What I'd like to know:
1. How much additional funding was received due to the cheating? How much was the taxpayer ripped off in order to pad the pockets of these districts?
2. Are their specific examples of teachers being financially or professionally punished for refusing to cheat? If so, what is the monetary value of their losses?
Seven years seems really harsh, but if the administrators actually hurt honest teachers, and the value of the scam was worth a significant amount (say, a minimum of a couple hundred thousand dollars), it is a pretty serious crime. Not worth seven years, but depending on the circumstances, they should definitely be seeing jail time.