CRCT cheating story in Atlanta: Not just a whodunit but a why-did-they-do-it
The long-awaited investigation into alleged cheating by Atlanta Public Schools on state exams is now in the hands of the governor, who is expected to release the findings as early as Tuesday.
A handful of posters expect the report to skewer newly retired APS Superintendent Beverly Hall. But I don’t expect the report to uncover a trail of treachery that leads directly to Hall’s doorstep. I expect that the conclusions will be more troubling than a top administrator or two gone bad.
The implications of what occurred will reach beyond the central office and the district. The report will likely spark questions over whether it’s possible to raise student achievement in poor schools under the current structure, design and funding of American education.
The report will likely describe APS teachers and principals under unrelenting and unreasonable pressures to improve student performance. We will read about beleaguered educators who believed that wholesale failure by APS students on the CRCT would be blamed solely on their inadequacies rather than on poverty, indifferent parents or challenging home environments.
I am sure that part of the motivation of those who doctored tests was preserving their jobs and appeasing a school leadership team that held them to higher and higher standards. But I think some of their motivation was less self-serving; they wanted to fulfill Dr. Hall’s vision that low-income children from single parent homes and tough neighborhoods could and would succeed at levels comparable to suburban Atlanta peers and that such performance could be achieved system-wide by adopting best practices and by working harder and smarter.
The APS teachers, principals and administrators wanted to prove that the faith of the Broad and Gates foundations and the Chamber of Commerce in the district was not misplaced and that APS could rewrite the script of urban education in America and provide a happy, or at least a happier, ending for its students.
And that’s what ought to alarm us, that these professionals ultimately felt their students could not even pass basic competency tests, despite targeted school improvement plans, proven reforms and state-of-the-art teacher training.
Here are the questions that the report ought to raise and that I hope we can discuss this week:
Do we know yet how to take children who live under the worst circumstances for learning and help them get fantastic educations anyway?
Can an urban school system elbow its students past poverty, uneducated parents and lack of education-rich home lives by extraordinary will, commitment and effort?
If the report establishes that any APS teachers, principals or administrators cheated, dole out the appropriate punishments.
But with evidence now suggesting that other urban systems also faked their meteoric score increases, we ought to focus on the larger questions about how much we are asking of these systems, schools and teachers and whether we are equipping them with the tools and resources to do so.
And the final and toughest question of all: Are we asking too much?
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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Teacher Reader
July 4th, 2011
9:37 pm
The problems with our schools have many layers.
The foundation is the family and families supporting education, teachers, and the work that the children must do to learn. As a former teacher, I can’t begin to count the excuses I heard while Johnny did not get his work done the night before and could he please have more time. Parents not spending time with their children and using the tv as a babysitter, and parents not talking to their children or exposing them to places, ideas, or things that encourage thought and brain use.
The government has taken over the schools. The government now provides breakfast and lunch for students whose parents say that they are poor (I say it this way, as I have witnessed principals and teachers telling parents who could very well afford their child’s lunch how to fill out the forms, so that the school has more students with free/reduced lunches and qualifies for Title One money.) The government’s idea of fixing problems is pouring more money into education, while lowering the standards for our children, expecting less from the children, and making the teachers responsible-while parents, children, administrators have no responsibility and are able to play the blame game of why a child is failing.
The third layer are the school systems. The school systems have become administration heavy and job making programs in many communities. The focus of many districts is not on educating the children, but on how many high paying jobs they can get their friends and family members. Like most government jobs, it’s nearly impossible to get rid of someone once they have been in the position for a while, even if they don’t show up or are not qualified to do the job that they were hired to do. Tax payers need to look at the salaries of secretaries, administrators, and other non-child jobs and see how well paid these positions are compared to that of the teacher and then look and see how many in these positions have gotten their jobs and how they have advanced up the pay scale. For example, in DCSS there are Title One coaches who do little to work with children who make $80,000+ a year, much more than teachers.
