The Ohio Department of Education’s lackadaisical progress in holding accountable Columbus City Schools’ administrators who cooked the books on student test performance feeds suspicion that the state was negligent — asleep at the wheel — in a cheating scheme that extended to other districts.

None carried out a plan as calculated and devious as the state’s largest urban district, as revealed by a Dispatch investigation more than five years ago. The district retroactively altered thousands of student attendance records to make kids with low test scores disappear, hoodwinking parents and taxpayers by making it appear schools and the district were more successful. Top administrators, including former Superintendent Gene Harris, were convicted.

It now has been more than a year since dozens of district administrators swept up in the scandal were mailed letters from the state education department offering a sort of plea bargain — including temporary license suspensions accommodated over summer break. Since, just 16 of the 64 have been disciplined…

Investigations do take time to resolve. No one wants an educator’s due process rights violated. But justice delayed is justice denied. One of the department’s main duties is licensure.

Given state auditor Dave Yost’s aggressive, prosecutorial bent for digging out truth, the Columbus cheating scandal might yet result in discipline for education officials: In shielding Columbus administrators with a long and “confidential” investigation, ODE officials have put themselves in the line of fire. If they didn’t do their job, Yost will do his.

— Columbus Dispatch