Ethics Newsline®

LOS ANGELES
More than 400 public school teachers in California have been investigated for possible cheating in the past five years, the Los Angeles Times reported last week after a review of state education records.

The figure is double the number reported by the Times last month, following an admission from the California Department of Education that it accidentally omitted a 15-page list of investigations for the earlier report.

While a few of the incidents — ranging from outright cheating to during-test tutoring to allowing extra test time for students — led to resignations or firings, the majority have yielded reprimands and warnings.

Barbara Kerr, president of the California Teachers Association, told the Times that while cheating is inexcusable, the unrelenting stress of No Child Left Behind standardized testing may be part of the problem.

“For a majority of [teachers], it’s a matter of the ridiculous pressure that has been put upon them,” she said. “And they’re weighing that with their students looking at them … saying, ‘Help me.’”