The fourth layer is the people who think that they can solve the problem with spending more money. I am not sure if Bill Gates feels guilty for making such large sums of money, (something that I do not think he should be embarrassed about), but spending more money in failing systems that have such low expectations for children is not going to help the children. It’s just going to make those receiving the money have a bigger pay check or employ a few more people, but rarely does doing something that is failing over and over again breed success.
The fifth layer, is those teachers, like myself who are tired of the BS and have left teaching because we are smart enough to realize that being a teacher has nothing to do with educating children, because if it did, I would have been able to hold my students to higher standards and been able to follow the rule that work turned in on time gets graded.
Our CRCT is a joke. Earning 51% or higher earns a meets standards or a number 2. In my book anything below 70% is failing.
The advanced degrees that many principals and superintendents and other administrators have received, bought, or been given are meaningless. I am positive that I along with a group of several other teachers who have high expectations for children could better run our schools. We are not talking rocket science. Being educated does not make one white. I hope that blacks wake up and realize that their own kind are sailing them down the stream at a really low price. In DCSS, where I most recently taught, the administrators are majority black. The person who is ahead of the curriculum decisions struggles with writing proper English, even though he has a doctorate degree. The teacher orientation that I went to four years ago now, consisted partly of 2 hour fashion show showing me how to dress, instead of talking about curriculum and more important things that make a school great.
I am not sure what is going to change and improve our public education, but I do know that I cannot entrust my child’s education to the government and school districts, as I want my child held to high expectations and standards. I want him to receive help when it is needed, along with discipline. I do not want my child feeling that he is entitled to anything, but a good education, something that shouldn’t come easy and should require great work. Many of the educated families that I know, have pulled their children out of public school. They do this not because they think that they are better than anyone, or because they can even afford it (as most have had to sell things like watch collections, jewelry, and stopped extras to afford a quality education for their children.
I am tired of paying expensive local and federal taxes to a system that isn’t working and is squandering my money, something that we work very hard to earn. I hope that there is justice with the CRCT scandal this week, and that all those found to have cheated have all education licenses removed, are fined high fines, and put in jail if appropriate. I doubt that much will become of those truly involved and that a few will be scape goats. As I have watched in my 4 years in Georgia, no one with any power really cares what is happening in our public schools, and until someone does, numbers of all sorts are played with and straight facts are given to families about their children’s progress, I do not see any substantial change.
Bystander
July 4th, 2011
9:38 pm
Wow. Some of these comments prove that racism is still very much alive and kicking in 2011. May some of you “High IQ” individuals be born into abject poverty and 400 years of oppression/second class citizenship in the next life.
You're kidding,right?
July 4th, 2011
9:46 pm
Maureen, while I appreciate your blog and the attention and discourse that result from shining a light on the significant issues relating to Atlanta’s education problems, for the first time I’m beginning to think you’re just as clueless as “Dr.” Hall and her gang of minions.
Are we asking too much? Are you serious? Really?
Harsch-Kinnane, Hall, Augustine et al, if found guilty, should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
Stop with the excuses. Where were you when bonuses were being handed out, when the limos were carrying the “achievers” to their celebrations, when the rats were fleeing the sinking ship and running for cover / moving to other states to obtain employment (still don’t understand how Texas, SC, others can even consider some of these people for roles within their school systems).
Based on columns/blogs such as this, you’ve become as much an enabler as the many cronies that Hall surrounded herself with.
Really, really disappointed. Where on earth did your objectivity go?
Editing Ms. LeGrand
July 4th, 2011
9:47 pm
@sAwb, don’t generalize by what you see here in the Atlanta metro. Many of my fellow African American transplants wonder the same thing. When I moved here several years ago I was amazed that there were so many funcitional illiterates here. I didn’t know that there were people who still couldn’t read. After all we do have free education. However, one’s mindset should be that one wants to learn. I haven’t quite found that here. Most people want to blame the teacher or the system. How about teaching your children why education is necessary. Your systems are the most permissive that I have witnessed. Misbehavior is tolerated, and encouraged. The CRCT is so watered down that anyone with a marginal amount of reading ability should be able to pass. As a daily witness to this environment, I must say I am apalled at the poor level of expectations of these parents and their children. I move that we make tuition mandatory on a income scale basis with the only people that are exempt are those who excel past the norm.
