School administrators and state education officials across the country have received complaints about cheating on standardized tests echoing those in Atlanta. But an investigation has found authorities often treat them as isolated or aberrant events.

Earlier this year that 196 districts nationwide exhibit patterns of suspicious test scores similar to those found in Atlanta. The investigation reports now that some of those districts have responded the same way Atlanta did: by minimizing, isolating or glossing over improprieties.

Nearly always, officials focused narrowly on a single classroom or, at most, a single school - the approach the Atlanta Public Schools used for years before a scandal over systemic cheating erupted three years ago.

The report examined records from schools in Alabama, Texas, Detroit, Baltimore, St. Louis and Illinois.