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Atlanta Education System caught in Massive Cheating Scandal

cpwill

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As I recall, the guy who wrote Freakonomics caught NY teachers doing the same thing.


Across Atlanta Public Schools, staff worked feverishly in secret to transform testing failures into successes.

Teachers and principals erased and corrected mistakes on students’ answer sheets.

Area superintendents silenced whistle-blowers and rewarded subordinates who met academic goals by any means possible.

Superintendent Beverly Hall and her top aides ignored, buried, destroyed or altered complaints about misconduct, claimed ignorance of wrongdoing and accused naysayers of failing to believe in poor children’s ability to learn.

For years — as long as a decade — this was how the Atlanta school district produced gains on state curriculum tests...

In the report, the governor’s special investigators describe an enterprise where unethical — and potentially illegal — behavior pierced every level of the bureaucracy, allowing district staff to reap praise and sometimes bonuses by misleading the children, parents and community they served.

The report accuses top district officials of wrongdoing that could lead to criminal charges in some cases...

For teachers, a culture of fear ensured the deception would continue.

“APS is run like the mob,” one teacher told investigators, saying she cheated because she feared retaliation if she didn’t.

The voluminous report names 178 educators, including 38 principals, as participants in cheating. More than 80 confessed. The investigators said they confirmed cheating in 44 of 56 schools they examined.

The investigators conducted more than 2,100 interviews and examined more than 800,000 documents in what is likely the most wide-ranging investigation into test-cheating in a public school district ever conducted in United States history...

Phyllis Brown, a southwest Atlanta parent with two children in the district, said the latest revelations are “horrible.” It is the children, she said, who face embarrassment if they are promoted to a higher grade only to find they aren’t ready for the more challenging work.

Still, she doesn’t believe teachers should be punished.

“It’s the people over them, that threatened them, that should be punished
,” she said. “The ones from the building downtown, they should lose their jobs, they should lose their pensions. They are the ones who started this.”...

In some schools, the report said, cheating became a routine part of administering the annual state Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests. The investigators describe highly organized, coordinated efforts to falsify tests when children could not score high enough to meet the district’s self-imposed goals....

At Venetian Hills, a group of teachers and administrators who dubbed themselves “the chosen ones” convened to change answers in the afternoons or during makeup testing days, investigators found. Principal Clarietta Davis, a testing coordinator told investigators, wore gloves while erasing to avoid leaving fingerprints on answer sheets....

At Gideons Elementary, teachers sneaked tests off campus and held a weekend “changing party” at a teacher’s home in Douglas County to fix answers.

Cheating was “an open secret” at the school, the report said. The testing coordinator handed out answer-key transparencies to place over answer sheets so the job would go faster.

When investigators began questioning educators, now-retired principal Armstead Salters obstructed their efforts by telling teachers not to cooperate, the report said.

“If anyone asks you anything about this just tell them you don’t know,” the report said Salters said. He told teachers to “just stick to the story and it will all go away.”...

Area superintendents, who oversee clusters of schools, enforced a code of silence. One made a whistle-blower alter his reports of cheating and placed a reprimand in his file — and not the cheater’s. Another told a teacher who saw tampering that if she did not “keep her mouth shut,” she would “be gone.”

“In sum, a culture of fear, intimidation and retaliation permeated the APS system from the highest ranks down,
” the investigators wrote. “Cheating was allowed to proliferate until, in the words of one former APS principal, ‘it became intertwined in Atlanta Public Schools ... a part of what the culture is all about.’ ”...

The cheating cut off struggling students from the extra help they would have received if they’d failed.








a public union monopoly conspired together to create an enterprise dedicated to making themselves look better at the expense of the public and those they were supposed to be serving? I'm shocked!
 
Public Schools, The Teacher's Union, Obama, and The DNC hard at work...............

........hiding the decline once again.
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This is really bad. These are people who should know better and it sure didn't do the kids any favors.
 
The FEA is just as bad, if not worse.

Google "Pat Tornillo" and see what you find.

I'm for reasonable collective bargaining rights as much as the next guy, but people need to understand -- unions can abuse power just as much as corporations and governments.
 
