The Great Exam Rip-Off

As they have every June for the past 96 years, high school students in New York fearfully awaited a series of tough statewide achievement tests that is unique in the nation. But last week the annual nightmare suddenly turned into every schoolboy's dream. As stories spread that copies of stolen answer keys were being sold in and around many of New York City's high schools, embarrassed officials were forced to cancel nine of the 21 tests, including those for English, Hebrew, social studies, biology, chemistry, physics and three different levels of mathematics.

It was the biggest cheating scandal to touch New York's Regents exams (named for the Board of Regents, the state's educational policymaking body) since they were introduced in 1878. The theft first came to official attention when a Brooklyn student reported that someone had tried to sell her the answers to some exams. Brooklyn District Attorney Eugene Gold's investigators soon discovered that "thousands" of hot answer keys were being marketed by student peddlers. Detectives eventually traced the purloined papers to Brooklyn's Solomon Schechter High School, where the seals on answers stored in the principal's office were found to have been tampered with. The D.A.'s office said that the heist had been committed by two college boys and two Solomon Schechter seniors who, said school officials, were among "the brightest students in the school."

Scot Free. At the very least, they knew their Watergate history. The youths asked for and got immunity from prosecution because the authorities wanted to uncover what they thought to be a wide answer-stealing conspiracy before examination day. The quick grant of immunity was apparently made in the belief that the four conspirators would implicate others. But the youths, as it turned out, had pulled off the caper by themselves. They had jimmied the principal's desk, stolen the key to the strongbox, and photostated the answer sheets. The copies were then sold at prices as high as $50 apiece. The two Solomon Schechter seniors were expelled from school; otherwise, all four got away from the great exam robbery scot free.

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