How’s this for fuzzy math?
A Bronx high-school administrator brazenly erased 1,000 wrong answers on her students’ algebra Regents exams and swapped them for the correct responses, school investigators charged yesterday.
More than one-third of the multiple-choice answers for 91 tests taken last June were altered – including as many as 22 of 30 on one answer sheet – by HS for Contemporary Arts Assistant Principal Ruth Ralston, according to a report by Special Commissioner of Investigation Richard Condon.
He called for Ralston – a 28-year veteran of the city’s school system – to be fired.
“The percentage of wrong answers changed [by students] to right answers just statistically doesn’t happen,” said Condon. “[Ralston] had the tests and she lied to us about what she did with the tests.”
Ralston could not be reached for comment.
Her scheme was unraveled when a contractor grading the exams noticed “a high rate of erasures and a considerable inconsistency” between correct multiple-choice answers and written problems.
When asked how many times they had changed their answers, students told investigators anywhere from two on the low end to as many as 10 on the high end.
Each of the tests had more than 17 changes, the report said.
Ralston first told probers the tests had been locked in a school safe overnight and graded the next day, then changed her story and said she left them in an unlocked drawer in her office.
Ralston simply “shrugged” when asked if she expected investigators to believe a mysterious intruder went into her office and changed the answers, the report says.
State officials could not provide pass rates at the school, but said students there would not have to retake the exam.
“We’re not going to punish students for the actions of adults,” said a State Education Department spokesman.
Ralston’s motives were not made clear, but she was already on thin ice with school officials for poor performance, and major budget cuts were looming.
The positive test results would have looked good on her resume since she was the math Regents-exam organizer.
Ralston still teaches three classes a week at the school.