Public Schools, The Teacher's Union, Obama, and The DNC hard at work...............

........hiding the decline once again.
.
.
.

teachers' union?
this was management which perpetrated the fraud, even after the wrongdoing had been reported to the highest levels by the union:
AFT President Randi Weingarten provided the following statement to ThinkProgress: “The governor’s investigation found that Atlanta Federation of Teachers was the first to expose cheating in December 2005, but the union’s complaint was ignored and sadly, subsequent whistle-blowers in the district were punished and silenced.
Atlanta Could Have Averted Its Cheating Scandal If It Had Listened To Its Local Teachers Union | ThinkProgress
 
The FEA is just as bad, if not worse.

Google "Pat Tornillo" and see what you find.

I'm for reasonable collective bargaining rights as much as the next guy, but people need to understand -- unions can abuse power just as much as corporations and governments.

please explain what it was the atlanta teachers' union did which is found inappropriate
 
please explain what it was the atlanta teachers' union did which is found inappropriate

You can't look at this in a vacuum. The line of most union teachers across the nation is secure tenure. Georgia eliminated its tenure system in 2000, which is when this scandal began to take root.

In the absence of firm tenure footing -- in other words, actual standards by which to evaluate teachers and disperse money -- these teachers decided it was okay to pad test scores and literally change answers. These are the kind of people that tenure reform seeks to root out. In other words, these are BAD TEACHERS that were going to be protected by union tenure. And please don't tell me that the standards were "impossibly high," because I would beg to differ.

These are the teachers, and yes the administrators too, that people wanted out of the APS when the reforms were passed.

Now, states like Michigan are afraid to hold their teachers accountable because they don't want a scandal of this magnitude on their hands.
 
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You can't look at this in a vacuum. The line of most union teachers across the nation is secure tenure. Georgia eliminated its tenure system in 2000, which is when this scandal began to take root.

In the absence of firm tenure footing -- in other words, actual standards by which to evaluate teachers and disperse money -- these teachers decided it was okay to pad test scores and literally change answers. These are the kind of people that tenure reform seeks to root out. In other words, these are BAD TEACHERS that were going to be protected by union tenure. And please don't tell me that the standards were "impossibly high," because I would beg to differ.

These are the teachers, and yes the administrators too, that people wanted out of the APS when the reforms were passed.

Now, states like Michigan are afraid to hold their teachers accountable because they don't want a scandal of this magnitude on their hands.

you seem to be quite confused about this
read the OP's cited article
this was management which conspired to manipulate its student test data
management intimidated the teachers into participating
while teachers can and do form unions in georgia, they are not recognized for purposes of negotiation. the union is effectively the ombudsman for teachers' issues
it is beyond foolish to attribute this wrong doing to any georgia teachers union
the atlanta teachers union was the entity which identified this fraud; unfortunately, they took it to the (senior) management official who oversaw the fraud
 
you seem to be quite confused about this
read the OP's cited article
this was management which conspired to manipulate its student test data
management intimidated the teachers into participating
while teachers can and do form unions in georgia, they are not recognized for purposes of negotiation. the union is effectively the ombudsman for teachers' issues
it is beyond foolish to attribute this wrong doing to any georgia teachers union
the atlanta teachers union was the entity which identified this fraud; unfortunately, they took it to the (senior) management official who oversaw the fraud

...uh huh...and why do you think they manipulated this data? Because they were afraid of losing their jobs vis a vis the 2000 tenure reform. Why were they afraid? Because they very tenure they defended in 2000, the opposition to merit pay, etc, etc.....it was because they knew their kids couldn't pass these tests. The teachers are not the innocent cogs oppressed by the big bad administrators here. This is institutional. People love to complain about how American kids are failing this and that, but as soon as the state actually starts to hold teachers accountable, people raise a stink about "unrealistic targets" and "formulaic education." It's like clockwork.

That one local chapter of the AFT filed a complaint in 2005 and then just brushed it off, so now you want to make it seem like unions blew the whistle? This is the same union that wanted to marginalize the CRCT's importance from the beginning, and now they're the victims when it comes to cheating on it? I'm not buying it at all.
 
