With a massive analysis of test score patterns in over 69,000 public schools, four reporters from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC) have found that 196 of the largest school districts in the nation have had “suspicious” changes in tests scores. The AJC reporters are quick to admit that their analysis “doesn’t prove cheating.  But it reveals that test scores in hundreds of cities followed a pattern that, in Atlanta, indicated cheating in multiple schools.”

The AJC found, for example, that students would have very high test scores in one grade, but then much lower test scores the following year in the next grade. In 33 of these 196 large school districts, the probabilities of the test scores changing in the ways that supposedly occurred naturally were less than one in a million.

Students suffer when they receive inflated test scores that were artificially manipulated by adults. Students are often assigned to remedial programs and smaller pull-out classes for extra help when they fail these state tests. But, students who are listed as passing these tests are denied this extra help, even when they are truly behind. Also, parents may be fooled or confused when their students receive fake passing scores on tests.

Based on my prior study of disturbing evidence of cheating on public school graduation rate statistics and test scores, this evidence of significant amounts of cheating nationally is sad, but not unexpected. Some of the largest school districts in the nation, including Los Angeles, Houston, Dallas, and Baltimore had many instances of test score patterns that were statistically improbable according to the AJC analysis. According to the AJC story, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, upon learning about the evidence of widespread fraud in public education testing said, “States, districts, schools and testing companies should have sensible safeguards in place to ensure tests accurately reflect student learning.”

Georgia followed up on the strong evidence of cheating by public schools. Will other states do the same? Will other states even look for evidence of cheating? Or, will children continue to be denied remedial and other academic and social services because their artificially inflated test scores indicated they were learning on grade level, when—in truth—they were not.

The AJC reporters—Heather Vogell, John Perry, Alan Judd and M.B. Pell— have provided a valuable public spotlight on this issue.  Hopefully, states will investigate the school districts with strange patterns of test scores and the innocent will be exonerated. If, as a result of this investigative reporting, states monitor test score patterns going forward, then there would be far less incentive for school districts to cheat students and their families.