader at H.B. Wilson, worries about whether her two sons are learning. "The education stinks," Causey said.

She doubts that the students earned the 2004-05 test results, which put the school among the best in the state. She expressed anger that little has been done in response to the cheating scandal.

"There's no way those kids could have passed," Causey said. "Most of the kids in our homework center couldn't even read the homework."

Wilson and Wiggins are not eligible for supplemental tutoring available to failing schools under the federal No Child Left Behind law because their 2006 scores put them only at a level known as "early warning."

The state Department of Education has said the "suspicious" 2004-05 scores would remain on the books.

Even if Wilson and Wiggins were cleared for tutoring, it does not appear that Camden has enough money to get services to the students.

About 9,700 students - roughly half of Camden's public-school students - are eligible for tutoring under the federal law because 23 of its 29 schools failed to meet language-arts and math benchmarks.

But the $2.6 million in Title 1 funds earmarked for tutoring is enough for only about 1,300 students to enroll in the supplemental programs expected to begin next month, officials said.

The state is requiring the district to come up with a plan to improve academics at all of its schools.

That could mean tutoring at Wilson and Wiggins as early as February and summer school district-wide for the first time for all elementary students, Fitts said.

Fitts said curriculum and personnel changes have been made at both schools, and he believes students will eventually catch up and perform on grade level.

"We will make a difference. They will overcome the losses, and they will accomplish the gains over time," he said.

In hopes of getting better results with new programs, the district has put on hold at least six computer-learning programs launched by then-Superintendent Annette D. Knox, Fitts said.

Those programs, which came with million-dollar price tags, have been replaced with state-recommended programs. There are also new elementary literacy and math programs, and Rowan University is training math teachers to serve as coaches, Fitts said.

The New Jersey Department of Education says its hands are tied in supplying tutoring.

Kathryn Forsyth, a department spokeswoman, said that the tutoring is handled under federal regulations of No Child Left Behind. The federal government would have to waive an NCLB provision in order to provide tutoring or other supplemental services.

Forsyth said the "adult interference" finding by the state does not qualify the schools for a waiver. And even if the state wiped out the 2004-05 test results, Forsyth said, Wilson and Wiggins would not qualify for tutoring. A school needs to be in the third year of failing to meet adequate yearly progress. Wilson and Wiggins would be in only the second year if the scores were wiped clean.

"Supplemental [tutoring] is not the panacea," Forsyth said. "You have to do a lot of other things in a district like Camden than offering tutoring two or three hours a week. You need a systemic change."

State education officials, who have vowed increased oversight in Camden, have assigned an intervention team headed by Penelope Lattimer, the commissioner's chief of staff, to help the district.

More oversight gives little comfort to parents who are worried that their children have already fallen behind. Lucinda Mitchell, whose two grandchildren are first-graders at Wilson, said students need help with the basics.

"There's a lot of parents who tell me, 'My child just doesn't get it,' " said Mitchell, who is active with the PTA. "I just don't feel they're on the right levels."

She looks at one of her grandchildren, an honor-roll student, and wonders.

"I'm happy she's on the honor roll. But there's stuff that she should be doing that she's not," she said.

Carmen Pintor said the problems stretch beyond the two elementary schools under scrutiny. She has misgivings about the good reports from teachers about her son Juan, an eighth grader at Hatch Middle.

"My son hardly knows how to do a lot of work from the eighth grade," said Pintor, the mother of four. "I don't think he's ready to get promoted to ninth, but they are going to do it anyway."

Some parents were unaware of the cheating scandal and said they were outraged to learn that an Inquirer investigation found that the district has cultivated a culture where cheating has been encouraged by teachers and administrators.

"I want my kid to earn a degree," said Patrice Shepherd, 23, who has a third grader at Wiggins. "If you're giving him the answers, then you're weakening my child's brain. You have to work hard to get what you want and not cheat your way through."

Maribel Gonsalez, 30, said she transferred her son Zaier, 10, to Wiggins because of its impressive test scores. Now she wants to enroll him in a charter school.

State education officials notified the district this month that it must explain unusual 2006 test scores at six Camden elementary schools that showed drastic gains or sharp declines from 2005.

The schools are Wilson and Wiggins, Catto, Cream, Sharp, and Sumner Elementary Schools. Catto's language-arts scores jumped, while the others had big drops.

"People have become a little suspicious," Fitts admitted. "We have a responsibility to provide an answer."

To read more about the Camden school testing controversy, visit http://go.philly.com/camdenscores