2 More Philadelphia School Principals Charged in Test Cheating Scandal
By Mike DeNardo
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The state probe into a cheating scandal in Philadelphia public schools has resulted in charges against two more school principals.
The Pennsylvania attorney general's office has announced that Barbara McCreery, the former principal at Communications Technology High School, and Arthur ("Larry") Melton, the former principal at the now-closed Bok High School, are being charged with cheating on the high-stakes PSSA exams.
The attorney general's office says McCreery, 61, changed answers on the 2010 PSSA test booklets. Melton, 70, is also charged with correcting answers for students he placed in a group he referred to as "on the cusp."
Pennsylvania attorney general spokeswoman Carolyn Myers says a grand jury found that McCreery created an answer key for the PSSA exams in 2009 and 2010, then "came into her office, early morning, before other staff arrived at the school, in order to change test scores from wrong to right."
The charges against these two include tampering with public records and forgery. They surrendered to authorities this morning at the 1st police district headquarters, at 24th and Wolf Streets, in South Philadelphia.
These arrests are coming on the heels of similar charges filed against the former principal of Cayuga Elementary and four teachers there. They were arrested in May and are awaiting trial.
The School District put new testing controls into place in 2012, and test scores subsequently plummeted.