The former principal and a computer technician at a Houston high school will have their salaries docked based on an outside investigation that blames them and others for allowing inaccurate reporting of student dropout data for the 2002-2003 school year.

The incident raises serious implications for school district employees nationwide, particularly as the No Child Left Behind Act ushers in a new era of accountability in America's schools.

Rep. Rick Noriega, D-Houston, who noticed dropout rates at schools in his district seemed lower than reality, filed a complaint with the Texas Education Agency (TEA). His complaint led to a state audit that found more than a dozen of the district's schools had undercounted dropouts.

Former Sharpstown High School Principal Carol Wichmann, who retired in August, will have the amount she would have received from the district upon retirement lowered by two weeks, and the school's technician, Kenneth Cuadra, will be put on unpaid leave for two weeks and reassigned to another school, the district said in a statement.

For school administrators and technology personnel alike, the penalties serve as a stark reminder of the seriousness with which educators must approach the collection and reporting of reliable data. The stakes have been raised in public education, and schools now must increase their level of diligence to avoid the consequences of misrepresentation.

"The Sharpstown investigation found that while no specific directive contributed to reporting of low dropouts, a climate existed at the school that tolerated the reporting of unrealistic dropout rates," Superintendent Kaye Stripling said in a statement disclosing findings of the outside investigation by a Houston law firm. "HISD [the Houston Independent School District] and the public will not tolerate the reporting of inaccurate data--these actions make that clear."

Citing numerous problems, the firm's report found that Sharpstown administrators "focused more on their own lack of accountability than how to solve an important problem."

It also said school administrators had doubts about the accuracy of the reports but did nothing to confirm that what was given to the TEA was accurate.

According to the report, those doubts were expressed on a number of occasions, including several documented eMail messages. One such correspondence sent to Wichmann from Janet Nolte, manager of the district's Department of State and Federal Compliance, stated, "I find it a little difficult to think that [in] a school with 74.7 percent of the students at risk ... there would be no dropouts."

Although Wichmann later admitted the results were suspect, she said the school was not aware of any unreported dropout instances and that officials were confident they had tracked every student.

Cuadra appealed his sanctions on the grounds that he had tried to warn district officials of the error, but his appeal was denied after a hearing determined he erroneously changed the dropout codes of 30 Sharpstown students and did not take adequate action to correct the mistake.