Maureen Downey
July 4th, 2011
10:14 pm
@You’re kidding, I am not arguing with prosecution of proven wrongdoing. I suspect there will only be a few criminal actions. There may well be more PSC actions.
But after those teachers — and there will be some teachers — and administrators are sanctioned, is that the end?
Is that all we want out of this long saga — sanctions?
If it is, we have missed a chance for a serious discussion of what drove educators to these extremes. Were the bars set too high? Were the bars reasonable? If so, were the educators not able to help their students reach these reasonable bars? Why?
Maureen
Fred
July 4th, 2011
10:19 pm
Maureen: Very nice article. I too feel your pain and share your concerns. Alas, I have no answers to the questions you pose.
Yet on this fourth of July, I find it apropos that you pose the questions and show your concern for our children, for in the end they are ALL “our” children. I would venture to say that the children of those who read and respond to this blog are not handicapped by (as you put it) “low-income children from single parent homes and tough neighborhoods” or by “poverty, indifferent parents or challenging home environments.” But how many who read and respond even care about “those” children? I do, and I see YOU do. It’s a start. For in the end, as I said, they are ALL ‘our’ children and it is in our best interests as a society to educate EVERYONE.
Keep plugging away Maureen, you DO make a difference.
Incredulous
July 4th, 2011
10:20 pm
@Maureen Downey, I enjoy reading the blog and sometimes participating. From my point of view, the teachers in the line of fire are”low hanging fruit” and convenient. I would hope that we would be focused higher up the ladder. When an army loses a battle, you don’t blame the rank and file.
Vince
July 4th, 2011
10:21 pm
We ask teachers and administrators to get kids with IQ’s in the 50’s and 60’s to score at grade level and that their jobs depend on it.
We ask teachers and administrators to get refugee and immigrant children who do not speak the language and have never been in school to score at grade level in a matter of a few months…..and that their jobs depend on it.
Scientists and doctors haven’t come up withe a cure for low IQ and brain damage in over a hundred years of research, and yet we ask teachers and administrators to find the cure and apply it successfully in a matter of a few years.
No, Maureen…. I don’t think we are asking too much. Whatever made you think that?
Really amazed
July 4th, 2011
10:24 pm
You ain’t seen nothin yet!!!!!
Grob Hahn
July 4th, 2011
10:25 pm
What happened here was that some people decided that black kids were not closing the achievement gap quickly enough. So they took it upon themselves to give the black kids an ego boost by artificially manipulating their supposedly secure test sheets. What a wonder it must have seemed to the parents of these black kids. It must have felt like winning a Nobel prize. Unfortunately it was a dishonest scheme designed to siphon resources away from these black children so the pockets of others could be lined. The real shame in all of this is that what happened is blatant racism, but it is being called racist to properly investigate it. It’s being called racist to point out that the people who did this are black. And it’s being called racist to expose the truth of the matter here and that is that black children have been cheated out of their education by people who held them to a lower standard and used them like pawns. But of course, pointing this out, is racist.
Grobbbbbbbbbbbbbb
Legend of Len Barker
July 4th, 2011
10:26 pm
The social studies objectives for CRCT had little to do with the guidelines the state sent the teachers.
No, we shouldn’t be teaching the test, but SO MUCH rides on the test, you have to pass it. I cannot fault any system for doing just about anything it can to pass a very broken way of evaluating school and student achievement.
I was the one in charge of administering the practice test questions the state had on their CRCT website at my old school. The state rarely updated the information. Social studies and science sections were a joke. There was so little material that we could use with the kids. I still have some of the questions memorized because we had to use them so much to give the kids something to study.
They hated it. I hated it. But we had no other options.
No Child Left Behind means they all were left behind. Travis, who was reading at pre-primer level in 8th grade was expected to have the same learning capability and achievement as Chloe, who was in gifted.
