City school's fast-rising test scores questioned

The principal hailed the test-score gains as a "miracle" - evidence that disadvantaged students could overcome enormous challenges to realize their full potential.

In just two years, the 400 seventh and eighth graders at Theodore Roosevelt Middle School in East Germantown had jumped a stunning 52 points in math on a 100-point scale and 51 in reading on the statewide assessment known as the PSSA. The improvement was the best - by a considerable margin - of any comparable school in the School District of Philadelphia.

At a ceremony in August, Superintendent Arlene Ackerman, then-Gov. Ed Rendell, and other luminaries heaped praise on principal Stefanie Ressler for turning around Roosevelt - deemed persistently dangerous by the state, with nearly nine of 10 students living in poverty and 25 percent needing special-education services.

But a group of Roosevelt teachers told The Inquirer that they believed the rise in scores had been achieved in part through cheating.

Several said they had witnessed apparent breaches in test security - from answers written on a blackboard to senior staff's encouraging teachers to drill certain concepts they knew appeared on the exam. One teacher reported seeing students, with test booklets and answer sheets out, all engaged in conversation with the principal.

Ressler, a veteran educator who has also been praised by district leaders for reducing violence at the school, did not respond to multiple requests for comment beginning Friday morning, and district spokeswoman Shana Kemp declined to answer specific questions about possible test breaches. "The district has a very robust test-monitoring system in place," she said.

Allegations of testing irregularities at Roosevelt have been reported to the state, according to the teachers, who said the complaint had triggered a district investigation that will begin as early as this week. A spokesman for the state Department of Education declined to confirm or deny an investigation, but said complaints were "taken seriously."

In addition to interviews with Roosevelt teachers, an Inquirer analysis of the school's data revealed a number of discrepancies between the PSSA results and other measurements of student performance, including report cards and "benchmark" tests given in district schools every six weeks.