It’s being called a scandal and a cover-up. There are calls for an investigation into the Maryland State Department of Education after the agency changed the way it reports state test scores, hiding certain results from the public.

“I'm irate,” said Sean Kennedy from the Maryland Public Policy Institute. “That data is utterly useless. They made it completely useless, and they did it on purpose.”

Kennedy was simply stunned by what the Maryland State Department of Education recently did.

“Instead of coming clean and saying that they failed the students of Baltimore City and students across the state, they're trying to hide it, and now they're piling lies on why they're hiding it,” Kennedy told Project Baltimore.

Here’s what happened. In January, the state uploaded a spreadsheet to its website, containing detailed state test results from last school year. Project Baltimore downloaded the spreadsheet and began analyzing the data.

Fox45 News was first to report the results on social media in late January. Soon after, MSDE removed the data from its website.

But remember, Project Baltimore already had it. And on February 6, we published a devastating report detailing how there were 23 Baltimore City Schools with zero students, among those tested, who scored proficient on the state math exam. The story went viral.

The data remained off the state’s website for weeks. It wasn’t until mid-March that the spreadsheet was reposted. But this time, much of the data was gone.

Here’s an example. Collington Square Elementary/Middle in Baltimore City is one of the 23 schools with zero students who tested proficient in math. On the original spreadsheet posted to the state’s website, we can see the number of students tested and the percent proficient, or not proficient, in each level. We compared that to the new version, where most of the data has been replaced with an asterisk. No one can see how many students at Collington Square are proficient in math. The state has hidden the data from the public.

“This is nothing but a cover-up,” said Kennedy. “It's a cover-up with statistics. They're hiding what happened from the public on purpose, and they're only doing it because they got caught.”

 It’s not just Collington Square. Project Baltimore can no longer see certain results at many schools throughout the state.