You know what our biggest disadvantage was? We’re deathly poor. Gwinnett, Fayette, Forsyth, et cetera, et cetera have upper class families. They can visit Atlanta for culture. Our culture is the mold on the bathroom wall. The state gives us no money. Perhaps half of our parents care.
Yet we’re expected to achieve the same things on a slope that would make an experienced mountain climber cry.
Fred
July 4th, 2011
10:27 pm
Grog Hahn, there is truth in your whole racist diatribe.
Vince
July 4th, 2011
10:32 pm
@ Legend of Len..
If your school is Title 1 then your school probably gets 250,000 to 400,000 dollars more a year than many of those schools you listed.
Of course, even that amount of money won’t perform the miracles demanded by NCLB.
Only a magic wand could do that.
The Carnivore
July 4th, 2011
10:56 pm
The messages are not racist. The truth may be far from politically correct, but it is the truth. It IS a black problem. The problem isn’t going away. Cheating to cover up the problem won’t work. Let’s end political correctness once and for all.
I would suggest a return to the pre-1954 era; before Brown vs. Board of Education. We have pissed away trillions since then as a country on education, and results are mediocre at best. The states and districts are going broke trying to fix an unfixable problem.
Beverly Hall's Meal ticket vomit
July 4th, 2011
10:57 pm
This was the Beverly Hall fish rotting from the head down, so that she could be Superintendent of the Year. There was NO WAY for her to excel without fraud, so they all committed fraud for her. She’s a fat, black, alleged educator, and there was no other way for her to make it, so she made her own FAT BLACK CULTURE OF CORRUPTION, but there’s no big surprise here.
high school teacher
July 4th, 2011
11:09 pm
As we get closer to 2014 and the belief that 100% of our kids will be on grade level, I suspect that a lot more of these stories will be coming out.
New Orleans Teacher
July 4th, 2011
11:12 pm
Cheating on state tests is happening all over the country. There is so much pressure to get high test scores.
1. I would like all students to be tested at a location other than their schools by an impartial person. It would be interesting to compare scores before and after..
2, There are state employees who are giving access to the test to school employees/friends before the test is given.
3. I don’t know the answer, but I do know that No Child Left Behind isn’t working.
LaQuanda
July 4th, 2011
11:14 pm
They cheated because the ghetto children could not be taught. Ghetto households are extremely dysfunctional and don’t promote education. When you couple that with the fact the teachers in these “hood” schools are lazy, you can easily understand that they cheated to help the children pass to give the appearance they were educators. There are serious problems in the black community. Blacks are in a state of denial and other races are prohibited to call them out due to “politically correctness.”
submerged
July 4th, 2011
11:19 pm
Is it true that the investigators are censoring the racial breakdown of the cheaters? We assume they were mostly African American, but there must have been some European Americans who were pressured by Afro principals to cheat?
What is the breakdown on the races who were helped? Were black teachers cheating for White and Hispanic students, or were they self selective and discriminatory in favor of their own kind?
Why is the ATL so corrupt? Teachers, police, sheriffs, jailers, assessors, etc. What message does it send to Whites in Buckhead when they see blacks on their TV every night in crime and corruption stories. How will we ever eradicate racism if blacks can’t keep themselves out of the news?
marymac
July 5th, 2011
12:02 am
Joyce,
Do not tell anybody else that you are a retired APS teacher.You are a good example of the problem in APS……proofread your work……………..
Chris
July 5th, 2011
12:03 am
The longer the current system is left in place, the greater the disparity will become between the children of the wealthy and the children of the poor. It is one thing to recognize the achievement gap; it is another thing entirely to make the hard choices, including discipline, which are needed to close this gap. The current system of rewarding state-level test scores alone creates the perverse incentive to cheat these tests. As long as the people making the decisions are pulling down $200,000+/yr they will not make the hard choices because these choices do not directly impact their children, and they are political suicide in impoverished school districts.
DeKalbParent
July 5th, 2011
12:04 am
The students whose papers were “improved” were cheated. I recommend keeping the tests (that which isn’t measured does not get done) but measuring the improvement of the students. We need to accept that some students do not advance as quickly as others. That said, those who interrupt learning need to be put in special classes so that those who are willing will learn.
