Here's a new approach to improving America's schools: Don't correct obvious problems.

Readers will recall last spring a nasty scandal came to light in the public schools of Atlanta and Washington, D. C. Teachers were discovered to have changed answers on standardized tests so that students could score higher. This, of course, was only to help the students.

Now it turns out that half of America's schools showing indications of the same problem aren't even bothering to investigate.

According to a report in USAToday (Sept. 13, 2011), exams showing unusual patterns of erased answers are not being investigated in many states. The patterns indicate that teachers are "improving" student performance, but nobody seems interested in finding out. Could this be because "Teachers' and administrators' salaries, bonuses and jobs are increasingly tied to test scores"? Is that cynical?

Or is it just realistic?

Where, by the way, are the NEA and the AFT in this? Why no outcry or denunciation from the Obama Administration? Some school districts say they don't have a cheating problem. Do they mean they don't have a cheating problem, or that they aren't inclined to invest the time and money to find out whether or not they do?

Obviously, if you don't try to discover, you won't find any cheating. Kids pass the tests, the school meets its goals, teachers get raises, and the world goes on.

But is that right?

Of course not. What if churches did this? What if some report came out suggesting, I don't know, improper appropriations of church contributions widespread among evangelical pastors. Would we hear about this? Would Congress get involved? Yeah, you bet.

But Americans have this thing about their public schools. All the evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, Americans think, all in all, that our schools are doing pretty well. But sin has worked its way into the institutional structures of American education, and turning a blind eye to it will not improve the quality of education provided for the children of the land.

Public schools are really out of the hands of parents. School boards look to states, teachers' unions, and the federal government for their guidelines on how to improve education more than to parents. If no one's leaning on them from above, they will apparently just cruise. Parents seem largely content to take whatever the school gives them.

And the cheating continues, and kids go to college, and they get jobs, and everybody's happy.

Especially the father of lies.

A conversation starter: "Do you think that parents should be concerned when it looks like corruption is affecting the education of their children?"

T. M. Moore, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.