Ex-Atlanta superintendat reports to jail in teaching scandal - CNN

(link to article at CNN)

1chance2learn.net is in no way affiliated with CNN.  In fact, we doubt they even know we exist.  Please click the link above to view the original article.

___________________

Many may read the story below and be tempted into a feeling akin to shock.  I am not shocked.  I'm not even relatively surprised.  Over the past 30 years our nation's school systems have faced dramatically increasing pressures to meet the "standard."  The stakes for failure have been dramatic.  The punitive measures for not meeting adequately yearly progress (AYP) as determined by standardized test scores are often intense and can include a complete (government) re-organization of a school district and the termination of many, if not all, of its administrative personnel.  It should seem surprising to no one that, when everything is on the line, some people are going to do whatever it takes to "be" successful. 

It is amazing to me that many policy makers have yet to understand that there is more to education than a single piece of quantitative data.  What of ethics?  Is there value in producing not only "smart" people but also "good" people?  Further more, is it possible that the over emphasis of academic success is actually detrimental to ethical behavior?  I think examples like the one that follows suggests that indeed this high stakes standards movement is responsible for the creation of cheaters, liars, and thieves. 

(Reviewed by: Justin Ormsby)  

Share your thoughts:
http://facebook.com/1chance2learn
http://1chance2learn.net
______________________

http://www.reporternewspapers.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Hall-speech.jpg

The former superintendent of Atlanta Public Schools was among the educators who surrendered to authorities Tuesday after being indicted by a grand jury in a cheating scandal that rocked the district and drew national attention.

Beverly Hall resigned from her position in 2011 after a state investigation into large, unexplained test score gains in some Atlanta schools. She has denied any role in the cheating scandal.

A Fulton County grand jury last week indicted 35 educators from the district, including principals, teachers and testing coordinators. They were ordered to turn themselves in by Tuesday, District Attorney Paul Howard said.

By 10:00 p.m., 27 of 35 educators had turned themselves in at the Fulton County Jail to face charges including racketeering, theft by taking and making false statements about their roles in an alleged plot to falsify students' standardized tests. Eight of them had been released on bond late Tuesday, the Fulton County Sheriff's office said.

In 2009, Hall was named the National Superintendent of the Year by the Schools Superintendents Association, which at the time said her "leadership has turned Atlanta into a model of urban school reform."

But the indictment paints another picture of Hall, one of a superintendent with "a single-minded purpose, and that is to cheat," Howard told reporters last week.

According to the indictment, Hall placed unreasonable goals on educators and "protected and rewarded those who achieved targets by cheating." It also alleges she fired principals who failed to achieve goals and "ignored suspicious" test score gains throughout the school system.

Her bond was reduced from $7.5 million to $200,000, the Fulton County Sheriff's office reported.

On Tuesday, bond was set at $1 million for Donald Bullock, a testing coordinator at Usher/Collier Heights Elementary School, Theresia Copeland, a testing coordinator at Benteen Elementary School, and Gregory Reid, a Parks Middle School assistant principal. Bond amounts were set by grand jurors.

Others who turned themselves in included testing coordinators, teachers and an instructional coach, said Fulton County Sheriff spokeswoman Tracy Flanagan.

Investigations into the remarkable improvements on standardized tests were first reported by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper. A state review determined that some cheating had occurred in more than half the district's elementary and middle schools. About 180 teachers were implicated initially. Cheating is believed to date back to early 2001, when standardized testing scores began to turn around in the 50,000-student school district, according to the indictment.

For at least four years, between 2005 and 2009, test answers were altered, fabricated and falsely certified, the indictment said.

"We've had cheating all up and down the line. It was absolutely amazing," said Michael Bowers, a former Georgia attorney general who investigated the cheating scandal.

Bowers said there were cheating parties, erasures in and out of classrooms, and teachers were told to make changes to tests. "Anything that you can imagine that could involve cheating, it was done."

During the investigation, he heard that educators cheated out of pride, to earn bonuses, to enhance their careers or to keep their jobs, he said. Some teachers, overcome with emotion, fainted during his interview with them, he said.

"Not only were the children deprived, a lot of teachers were forced into cheating, forced into criminal acts," Bowers said. "Now, granted, they did wrong, but a lot of them did this to protect jobs."

Educators and community members reacted Tuesday to the charges.

"The Atlanta school community is obviously very upset about this," said Stephen J. Alford, Atlanta Public Schools' executive director of communications. "I don't want to pass judgment on the people, but we've had a lot of parents who wanted to express their disappointment."

In a statement, American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten and Georgia Federation of Teachers President Verdaillia Turner wrote: "We do not condone cheating under any circumstances. 

Academic achievement can never be separated from academic integrity, which is why the Georgia Federation of Teachers was the first whistle-blower to expose Atlanta testing irregularities.

"Tragically, the Atlanta cheating scandal harmed our children and it crystallizes the unintended consequences of our test-crazed policies."