Lee
July 5th, 2011
12:10 am
It’s been what, a year and a half, two years, since this story first broke? For the first 6-12 months, they allowed Hall to run her own “investigation”. ROFLMAO. We see how that turned out….
August 2010, the governor assigned Bowers and Co to investigate. This should have been a 6 – 8 week investigation. But no, APS has paid Hall about a half-million in salary and benefits since this story broke and now has retired and is enjoying a healthy retirement income, thankyouverymuchtaxpayers. Several of her accomplices have fled to other systems.
And now, we will finally get to see what the year-long investigation has yielded.
A day late and a few million dollars short, IMHO.
Patricia
July 5th, 2011
12:18 am
“Do we know yet how to take children who live under the worst circumstances for learning and help them get fantastic educations anyway?”
What I have learned in my thirty plus years as a teacher often of students who are not successful learners is those students who struggle the most, who have the least appropriate assistance at home absolutely need more time to become proficient learners both of math and reading. They need materials other than basal readers. They need of lot of class time in the early years devoted to reading, not discussing reading, but reading. They need a lot of reteaching in varied ways as opposed to teaching focused on a pacing guide which in turn is covering the material in preparation for the CRCT. I have often taught students to read in my third grade classes knowing they would leave me and not receive the assistance they would need to continue building upon what they had learned and accomplished. I have been fortunate to have parents who supported their children and their efforts to learn, but often themselves were not proficient readers. The farther up a child goes into school the more difficult it becomes for some teachers to recognize the journey some children must follow to become proficient learners and the responsibility they play into their learning. I believe in classes that loop where students remain with teachers for two or three years in the elementary school. I also approach the multi-age grouping where students are given more support. We are so segmented in our approach to student learning. I do not support charter schools, but I do believe our struggling students need to be given more choices regarding how they should be taught. Teachers need to be highly qualified and given the freedom to teach their students in the ways that best fit THEIR needs as opposed to the preparing for a standardized test they are unable to read. If we invest in really developing proficient readers in elementary school and forget all this testing every single year then perhaps more of these students might actually become successful learners.
Doesn't Surprise Me
July 5th, 2011
12:23 am
I don’t know if this has already been said or not. If it has, it deserves repeating…This has nothing to do with race, poverty or the haves vs the have nots…This has to do with unethical educators and administrators doing anything they can to protect their jobs and with lazy a$$ parents that use the public school system as a babysitter. If the parents and these educators cared for anyone other than themselves, they would have put more effort into TEACHING the children. TEACH the children and your job would be safe. Parents, BE PARENTS instead of egg and sperm donors and the children would be better students and for that matter better citizens.
The Carnivore
July 5th, 2011
12:26 am
The “achievement gap” cannot be closed. Once everyone recognizes this, we can start to put meaningful reforms in place. As long as we fail to recognize this, we will continue to waste copious amounts of money and time.
Sheila
July 5th, 2011
12:29 am
Wow. The report is not even out and you are making excuses. There is no excuse for what happened. And what a bad lesson for any child this has been. There is no excuse. It will be interesting to see how your ridiculous opinion lines up with the report. Pathetic.
Sunny K Park
July 5th, 2011
1:14 am
the teachers and the administrators knows most of all answers. The problem is there are not enough committed educators but too many career teachers. What do we expect as there are no statesmen but bunch of politicians who are there for self serving reasons. BTW, I went to Korean schools, and we used old news paper as notebooks, written between news article lane. Poor and poverty is not something to shame, and it certainly is not something to proud of. If anyone poor in schools, they should study, study harder, so they will be poor no more. All students have to do is listen and concentrate in classrooms and restudy at home. It will take no more than just 2-3 hours per day at home. Now, let’s go to work, it is getting late!
