NY City's 'top rated' school only 2 years ago passed students who didn't even attend class, misused school money, principal out

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3/10/12, "Faking the grade," NY Post, "Principal out amid cheat fest, by Carl Campanile

"Bronx Principal Lynn Passarella was removed from her job yesterday after a damning probe found that she passed students who didn’t even attend classes, gave credits for sham classes and marked AWOL students as present.

Department of Education investigators also substantiated charges that Passarella, head of the Theatre Arts Production Company school, also allowed unlicensed staffers and instructors to teach classes they were not licensed to teach and misused school money.

Stunned DOE officials said the Office of Special Investigations’ 113-page report against Passarella presented the most sweeping case of educational malfeasance against a principal in some time....

Passarella was escorted out of the school at about 11 a.m. yesterday, hours before the release of the findings against her.

Theatre Arts was the city’s top-rated school two years ago. But its success was a mirage.

A Post probe in January of last year exposed the high school as practicing grade inflation. Numerous students confided that the school had a “nonfailing policy” if they merely showed up.

Authorities were alerted to massive social promotion, grade inflation and cheating in the fall of 2010 after receiving an anonymous letter from staffers.

Subordinates at the school who testified in the probe said the scams had gone on for so long in part because they feared Passarella, the principal at the school for six years.

“I know how [Ms. Passarella] is with her emotion. She is an evil person. I was and still am intimidated. She is vindictive,” said Demetri Nicolopoulos, the school testing coordinator.

A state and city review of the school’s Regents exams discovered grade inflation and numerous erasures of answers. For example, the DOE’s rescoring changed 84 percent of the living-environment exams, 65 percent of the global-history exams, half of the algebra exams and 44 percent of English exams from passing to failing.

While not holding Passarella personally responsible, probers substantiated the charge that she failed to supervise the testing coordinator.

There were numerous examples of doctored transcripts that gave students credits for classes they either did not attend or for which they were not entitled to receive credit.

Probers discovered 76 instances

Students said they received credit for physical-education classes they did not even attend. And students received credits for “wellness” programs that were not part of the curriculum."

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