By Mike DeNardo

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — With cheating scandals in the headlines, Philadelphia school teachers will not be allowed to administer a key standardized test to their own students.

With as many as 50 Philadelphia schools reportedly under investigation for cheating, the state education department has told Philadelphia that its teachers cannot give the PSSA exams to their own students.

Robert McGrogan, president of the Commonwealth Association of School Administrators — the Philadelphia principals’ union — says administrators are scrambling to change the proctor assignments by the time the tests begin on March 12th.

“It’s a significant change from previous years,” he says. “Normally the classroom teacher is somebody that is teaching the major subjects to the children and also administers the test. With this new mandate, it would mean that the person who has been working most closely with the children is removed from the testing environment and the test would be administered by another individual.”

The directive applies to the Philadelphia and Hazleton school districts, and three local charter schools: Philadelphia Electrical and Technical, Imhotep, and the Chester Community Charter Schools.