9486 in the collection
School Official to Be Fired After Cheating Is Found
It would be interesting to
know more about the elimination of Ruth
Ralston's position.
By Elissa Gootman
The Department of Education said on Wednesday
that it would move to fire an assistant
principal who cheated on Regents exams this
spring by changing her students’ answers.
Richard J. Condon, the special commissioner of
investigation for the city school system, found
in a report issued on Wednesday that the
assistant principal, Ruth Ralston, of the High
School for Contemporary Arts in the Bronx, had
erased students’ incorrect multiple-choice
answers on the June Integrated Algebra Regents
test, replacing them with correct answers, then
lied about it to investigators.
The investigation began in August, after a
state education official alerted Mr. Condon’s
office to an eyebrow-raising irregularity: On
algebra exams taken by Contemporary Arts
students, 1,013 multiple-choice answers had
been erased and changed — in 94 percent of the
cases, from incorrect to correct.
Further raising suspicions, there was also a
“considerable inconsistency” between some
students’ performance on the multiple-choice
part of the exam and other sections, in which
they had to write out their answers.
After interviews with teachers, students and
administrators, investigators focused on Ms.
Ralston, 52, who had worked at the school since
2006. Initially, investigators said, Ms.
Ralston told them that between the time that
students took the exams and school officials
graded them, the exams had been locked in a
guidance counselor’s closet. Upon further
questioning, Ms. Ralston said she had been
unable to find the guidance counselor after
collecting the ungraded exams, so she had
placed them overnight in her own room.
“She was the only one who had control of the
tests between the time the exam was over and
the time the grading started,” Mr. Condon said
in an interview. “Based on that, we’re coming
to the conclusion that she was the one who
changed the answers.”
Mr. Condon described the case as an isolated
incident, and said he was not investigating
Regents exams at that school or others.
His report found that shortly before the exams
were given, Ms. Ralston, who was earning
$109,342 a year, had been informed that her
position was being eliminated due to budget
cuts, and that, while a high passing rate on
the exam might not save her job, “it could help
her search for a new position.”
“Whether the children’s having done well on the
exam would have helped her in interviewing for
a job, I don’t know,” Mr. Condon said. “Whether
she just figured she was leaving and she was
doing this for the students, I don’t know.”
Attempts to reach Ms. Ralston through the
school and her union, the Council of School
Supervisors and Administrators, were
unsuccessful. The school’s principal, Francisco
Sanchez, who was found to have had no
involvement in the incident, declined to
comment.
The Education Department said Ms. Ralston, who
has worked in the school system since 1980, was
removed from the school earlier this week. A
science and math teacher, she had been an
assistant principal at Evander Childs High
School, a large high school that has been
replaced by small schools, including
Contemporary Arts.
The city has increased pressure on principals
in recent years, by branding schools with
letter grades of A through F based primarily on
test scores, for example. Some critics have
wondered whether cheating would become more
commonplace as a result.
David Cantor, a spokesman for the Department of
Education, said Contemporary Arts, which
received an A on its report card, had performed
so well by other measures that it would retain
its grade even after an adjustment based on Mr.
Condon’s findings. He said he had “no reason to
believe that there has been any other
impropriety” at the school, and that there had
been no indication that cheating allegations
elsewhere had spiked.
“There are always allegations,” he said, “and
many of them are not substantiated.”
— Elisa Gootman
New York Times
2008-12-04
INDEX OF OUTRAGES
Pages: 380
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