Cheating has run rampant in Atlanta area schools. It's not the students erasing and correcting mistakes; it's the teachers and principals making those changes on students answer sheets.

According to a report from Gov. Nathan Deal's office, area superintendent, Beverly Hall would give rewards to those teachers who met academic standards by "any means," and would quite people who questioned the unusually high test scores.

The report names 178 teachers and 38 principals as taking part in cheating activities. Investigators confirmed cheating in 44 of the 56 schools probed. Deal announced Tuesday that "their will be consequences" for those who cheated and "I am encouraged this investigation will bring closure to problems that existed." Many of the school officials could face felony charges for giving a "false official writing" when they pledged that the scores were accurate. The investigators gave reasons as to why cheating took off in Atlanta Public Schools; one reason in particular being that APS became a "data driven system with unreasonable and excessive pressure to meet targets that upper officials lost sight of conducting tests with integrity."

Click to hear Houston County Schools Superintendent, Robin Hines reaction to the report. Also, on Thursday's NEWSNIGHT, The Patriot will discuss testing procedures with Director of Testing and Instructional Technology, Jan Grace.