...uh huh...and why do you think they manipulated this data? Because they were afraid of losing their jobs vis a vis the 2000 tenure reform. Why were they afraid? Because they very tenure they defended in 2000, the opposition to merit pay, etc, etc.....it was because they knew their kids couldn't pass these tests. The teachers are not the innocent cogs oppressed by the big bad administrators here. This is institutional. People love to complain about how American kids are failing this and that, but as soon as the state actually starts to hold teachers accountable, people raise a stink about "unrealistic targets" and "formulaic education." It's like clockwork.

That one local chapter of the AFT filed a complaint in 2005 and then just brushed it off, so now you want to make it seem like unions blew the whistle? This is the same union that wanted to marginalize the CRCT's importance from the beginning, and now they're the victims when it comes to cheating on it? I'm not buying it at all.
without having a union available to protect them from being fired for refusing to cooperate in the management led fraud, the teachers were intimidated into cooperation
 
without having a union available to protect them from being fired for refusing to cooperate in the management led fraud, the teachers were intimidated into cooperation

Is this the union they "don't" have?

http://gae2.org/
 
This happened a few years back as well. It's disgusting.
 
Is this the union they "don't" have?

Georgia Association of Educators (GAE)*

your reading comprehension indicates you may have attended school in georgia
i mentioned the georgia union was not recognized by the state of georgia but served the role of ombudsman, elevating the teachers' concerns with a common voice, in the hope that the georgia officials would listen

georgia is one of the states which does not negotiate with unions. certainly teachers can join a united organization which attempts to effect change in their professional interests. but it is georgia which is able to ignore the voice of the teachers union
here is an economist excerpt to make my point
... Only 5 states do not have collective bargaining for educators and have deemed it illegal. Those states and their ranking on ACT/SAT scores are as follows:

South Carolina – 50th
North Carolina – 49th
Georgia – 48th
Texas – 47th
Virginia – 44th

If you are wondering, Wisconsin, with its collective bargaining for teachers, is ranked 2nd in the country. ...
Unions: Teaching quality and bargaining | The Economist
 
can people REALLY even begin to question why so many of us are ready to ****can the entire education system and start over? Or why dumping more money into a continually failing system is just plain stupid?
 
Moderator's Warning:
Threads merged.
 
your reading comprehension indicates you may have attended school in georgia

Apparently yours does too, since you completely ignored the argument about teachers opposing the 2000 reform in the first place. I realize that collective bargaining and striking are illegal in Georgia. That doesn't really mean anything, as I will explain below. My point is that they trashed CRCT as a means of weeding out bad teachers and then cheated to fulfill quotas once the law was passed -- in part because of administrative stupidity and in part because BAD teaching was finally exposed. They didn't just cheat because the pressure was put on these "poor educators." I know southern education far too well to believe them when they say that. The problem is that too many kids still can't pass a test that any 3rd grader should be able to do with ease. The reason that the 2005 allegations were hushed up isn't because the poor teachers were jackbooted and ignored. It's because, ultimately, the union didn't care that much. It was only when the discrepancies became obvious on paper that the governor's office got involved at all.

Georgia is one of the states which does not negotiate with unions. certainly teachers can join a united organization which attempts to effect change in their professional interests. but it is georgia which is able to ignore the voice of the teachers union
here is an economist excerpt to make my point

A ridiculous point, attempting to argue that collective bargaining and the right to strike as the only things that matter in this particular case. They're not "able to ignore" them any more than they can ignore a police union or a firefighter union within the same state. In fact, they historically haven't. You clearly know nothing about Georgia or its school system. I do, even though I have never attended public school there. So please educate yourself before you post.

http://gae2.org/pdf/gov/historicalaccomplishments.pdf

Teacher Salaries By State | Average Salaries For Teachers | Beginning Salaries For Teachers | Teacher Raises | TeacherPortal.com

Georgia is one of the better states in the country for a teacher's salary. Without collective bargaining. Just because they don't have it, doesn't mean they haven't been just as, or MORE effective in getting themselves benefits.

Incidentally...Wisconsin? One of the very worst.
 
