Posted on 10/06/2014 8:53:45 PM PDT by blam
Erin Fuchs
October 6, 2014
Angela Williamson
An unusual racketeering trial in Atlanta began last week against a dozen ex-educators, including a fired 4th-grade teacher previously found innocent by a disciplinary tribunal.
That teacher, Angela Williamson, was one of 35 Atlanta Public Schools (APS) employees indicted last year in a massive cheating case that accused them of engaging in a criminal conspiracy to boost standardized test scores to get higher bonuses. The cheating ring allegedly went all the way up to now-disgraced ex-APS superintendent Beverly Hall, and state investigators used wiretaps to gather crucial evidence in the case.
Williamson's lawyer, Gerald Griggs, suggested the allegations against her are flimsier than those against many of the other teachers, who allegedly participated in "cheating parties" in order to change kids' answers on a standardized test known as the Criterion-Referenced Competency Test (CRCT).
Unlike other school employees, Williamson was never caught on a wiretap, according to her lawyer. Some allegations against her sound silly, while one allegation makes her sound like a mobster.
"They are saying she prompted students to change answers as opposed to other people [educators] engaging in cheating parties," Griggs said in a recent phone interview. "Our response is she never prompted anyone to do anything."
Georgia state investigators have alleged that during 2009 testing she sent signals in the form of coughs or frowns when she wanted kids to change their answers, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has reported. One test proctor also testified she heard Williamson give students answers, according to a document from the State Board of Education. (Her lawyer says one test proctor will testify on Williamson's behalf, though.)
In a graver allegation, Georgia state investigators say Williamson told her students
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(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Beverly Hall
They couldn't care less the example they're setting for the kids. If you can get away with it, it's okay.
There ought to be a law against government schools.
I totally agree
This in no way justifies what was done, but chalk this up as just another reason it’s foolhardy to force the teachers to teach for a test, instead of teaching creatively for the sake of learning.
Bad as ‘No Child Left Behind’ was, Common Core is far worse.
The public school systems are festering cesspools of corrupt communist pestilence.
No child left behind was a stupid law from W and Teddy. Some kids SHOULD be left behind.
As for teachers giving answers, I doubt many of the teachers could have scored very high on the tests themselves. So how the hell would they know the answers?
The correct answers to all questions on a given taught subject in public schools is listed in an index in the back of the Teacher's Version of all textbooks.
The direction in which to teach the curriculum is spelled out in each chapter as well, along with the questions the teacher should ask and the direction to prod the students.
As I understand it the tests weren’t all alike. Therefore the teacher would have to know the answer without looking it up. And the reason the answers are there is so the teacher can answer the questions correctly. Even those who print the tests know a lot of the teachers are too dumb to pass the courses they teach.
Yes, but all the teacher has to do is memorize the answers for the course they are teaching. All the questions and answers for every test given are from the textbooks used to teach the students. The teacher simply has to memorize from 9 to 25 questions per chapter to know the correct answer. Typically they have days to do that, and then the answers are reenforced whenever papers have to be graded.
After the first year of doing this, they already have all the answers well-memorized. It does not matter if the tests are not all alike. When you only have a set number of questions you can ask on a subject, and the teacher has all the correct answers memorized, it is actually quite simple to do.
It’s kind of like memorizing the questions and answers on the Citizenship exam. Once you get a copy of the sheet the INS uses to question the applicant, it does not matter how the questions are mixed because the answers are still the same.
I knew a Vietnamese friend showed Me the sheet of questions and answers that he would be asked on his exam, so he just memorized it and passed the exam without any problems. Other than correct American spelling and grammar, that is, but they take that into consideration.
I read the headline. Dared myself to click the link. Was not surprised.
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