THE ATLANTA PUBLIC SCHOOL CHEATING SCANDAL: A CALL FOR AMNESTY

The Atlanta Journal Constitution reports that authorities are considering using the Racketeering Influence and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) to prosecute teachers and administrators implicated in the Atlanta Public Schools test cheating scandal.  Conviction under RICO carries penalties of up to twenty years in prison.  This is absurd and an outrage and should be opposed by all fair minded people.  According to published accounts, 178 educators including 38 principals have been accused of altering student scores on tests mandated by No Child Left Behind (NCLB) policies. Superintendent Erroll Davis has announced his intention to fire all of the accused and placed them on administrative leave with pay while perfunctory due process procedures ran their course.  However, the cost of keeping the accused teachers and administrators on the payroll while they await their pre-firing administrative hearings is said to be in excess of a million dollars monthly.  Using RICO would allow authorities to expedite the trial and firing processes.

This is an outrage.  Indeed the whole inquisition is an outrage.  The Atlanta Public School (APS) system is only one of scores in Georgia and hundreds of systems across the country suspected of doctoring student test scores. In 2009, for example, the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement reported that answer sheets from 10 percent of classrooms state-wide showed erasures that justified moderate to severe concern. And the problem is not limited to Georgia.  Questionable test scores in states as disparate as Ohio, California, Texas, and New York have been reported.  Even schools that have been lauded with high commendations in the Race to the Top sweepstakes have come under suspicion.  Clearly Atlanta is not an aberration.  The problem is nation-wide.   But as far as I have been able to ascertain, Atlanta is the only jurisdiction committed to firing all of those implicated and conducting public hearings to humiliate the accused.  As Diane Ravitch, a former Assistant of Education under Presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton has said about the cheating scandals, “All of this was to be expected”.

Why would she say that?  And why have the other jurisdictions refrained from having show trials of those implicated. Ravitch argues, and I concur, that the best predictor of academic achievement is poverty, and I would add poverty compounded by institutional racism.  Taking these two critical factors into account, we know beforehand which are likely to be the high and low achieving schools. The tests only confirm what was already widely known or at least widely believed. Nevertheless the tests could be a useful diagnostic tool if they are used to render greater specificity in identifying problematic areas. However under the evolving NCLB regime, the test results have became more than diagnostic tools.  They have become punitive yardsticks to rank teachers and schools, and as a result, determine the career fortunes of school personnel.

For school personnel, especially mid to senior level employees, this means that the rules regarding career advancement and indeed job retention have been changed in mid-stream. Student test scores above all else are critical factors in determining career advancement.  Obviously this puts school personnel in what they quite rationally believe to be a no-win situation.  Given their experiences, they have no reason to assume that student test scores would show significant improvement in such a short period of time.   And apparently, the rest of the attentive public shared their misgivings because no one expected the low achieving schools to show dramatic improvement.  Indeed, the whole test-cheating scandal evolved because informed observers found the reported improved test scores to be incredible.

Manipulating student test scores is inexcusable, but it is also understandable.  The teachers were asked to collect and report data which would undermine any chance they have of career success—despite all their hard work.  It’s no wonder that many of them gave in to temptation to submit doctored reports and answer sheets when they felt that there was neither time nor resources to improve student performance in a legitimate way.

Moreover, the test cheating scandal is not an individual problem; neither individual teachers nor individual schools should be the foci of the investigation.  It is a systemic issue brought about as a result of flawed and misguided policy.  The discussion should be about rethinking education policy and not about prosecuting teachers for racketeering.  At a minimum that discussion should begin with the assumption that testing is to be used only as a diagnostic tool and not as a punitive instrument.  Schools must have more holistic measures for determining career advancement but that is outside the scope of this column.

