Former district principals arrested in cheating scandal

BACK AROUND 2010, the Philadelphia School District's expectations of its schools to perform well on state standardized tests were "intense" and "unrealistic," according to two former administrators.

They had been principals of two district schools - Communications Technology High School in Eastwick and Edward W. Bok Technical High School in South Philadelphia - when each grabbed pencils to change their students' answers, from wrong to right, on the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment exams, according to two grand-jury presentments.

A statewide investigating grand jury recommended that charges be filed against the two ex-principals, Barbara McCreery, 61, of Melrose Park, and Arthur "Larry" Melton, 70, of Cherry Hill, Attorney General Kathleen Kane announced yesterday.

McCreery, who headed Communications Tech, and Melton, former principal of Bok, were charged with one count each of tampering with public records or information, forgery and tampering with records or identification, according to a statement from the Attorney General's Office.

The defendants were booked at 1st District headquarters, on 24th Street near Wolf. Efforts to find their lawyers were unsuccessful.

"It's unfortunate that educators have been arrested in connection to a cheating scandal," district spokesman Fernando Gallard said. "Those are the consequences individuals will face if they are involved in cheating students of their education."

The arrests are part of the attorney general's ongoing investigation into the PSSA cheating scandal in Philadelphia schools and other schools in the state.

Melton, who retired in July 2012, surrendered his teaching and administrative credentials over the summer. McCreery handed hers in last year.

Both McCreery and Melton allegedly created answer keys to help them change wrong answers to right ones on the tests, the grand jury found. McCreery allegedly changed answers in the 2009 and 2010 PSSA tests, and Melton allegedly began to change test answers in either 2008 or 2009, according to the presentment.

At Bok, students scoring advanced or proficient on the math PSSAs jumped from 53 percent in 2009 to 71 percent in 2010. Reading scores went from 49 to 53 percent during the same time.

The following year in 2011, when, according to the presentment, Melton changed fewer answers, the advanced or proficient PSSA scores dropped to 45 percent in math and 36 percent in reading. He said he didn't change any answers in 2012 and the scores fell even more: 26 percent advanced or proficient in math and 32 percent in reading.

In 2009, nearly 30 percent of the students at Communications Tech scored advanced or proficient on math while 53 percent scored the same in reading. Those numbers jumped in 2010 to nearly 70 percent in math and 76 percent in reading, according to the presentment. McCreery left the school after the 2010 test.