Dr. John Trotter
July 5th, 2011
1:50 am
I just got onto this blog this evening. I see that I have missed some interesting posts. I posted a Fourth of July tribute on my personal blog today and besides talking about General Washington and the Marquis de LaFayette, I also discussed some of my former students and athletes from my days at the old Jonesboro Junior High School. One of these students was Norreese Haynes, my friend and colleague at MACE. I think that some of you will find this article interesting, especially about Norreese and how his family “escaped” Carver Homes in Atlanta for a then more peaceful setting in Jonesboro. Norreese certainly was considered “ar risk.” He probably led the school in receiving the most paddlings. Ha! But, Norreese was always fun to be around, even as a student. I am very proud of him and what he has accomplished thus far in his life. Read about some of my other students as well and what they have accomplished…like Colonel Rhett B. Griner, the “U. S. Senator” who presided over my Georgia History classes and who later graduated from West Point and has served several tours in Iraq. These were the days when you could have fun teaching. No one snoopervised you, and you certainly did not worry about any confounded standardized exam keeping you from expanding the curriculum through creative means. This is what is missing today in the public schooling process. Today, it is so sterile, dry, canned, and, as the kids would day…boringggggggggggggg.
Here’s the articles… >>>
http://georgiateachersspeakout.com/
Joe Teacher
July 5th, 2011
2:49 am
1: Some people here have blamed teacher unions. There are no teacher unions in Georgia, only associations. If there had been a real teacher’s union in APS then the teachers could easily have refused to submit to the administration’s order to cheat and not worried about retaliation. But because there is no teacher’s union, the teachers are at the mercy of administrators.
2: Teachers can no longer discipline children. The worst punishment is suspension from school (like a mini-vacation). If my job ‘punished’ me by giving me a paid vacation I’d be causing all kinds of trouble.
3: I teach at a school which is approximately half-black, mostly Africans whose parents watch them and stay on them about grades. The AP results show no difference in performance between the white and black students. I don’t believe the above posters who suggest racial characterstics affect academic performance. If you want to blame lack of parent involvement, fine, but race doesn’t explain it.
Dr. Craig Spinks/ Augusta
July 5th, 2011
4:00 am
Joe Teacher:
In re: your points:
(1) Got MACE?
(2) That’s one of the reasons I retired from classroom teaching six years ago.
(3) Race doesn’t cause the achievement disparities between children of different races. Income disparities don’t, either. Differences in familial, neighborhood and school cultures do cause most of the inter-group achievement disparities, however.
GUNGA DIN
July 5th, 2011
4:08 am
wonder if the APS will have the balls to sue Dr. Hall to get back the bonuses paid her based on student achievement? any criticism of her is perceived as racist. too much money spent on students that can not and will not learn. let the dumb asses quite after middle school and focus on those who will contribute to society. send the rest to the fields to replace the illegals aliens that we run out of the country. there was a reason that even on the plantations the blacks were divided in to field hands and house staff !!!
Go Panthers!
July 5th, 2011
4:12 am
Thank you to Len Barker and Teacher Reader for giving Maureen what I see as the only relevant and informed commentary on this issue on this thread. You two rock and I thank you for not only utilizing your analytical thinking skills in the classroom, but also while articulating this issue for the seemingly ignorant masses of posters that preceded and followed you both. Your voices and efforts are very appreciated and I hope others read and learn from your words, not just continue to comprise useless vitriolic rants borne of anger and impotence.
I am an APS graduate, as are my children and a sizable number of my intimates. Most of us are college educated and African-American. This train wreck has been brewing since integration and I have three generations of family graduates AND dropouts as evidence. APS has, since the mid 60’s, been a remarkable dichotomy of true educational innovation coupled with the strangest version of student warehousing possible. If you’ve never lived it, it’s very hard to understand and, if you have never attended, worked at, volunteered or even stepped foot into an APS school, you are pretty much speculating on how it works (or doesn’t). Speculation is one step away from stereotyping which is one step away from bigotry. Bigotry is always the highest manifestation of ignorance, no matter where you live, what color you are, how smart you profess to be or how many degrees you hold. I learned that as a child in an APS school.
