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A School That Made The Grade - Literally

THE NEXT TIME someone complains about the alleged unfairness of national, standardized SAT exams in measuring students' readiness for college, here is a two-word response that should make us all stop and think: Fort Lee.

The town atop the Palisades last week emerged as the focus of a bizarre cheating scandal in which high school officials routinely upgraded some students' transcripts to help them get into elite colleges.

Equally important, perhaps, this scandal should be a reminder that the inflated grading in far too many high schools can no longer be fully trusted.

Sadly, the fairest way to compare student performances may be standardized tests that may be harder to doctor.

I know what you're thinking.

How can a test, lasting only a few hours, really tell us the whole story about a student's four-year high school experience? Measuring a student's ability is not like measuring planks for a boardwalk.

Far too often, learning is framed by intangible nuances such as a student's desire, by immaturity and hormones, even by the stability of a student's family.

Guidance counselors in spotlight Many colleges often looked to guidance counselors to explain those intangible factors in a student's life that can't be detected by a standardized test.

But the revelations from Fort Lee surely have to make us stop and wonder whether it's fair to rely on guidance counselors anymore.

At the heart of the Fort Lee story is the notion that the transcripts were doctored to help students - that this was some sort of altruistic game to give good students a chance at a good education.

But that's probably only half the story.

When students are accepted to top colleges, the local high school looks good, too - as do guidance counselors.

At far too many high schools, the list of students accepted to top colleges has become a public relations rite of spring, with much bragging by school officials.

Over time, if students from the local high school consistently were accepted to the Ivy League or to other high-profile colleges, then school officials - often correctly - proclaimed that their programs were solid and that they must be doing something right with the large amounts of tax dollars that local residents contribute.

In other words, this cheating scandal may not be just about cheating.

This may be a misguided tale of some school officials trying to polish their own reputations in the highly competitive, hyper-critical environment that public education has become.

Adults were the culprits In this scandal, adults were the cheaters.

School officials say students and their parents were blissfully unaware that anything wrong was taking place.

We don't know yet how many Fort Lee school officials were involved in this scam - or, for that matter, how many student transcripts were doctored.

School officials say transcripts may have been altered only during the past six years.

The number of students affected this year may be only 10 - all of them high-performing students trying to gain acceptance to highly competitive colleges.

School officials say the cheating basically took on two forms.

In some cases, poor grades - C's and D's - were eliminated entirely on transcripts mailed by the guidance department to colleges.

In other cases, low grades were simply upgraded on the transcripts.

All this was done to impress elite colleges - or so we are told.

On its surface, the disclosure of the altered transcripts is remarkable.

Fort Lee School Superintendent Raymond Bandlow deserves to be praised for going public only two weeks after learning that transcripts had been changed.

The Fort Lee School District director of guidance, who was hired only last November, discovered the scam.

Bandlow started in his role as superintendent only last August.

So perhaps these newcomers uncovered a quaint little custom that went on for far too long in Fort Lee.

Who knows? In far too many cases, school districts behave like the CIA when bad news surfaces.

Far too often, public school officials keep too many secrets, too long.

If something worrisome emerges, the public often does not hear about it for months.

Remember the tainted soil at the Paramus middle school? Bandlow promises a full investigation.

Already, he has taken a solid first step in promising that officials will review transcripts "one by one" and compare what was mailed to colleges with students' applications with the students' actual records.

For the time being, Bandlow said the district will require that two school administrators look over transcripts before they are sent.

Moving quickly Finally - and this is important - Bandlow promises to move quickly to determine how many transcripts were doctored and how many guidance counselors and school administrators were involved.

A day after the scandal was revealed, the school board suspended Fort Lee High School Principal Jay Berman.

But it's not clear if he even knew about the doctored transcripts.

School officials said Berman was suspended pending the results of the investigation into the transcripts - seemingly an indication that Berman may be involved.

But school officials also said they were not accusing Berman of any wrongdoing.

So why not wait until after the investigation is completed to decide his fate? Hopefully, such vague and contradictory explanations are not a sign of things to come.

If Fort Lee High School is to fully regain its reputation, it needs full disclosure - how many transcripts were changed and who was involved.

Only a matter of time In the hyper-competitive world of college acceptances, where some parents hire high-priced consultants to polish their kids' essays for college applications, perhaps it was only a matter of time before we discovered that guidance counselors were polishing transcripts in a Shakespearean-like plot to provide happiness for the children in their care.

But this is no happy tale.

It's already a tragedy.

Let's hope it doesn't get worse.

Mike Kelly is a Record columnist.

Contact him at kellym@northjersey.com Send comments to grad@northjersey.com The Record (Bergen County, NJ) March 8, 2009 Sunday All Editions A school that made the grade - literally BYLINE: MIKE KELLY, North Jersey Media Group SECTION: OPINION; Pg.

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