Via D.C. Education Blog, a story by NBC4 we missed last week concerning the allegations of grade fraud made by AP U.S. History teacher Erich Martel, who contends that perhaps as many as 1/3 of this year’s graduation class at Woodrow Wilson High School may not have earned the grades they needed to get their diplomas.

Erich Martel has been teaching at Wilson since 1987. He said that since that time he’s become increasingly concerned about potential academic fraud.

Martel claims nearly a third of the school’s most recent graduating class did not meet the necessary requirements for their diplomas.

“Grades are the currency of education. If you counterfeit grades, then you debase the entire system. Where is the standard?” he said.

This isn’t the first time Martel has raised the alarm of potential grade fraud at Wilson High School. In 2002, the teacher was responsible for uncovering at string of unauthorized changes to students’ official grades, unbeknownst to the teachers who originally reported them. After making this latest round of accusations in June, Martel has told reporters, he’s now been stripped of his AP assignments by the school administration. For their part, the D.C. Public School Superintendent’s office has requested an official investigation into Martel’s charges, so we’ll have to wait and see what they turn up. Here’s hoping no one has the nerve to suggest that grade inflation is the best solution we’ve got for a broken school system — surely even D.C. Public Schools can do better than that.