I took my children out of a suburban Atlanta school system because they had NO clue how to reach or nurture African-American kids, kids who still had grand and great-grandparents who had grand and great-grandparents who remembered when it was illegal to even educate any of us at all. I took my child out of a competitive local private school because they had a clue, but not enough for me to continue to pay a mortgage note’s worth of money so my kid could score maybe 50 points more on the SAT. Both scores could have gotten her into the excellent college she will attend, with less of a student loan burden on our family minus the private high school tuition.
Urban education is not failing everyone. It has done wonders for almost all of the successful people who raised me and the ones who were raised with me. I’ve heard a statistic that says that APS’ Douglass High has, over the course of its history, graduated the most African-American millionaires in this country. Herman Caine AND MLK graduated from B. T. Washington HS. I hope all of the suburbanites who vote for Caine this election keep this in mind while at the polls trying to prove how unbigoted their beloved Tea Party can be as well as each Republican who chooses him over their formerly-beloved Professor Gingrich.
The situation is as Len Barker outlined – America fails its poor and America’s poor is overwhelmingly and unwillingly comprised of the descendents of African-American slaves. Even the hungriest of the poor has problems stomaching the trash that passes as the school free lunch program. A hungry kid of any color has a hard time reading. A hungry kid of any color having a hard time reading is frustrated, angry and feels unworthy and unloved. An angry kid of any color who is hungry and feels unloved feels unimportant and wants to let the world know about their pain. They might write a rap about it and, since the kid who was so angry they dropped out of their same APS school (say, Mays High, for the sake of illustration) a few years back blew up by saying “F*** You”, who’s to say this kid can’t do it, too? But, they can’t ’cause that kid from a few years back was a one in a million talent who also had a momma who prayed over his head every day of her life.
So, hungry kid seeks solace in the arms of another hungry kid and another generation of hungry and poor APS kindergartners who will never even see the inside of a high school (regardless as to SACS status) is unwillingly born. And some dude commenting on an AJC blog blames them and their quest for a video lifestyle for an entire city’s crime rate. And some housewife trying to be Claire Huxtable/Debra Barrone blames them for the demise of an entire culture. And some church lady who is really upset that the “good boy” grandson she once spoiled unconditionally is now an eternal crackhead the size of Spike Lee’s Gator starts typing mad, too. And some teacher erasing scantron answers ’cause they feel backed against a professional wall can look the kid in the face and tell them they all of a sudden got “smart” in less than a schoolyear. Somehow, it’s all of this that gets dumped on the shoulders of yet another generation of hungry kids.
This angry person is just a poor hungry kid who is expected to perform like a sheltered, parented, tutored, well-fed, middle or upper class, prayed over, culturally-enhanced child afforded a childhood. At this point, it ain’t about fairness or level playing fields. It can’t be done. By anyone. Not Beverly Harvard. Not Mayor Reed. Not Barack Obama. Not Caine or Gingrich or Bill Gates and all of his laptops. It can’t be done under the current American educational structure. Period. Kids and children are apples and oranges and apples don’t offer the same level of Vitamin C to keep the colds away and the shoulders strong enough to pass any tests. They just can’t do it.
So, how about this? How about if APS alums take their school system back and start raising these kids instead of vilifying them for not being children. Let’s not be like Detroit (which we’re really not, but I’ll humor these folks who insist we are) and let’s stop running to the suburbs trying to do the Tim & Jill Taylor Home Improvement family on a Good Times net worth. The Huxtables lived AND stayed in the boroughs, not Westchester. Let’s feed these kids, make it cool to start and go to our own volunteer tutorial programs that aren’t contigent on NCLB funds and AYP stats and that run 12 months out of the year, not just in the summer for the kids who failed the spring tests.
Let’s start scholarship programs so our kids don’t have to get disappointed when the welfare program that is HOPE changes to favor the the kids from the “good” school systems, even though its our aunties on MLK that play the number twice a day funding the darn program in the first place. Let’s tell these kids that they can love themselves into college and/or careers ’cause Jesus or Allah or plain old omnipotent “moment of silence” God will, even if no one else can, so they stop making more kids in the hopes that a baby or baby mama/daddy will love them ’cause an AJC Christian Right blog poster whose Bible (just like mine) clearly tells them to love “the least of these” but who clearly doesn’t and who packed up and left the city a long time ago thinking they left the problem behind them, too, never, ever will. Let’s try that now.
