The U.S. Department of Education’s office of inspector general last week said it has found no evidence that District of Columbia public school officials engaged in widespread cheating on exams during the time that Michelle A. Rhee was chancellor.
The OIG could only identify instances of cheating in a single school, which was earlier identified in an investigation by the District of Columbia’s local watchdog agency.
In a brief statement last week, the federal Education Department’s OIG said it could not substantiate allegations that the District of Columbia public schools had made false claims to the department for payment of funds. As a result, the U.S. Department of Justice “declined to intervene.”
During Ms. Rhee’s tenure, schools in the 45,000-student district saw test scores rise considerably. Since her departure more than two years ago, concerns about cheating surfaced, most notably in an investigative report by USA Today.