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Apparently yours does too, since you completely ignored the argument about teachers opposing the 2000 reform in the first place. I realize that collective bargaining and striking are illegal in Georgia. That doesn't really mean anything, as I will explain below. My point is that they trashed CRCT as a means of weeding out bad teachers and then cheated to fulfill quotas once the law was passed -- in part because of administrative stupidity and in part because BAD teaching was finally exposed. They didn't just cheat because the pressure was put on these "poor educators." I know southern education far too well to believe them when they say that. The problem is that too many kids still can't pass a test that any 3rd grader should be able to do with ease. The reason that the 2005 allegations were hushed up isn't because the poor teachers were jackbooted and ignored. It's because, ultimately, the union didn't care that much. It was only when the discrepancies became obvious on paper that the governor's office got involved at all.



A ridiculous point, attempting to argue that collective bargaining and the right to strike as the only things that matter in this particular case. They're not "able to ignore" them any more than they can ignore a police union or a firefighter union within the same state. In fact, they historically haven't. You clearly know nothing about Georgia or its school system. I do, even though I have never attended public school there. So please educate yourself before you post.

http://gae2.org/pdf/gov/historicalaccomplishments.pdf

Teacher Salaries By State | Average Salaries For Teachers | Beginning Salaries For Teachers | Teacher Raises | TeacherPortal.com

Georgia is one of the better states in the country for a teacher's salary. Without collective bargaining. Just because they don't have it, doesn't mean they haven't been just as, or MORE effective in getting themselves benefits.

Incidentally...Wisconsin? One of the very worst.

.......



BBBWWAAAaaa HAHAHAHAHA!!!!
 
your reading comprehension indicates you may have attended school in georgia
i mentioned the georgia union was not recognized by the state of georgia but served the role of ombudsman, elevating the teachers' concerns with a common voice, in the hope that the georgia officials would listen

georgia is one of the states which does not negotiate with unions. certainly teachers can join a united organization which attempts to effect change in their professional interests. but it is georgia which is able to ignore the voice of the teachers union
here is an economist excerpt to make my point

Unions: Teaching quality and bargaining | The Economist

In all fairness, I am under the impression that those states have the highest percentage of students taking the SAT. The more students taking a standardized test, the lower the scores tend to be due to the fact that more "lower performing" students are taking the tests in addition to top students. It's the perfect example of statics being used to mislead.

Those particular states also have higher percentages of hispanics and blacks, both groups tend to poorly perform on standardized testings.

Additionally, I don't think that anyone could prove a link between collective barganing and SAT scores. I could just as easily make the claim that the lack of collective bargaining in a state leads to higher percentages of blacks and hispanics. Or that living in warm climates causes stupidity.

I could also dig up a chart ranking states by the percent of students that bother to take the SAT and draw the conclusion that states that have outlawed collective bargaining have better educational systems because more students are interested in attending college.
 
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a public union monopoly conspired together to create an enterprise dedicated to making themselves look better at the expense of the public and those they were supposed to be serving? I'm shocked!

CP, you're working too hard to blame this on the union. This is more the fault of high stakes testing, that really doesn't favor education or children. Remember, I told you years ago cheating would be the result. :coffeepap
 
CP, you're working too hard to blame this on the union. This is more the fault of high stakes testing, that really doesn't favor education or children. Remember, I told you years ago cheating would be the result. :coffeepap

I agree, standardized testing has hurt education.
 
For those of you who don't know and want to judge based solely on the idea of unions or management, there is a greater story here. Basically APS (Atlanta Public Schools) has been having accreditation issues for a few years now. The accreditation issues stem from multiple factors, such as crappy managements, school board infighting, and poor teacher performance. Also, the state government has threatened to take over the school system at least a couple of times over the years, from my recollection.

However, while inexcusable, this latest problem with APS is the result of the school system trying to find ways to get off probationary status for accreditation and is a push from the district and management level, more than anything else. This is why a culture of cheating emerged, it was unofficially sanctioned by those who knew about it and had the power to do something about it, but again accreditation status was the greater concern.

This has little, if anything to do with teacher unions, because basically a teachers union does not exist in Georgia (my wife is a part of that union and we know what it can or cannot do for us).

APS faces Accreditation Teams Next Week | 11alive.com
 
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