April 6, 2005 | By MARK BULLIET | New York Post

In the latest shortcut on the information highway, cheating students are dialing up test answers on their cellphones, high-schoolers openly admitted to The Post.

While Schools Chancellor Joel Klein announced last week he will consider lifting the ban on mobile phones in schools, students said cellphone cheating is epidemic.

Kids are using smuggled cellphones to send answers to classmates, store electronic crib notes and even photograph tests and pass them along to classmates, students reported.

Some phone frauds are even selling answers and exam photos, they said.

"People take photos of the test, and they e-mail it to other people who have the test later that day," said Ewa Maciukiewicz, 18, a Bronx HS of Science senior.

Two students even showed The Post notes stored in their phones.

Rico Johnson, an 18-year-old senior at Park West HS in Midtown, said he saw a classmate receive answers for the January state Regents global-history exam.

The answers came in by text message from a friend taking the same test at another school. The recipient then distributed the answers by cell to other students.

"It was not like, 'Let me sneak it behind the teacher,' " Johnson said. "Every time his phone vibrated, he'd pick it up, look at the answer and be good with it."

Dominique Lee, 16, said cellphone cheating is an "everyday" occurrence at Park West, a troubled school with an average SAT score of 766.

"It's more convenient than digging in your book bag and getting caught," she said. "It's small, and teachers don't think nothing of it."

But cell cheating is also widespread at the city's elite schools, students said.

At Bronx Science, students said text-message cheats are common.

"It would be a chain of cellphones," Michael Brechtlein, an 18-year-old senior, said of chemistry and math Regents taken during his sophomore year. "One person would pass it to the next person and the next person."

Todd Dunn, spokesman for the state Education Department, which oversees Regents exams, was incredulous when told of The Post's findings.

"Bronx Science kids don't need to cheat on Regents exams," he said.

Keith Kalb, a city Department of Education spokesman, said there were "two confirmed cases of kids being caught cheating" using cellphones on the January Regents.

Despite the prevalence of cellphone cheating, Schools Chancellor Joel Klein said last week that he is considering lifting the current cellphone ban in schools. He said many parents want to have phone access to their children in emergencies.

The principals union opposes lifting the ban, citing cheating as one of their concerns.

Additional reporting by Marsha Kranes and Angela Montefinise