Atlanta schools created culture of cheating, fear (& some got AWARDS for it!)

Fox News ^ | 7/16/11

[Libloather]

Atlanta schools created culture of cheating, fear
Published July 16, 2011
Associated Press

ATLANTA – Teachers spent nights huddled in a back room, erasing wrong answers on students' test sheets and filling in the correct bubbles. At another school, struggling students were seated next to higher-performing classmates so they could copy answers.

Those and other confessions are contained in a new state report that reveals how far some Atlanta public schools went to raise test scores in the nation's largest-ever cheating scandal. Investigators concluded that nearly half the city's schools allowed the cheating to go unchecked for as long as a decade, beginning in 2001.

Administrators — pressured to maintain high scores under the federal No Child Left Behind law — punished or fired those who reported anything amiss and created a culture of "fear, intimidation and retaliation," according to the report released earlier this month, two years after officials noticed a suspicious spike in some scores.

The report names 178 teachers and principals, and 82 of those confessed. Tens of thousands of children at the 44 schools, most in the city's poorest neighborhoods, were allowed to advance to higher grades, even though they didn't know basic concepts.

One teacher told investigators the district was "run like the mob."

[Libloather]

Atlanta Public Schools superintendent Dr. Beverly Hall shows off her 2009 Superintendent of the Year award. Hall was "honored" by the American Association of School Administrators for "increasing Atlanta district's test scores and graduation rates."

Hall has since come under fire for cheating scandals, where rampant, systematic cheating on test scores involved 44 schools and 178 teachers and principals. During the time the cheating was going on, Hall was honored as “Superintendent of the Year” by the American Association of School Administrators for increasing test scores.

[traderrob6]

That POS needs to go to jail.

[y6162]

Soon someone will say that because of the preponderance of “poor” children” . aka black, they had to cheat to protect them from racist stereotypes.

[Jeff Chandler]

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Keepin' It Real

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[Red_Devil 232]

Yep the whole demographic is attracted to the Bling!

[dainbramaged]

Noam sayin’?

[savagesusie]

This is what happens in a Marxist state of moral relativism where right and wrong is arbitrary. It is the slippery slope to hell. We have to return to a nation of God-given rights with God’s standards—not Marx’s—of good and evil.

This destruction of Christian morality is intentional to destroy our Biblical based government into the atheist hellhole of relativism where anyone can decide right and wrong—like single mom’s are good, homosexual behavior is “good”, Heather can have TWO mommies......Junk science all to promote “feelings” over the intellect. People controlled by their passions with no moral restraint are easy to herd and of low IQ.

Those Marxists with high IQ want to be the masters. It is all about masters and slaves (with very few masters).

[submarinerswife]

Because of No Child Left Behind, they were forced to do this. Their intentions were good.

It’s GW’s fault.

[GOPJ]

Soon someone will say that because of the preponderance of “poor” children” . aka black, they had to cheat to protect them from racist stereotypes.

It's worse than that - unionized teachers are sooooooo stupid and corrupt that they can't teach ANYONE.

The only kids who test well are those taught at home by Mommy and Daddy - sometimes neither with a college degree.

It's time to jail the 'teachers' involved and fire the rest of them. No more union protection for incompetence. Pull out a clean piece of white paper and start all over..

[y6162]

“No more union protection for incompetence. “

I haven’t read that one cheating teacher or principal has gotten fired yet. What’s the hold up?

[FrankR]

[RobbyS]

The public schools suffer from an enormous disadvantage when held to standards by objective tests. They simply do not believe in the value of academic rigor, and so they do not choose teachers for their knowledge of their subject. Indeed, the teacher colleges spent—misspend their efforts in cranking out “good” employees for the school districts, who want people more committed in instilling good “attitudes” in their students than in requiring them to master their subjects. Typical is the recent decision to compel students to have PC opinions about gays and transexuals. In California, teachers will be required to teach that Abraham Lincoln was a gay man saved the union ,p> IAC. standardized tests leave the schools in a quandary. They must somehow beat the system, and so in addition to what they consider their main job, indoctrination, they must spend the rest of the time forcing the kids to cram for these all important tests.

[GOPJ]

I haven’t read that one cheating teacher or principal has gotten fired yet. What’s the hold up?

The Unions must be more powerful than I thought... it's bad enough they're not being jailed - but you're saying they're still being paid? That's a travesty.

[codder too]

State test scores will be challenged across the nation as the Common Core Curriculum is put in place and the new NATIONAL/FEDERAL assessments come on line. They will destroy their old system from within by creating this crisis.

Race To The Top trumps No Child Left Behind and any local control that remains will be gone forever.

While we watch the debt crisis, this Common Core Curriculum and its costly and intrusive assessment/tracking system will add many millions more to the problem, and our nation will continue to be Dumbed Down...

[Venturer]

They will be back next year doing the same thing.

Fired for what? Do you really believe these teachers did this on their own?

They all got together and decided to erase wrong answers and cheat>> Nah, They did what they were told to do. Same as Eric Holder did with Gunwalker.

[kittymyrib]

It is way past time for the separation of school and state. Local school districts should be responsible for the advancement of students, not the state and certainly not the totally inept pathetic federal government. The Dept. of Education should be eliminated immediately because education in the USA has nose-dived since this worthless agency’s creation.

[Hoodat]

Democrats gone wild. I still don’t understand why it is that all 178 of these teachers/principals are still on the Atlanta Public Schools payroll. Every single one of them should have been fired weeks ago.

[Cincinatus' Wife]

For teachers and their bosses, the stakes were high: Schools that perform poorly and fail to meet certain benchmarks under the federal law can face sharp sanctions. They may be forced to offer extra tutoring, allow parents to transfer children to better schools, or fire teachers and administrators who don't pass muster.

Couldn't have that. Couldn't lose control.

I hate these people.

[GOPJ]

Nah, They did what they were told to do. Same as Eric Holder did with Gunwalker.

Ummm, you do know that was tried at Nuremberg, right? And it failed - failed so big it was historic... epic fail...

[BenKenobi]

I’m a tutor. Imagine how I feel cleaning up the mess they leave behind in the kids they ‘educate’.

Ugh!

This is why I get university kids who don’t understand why the colors of a rainbow are significant!