The fact that there's cheating in Georgia schools shouldn't come as a surprise. It's a problem that has plagued education since Socrates gave his first pop quiz. But when it is public school officials who are doing the cheating, well, that's something that should get our attention.

Over the past year, an investigation by the Governor's Office of Student Achievement found that student's answers on the fifth grade CRCT math test were changed by staff at at least four Georgia public elementary schools. Suspicions were raised when the summer retake test results were significantly higher than the spring scores.

To determine what happened, investigators analyzed the number of erasures on test sheets and how many of those changes corrected a wrong answer. At four of the schools, the number of answers changed from wrong to right was statistically impossible barring some form of cheating.

At one school in Dekalb County, the findings were particularly shocking. Every single student who retook the math test passed - an amazing feat considering that the failure rate in fourth grade at the same school was 57 percent. Investigators found that there was an average of 22 answers erased on each test (compared to an average of two in the comparison sample) and that of those erasures, 15 corrected a wrong answer (compared to one in the comparison sample).

So far, the principle and assistant principle at this school have had their teaching license suspended. They also face felony charges for falsifying a state document. Investigations into staff from other schools are underway as well.

Part of what is striking about this scandal is the brazen way in which it was conducted. It's as though these educators were willing to make such blatant changes to these tests because they were reasonably certain they wouldn't get caught.

What's more, it's not certain the investigation would have ever even happened had the Atlanta Journal-Constitution not reported about the improbable gains on tests scores. Kudos to the AJC for its reporting on this story.

Given that this investigation only involved review of one year of testing, only examined a few schools and only reviewed one test at one grade level, there is considerable concern that this type of cheating is widespread. Although we spend over $14 billion on public education in Georgia annually, we have spent almost nothing on auditing test results.

Consider this: 995,122 school children in grades 1-8 take the CRCT each year, and in all, about 4.2 million CRCT subject tests are given in grades 1-8 annually. Yet, there are only seven people that work in the Governor's Office of Student Achievement tasked with monitoring all of these tests (and high school ones as well).

All of this makes one wonder how widespread cheating is statewide and what is being done to make its prevention, detection and prosecution as much a priority as the tests themselves. After all, without the assurance that cheating is rare, test results mean next to nothing.

And with so much riding on these test results, their integrity is critical. The fifth grade CRCT tests at the center of this scandal determine whether a student moves on to sixth grade, and more importantly, are the primary factor in determining whether a school meets Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) - the federal standard schools must reach. Not surprisingly, all of the schools that were investigated met AYP be- cause of the scores on these altered CRCT tests.

What happened in these schools is appalling on so many levels. When a student cheats, he is shortchanging himself. But when school officials cheat like this, their actions have a much wider impact. They have violated the public trust, abused their positions of authority, but most importantly, they have sent a message to their students that achievement matters little and dishonesty is ok if the stakes are high enough.

And as bad as this story is, we are confident that the vast majority of Georgia educators labor diligently to help kids learn, and do so with honesty and integrity.

The bigger tragedy, however, is what this misconduct does to kids.

Promoting students to the next grade level when they are not prepared means they will not get the remedial help they need to learn. Instead, kids that were already struggling in school will struggle even more. They will get frustrated, discouraged, and at some point maybe even drop out of school. It's a tragedy, and all because these educators wanted to elevate their own status and make it appear their school was doing better than it was.

But until there is a more comprehensive auditing system, there will always be questions about significant gains. More effective monitoring will not only root out cheaters, but it will also validate the legitimate improvement in schools where educators are doing their job well.

It's time our state commits the resources needed to ensure student achievement is measured well and that the results are reliable.

Georgia Family Council is a non-profit research and education organization committed to fostering conditions in which individuals, families and communities thrive. For more information, go to www.georgiafamily.org, (770) 242-0001, stephen.daniels@georgiafamily.org.