Getting back to the APS administrative hearings cum star trials, personnel ranging from high level administrators to young elementary school teachers have been paraded before the tribunal and accused of a variety of transgressions.  One teacher has been slated for firing for using facial expressions to steer students away from wrong answers. The local newspaper headlined that she would be fired because she gave “a look” to students who chose the wrong answer.  Another was slated to be fired because he paraphrased test questions in a manner that made it more understandable to the students.  Others, of course, are accused of more flagrant violations including actually erasing incorrect answers.  So this is column is written not to justify the cheating but to concur once again with Ravitch that all of this was to be expected.  It is time to move on.

The show trials should be stopped.  We have seen teachers who were caught up in a situation not of their own making being humiliated and paraded before the public as common criminals.  Many of them have given years of satisfactory and in some cases exemplary service to APS.  No public purpose will be served by these hearings.  I challenge anyone to show how any public interests or purpose is being served by the public hearings and aggressive prosecution of those implicated. Those who are guilty of the allegations were wrong but like others involved in widespread system induced indiscretions, amnesty for them would be in the public interest. In the American political culture it is not unusual to offer amnesty to individuals guilty of illegal behavior when that behavior grows out of the exigencies of extant public policy.  For example, those who stretched the truth to justify going to war in the Middle East were excused. So too were the bankers, mortgage companies and other financial players whose behaviors led to the recent financial crisis. The same compassion should be shown toward those accused in the APS cheating scandal

No more show trials.  No indictment.  AMNESTY FOR ALL.

Mack H. Jones

May 14, 2012

           

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

THE ATLANTA JOURNAL CONSTITUTION

AND THE ATLANTA TEST-CHEATING SCANDAL

 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s coverage of the Atlanta Public School test cheating scandal would be unworthy for even the Globe or National Inquirer. Under its banner of “continuing coverage” the AJC has run a seemingly unending sensationalized drum beat of stories about the scandal. It has identified by names scores of administrators, principals and teachers said to have been complicit in manipulating students test scores and demanded that they be fired. Even though the widely acclaimed school superintendent, Dr. Beverly Hall, resigned early on, the AJC has continued running demeaning articles about her even suggesting that she should refund bonuses she received in past years. To be sure, manipulating test scores is inexcusable but given the dynamics of the misguided No Child Left Behind policy the behavior of those involved is quite understandable. Indeed that is why the Atlanta school system is simply one of many systems across the accused of doing the same.

 The No Child Left Behind regime calls for ranking school systems based on student progress as measured by student test scores. Ultimately the career fortunes of teachers, principals, and administrators are tied to student test scores. Higher the test scores the greater are chances for career advancement. However, when the policy was adopted, and continuing until today, the distribution of test scores among schools was predictable. Anyone who knew the basic demographic data of the system could predict with reasonable confidence which schools would show the higher and lower test scores. That is because aggregate student performance is a societal and systemic matter and not one determined by the individuals of particular schools. (Of course we all understand that there will be high achieving and low achieving individuals in every school but we are talking about aggregate performances). Give us pertinent socio-economic and demographic data and we can tell you where to expect to find high performing and low performing schools. Thus to ask teachers and principals working in low performance schools to submit their predictable low test scores with the understanding that their career advancement will be based on the reported scores is a rather dubious proposition, one that borders on self-incrimination. It is not unlike basing the career fortunes of police personnel on reported crime rates; or ranking universities based on crimes in and around campus. As is well known and readily understood,  people are loath to report information likely to cause them personal harm. 

 Thus it is time to move on. The problem surrounding the Atlanta school system and test scores has been sufficiently described and discussed. Those allegedly involved have been identified. Their names, and in many instances, their pictures have been plastered across the pages of the AJC. They have been embarrassed and humiliated. The AJC continuing coverage has become a combination of tabloid sensationalism and career opportunism. Perhaps the editor and the investigating team are hoping for a Pulitzer or some other accolades. They have made their case.  Kudos for them.

For us, it is time to say that enough is enough. Those with a genuine concern for the Atlanta Public Schools and the families they serve should stand up and tell the AJC that enough is enough. There is no redeeming social value in continuing the salacious coverage. It is time for the Mayor, other elected officials, the Concerned Clergy and others of good will to tell the AJC to tone down the sensationalism and begin a realistic campaign for improving our schools.

April 26, 2012