Cheating can’t be tolerated

Cheating can’t be tolerated

A relative handful of Ohio public schools are suspected of cooking the books to increase their grades on the annual state report card. But even one is too many.

The Dayton Daily News reported that state auditors have begun examining records in 100 schools — about 3 percent of Ohio’s 3,688 public schools. That includes traditional, charter, STEM and joint vocational schools.

The investigation is centered on districts that had a high number of student withdrawals, because removing poor students from the books can increase a school’s performance numbers. Those numbers help determine state funding and employee bonuses, among other things.

Truth or consequences

We’re wondering what is going to happen to the administrators responsible for any cheating that is uncovered.

State auditor David Yost sent an email to all school superintendents on Aug. 15 in which he asked superintendents to step forward if their district had done something wrong in reporting data, whether they knew so at the time or not. Only a handful have, and those who are cooperating have earned some level of mercy.

From this point forward, any educator caught cheating must be dealt with severely. Teachers do not tolerate cheating in class. The state cannot tolerate cheating on reports.