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DN Editorial: PUT TO THE TEST

IT WILL take awhile before the book is closed on the investigation into test cheating in Philadelphia - and a sad book it will be.

IT WILL take awhile before the book is closed on the investigation into test cheating in Philadelphia - and a sad book it will be.

Last week, the district fired three principals for their role in rigging tests results. In all, district investigators identified 138 educators working in 27 schools, including three charter schools, as being involved in cheating.

The district's internal investigation continues in 19 other schools. In addition, it was disclosed last week that the state attorney general is investigating, a sign that criminal charges may someday be leveled.

The past 12 months have been challenging for supporters of public education, but this news is more cringe-worthy than the typical deficit news, coming as it does amid momentum for more educational options, like charters and vouchers, and less appetite for funding the traditional system. The cheating scandal provides more ammunition for public-school detractors.

These were not isolated, onetime violations.

A large number of schools were involved and a larger number of teachers and administrators, enough to skew the citywide results in the state's annual standardized tests, known as the PSSA.

What looked to the outside world like improvement in student performance was often illusory. The students weren't proficient in topics such as math and reading. The adults were proficient in use of erasers to substitute right answers for wrong ones.

Sometimes the principal would take the test booklets home and change the answers students penciled in. Sometimes teachers would hand out the right answers. Sometimes staff members held "eraser parties," where they altered results.

The cheating happened between 2009 and 2011, during the reign of Superintendent Arlene Ackerman. Ackerman, who died last year, was known as a hard taskmaster, demanding improvements or else. This pressure, some say, triggered the cheating.

Some school reformers say that cheating scandals here and elsewhere are a natural by-product of the national push for standardized tests to measure student achievement. They argue that one way to end the cheating would be to end the testing.

By that logic, we should eliminate speed limits, traffic lights and stop signs because they place undo pressure on drivers to violate the law.

As anyone knows who has taken a standardized test - and who hasn't? - they are imperfect instruments for determining a person's intellect or capabilities. At best, they are crude measurements of a student's mastery of the material taught.

The public, for whom education is an important and costly investment, deserves to get a true picture of student performance.

When the cheating scandal became public, the state intervened and carefully monitored test taking and guarded the test booklets. The citywide scores slumped. At the schools where cheating was discovered, the trend lines that showed rapid student improvement plunged.

It was sad, especially for the students who had celebrated the rise in scores.

The adults fed them an illusion they created by tampering with the true results.

It's important to remember that no student has been implicated in cheating. It was the handiwork of adults only. The teachers and administrators whose life's mission was to educate children ended up teaching them a cynical lesson on how to get ahead in this world: Just bring an eraser.