As a voter and contemporary of most of the players who will probably be named in this report, I’m less angry and more terribly hurt by this whole thing. But, what hurts me the most is that we all knew better, we all knew this brick wall was coming and we ran head first into it (or away from it), and let it happen anyway. Atlantans, long-term inner city Atlanta residents of all races, knew better, have known in earnest since Down By Law rolled through the East Lake Meadows, and are more than happy to put the blame now on the bad economy and society’s ills and crack grandbabies and hip hop videos and bad parents and outsider scapegoat Harvard and this rag-tag board of “activists”, former homecoming queens, businessmen who can’t quite describe their business and just plain old moms trying to positively affect the lives of their children, the children from their neighborhood and all of the kids who they now know will get left behind regardless.
I will not call the names of the APS alums and former and current PTA members who were on this dysfunctional school board that is about to breathe its last unfortunate breaths. I will not call the names of former board members who got in then got right back out, using their term as nothing more than a springboard for higher political office or a better job. I will not call the names of business interests and charter school activists who thought they could get around this problem by making their own public version of private schools using tax payer dollars and now want to protest on the Capitol steps ’cause that plan ain’t quite panning out, either.
What I will do is continue to hope they all have good intentions that just got acted out in a bad way, hold on to the hope I had in them when I voted for them in the first place. What I will not do, ever again, is give them my piece of the public trust or vote for them for anything. I plan to vote for very few incumbents in the city elections to come, but wish them all well as they move on to new life challenges and new adventures in social service. Starting and going all in on those afterschool programs in Mayor Reeds rec centers would be a real good look and move right about now.
At this point, Maureen, it really doesn’t matter what tomorrow’s hoped for release of “The Report” says, either. What matters is that even if heads roll in this thing, it will make no difference if the kids are still treated the same. With this baggage, Deal and Reed can shuffle that board like a bid whist deck to no avail. And, like Detroit and nearly every other American metropolis, I fear we will all continue to do a whole lot of the same – nothing to help kids become children who are nurtured into a responsible and thriving adulthood. THAT is what is destroying education and all of America: African-America, urban America, poor America, and otherwise. We are cutting our success off at our knees, at a level and height that hits the least of these, our kids, right where it hurts the most.
“America eats its young.” – Tupac Shakur
David Sims
July 5th, 2011
5:20 am
Incredulous wrote: “The who-dunit is the only material and pertinent question. Why is immaterial and only furthers the status quo. As for the obvious racist posters: the investigation was limited to APS. Had the state the finances or inclination, I am certain that systemic corruption would have been uncovered from Live Oak to Blairsville.”
You’re correct in that CRCT cheating was uncovered throughout Georgia. However, oh_please is correct in saying that some groups have lower IQs that other groups do, and that this fact accounts for the distribution of CRCT cheating throughout Georgia, and not merely within Atlanta.
There were 71 elementary and middle schools in Georgia on the state’s “severe concern” list for CRCT cheating in 2009. Of those, only one school had a majority white student enrollment. Two others had majority Hispanic student enrollments. All of the rest, 68 schools, had majority black student enrollments.
That was your distribution of cheating in 2009, throughout Georgia. Why was it mostly the black schools doing the cheating? Because blacks have low-IQs and can’t learn as easily as other races can, and because teachers wanted to look good, and because principals wanted to make AYP and keep federal funding. The difficulties that schools were having with black test scores in 2009 were the beginning of the collision of NCLB with the reality of racial cognitive differences.
Although CRCT cheating was spread around the state, the bulk of it was concentrated in the Atlanta Public Schools. The clumping of schools for which much cheating was suspected was so tight in Atlanta that it seemed reasonable to suppose that some kind of organized effort was behind it. That’s what got the GBI, a state’s special investigation team, and an investigation by the federal government involved.
And every single one of the schools in Atlanta on the “severe concern” list had a black majority student enrollment. All 43 of them.
David Sims
July 5th, 2011
5:28 am
Gunga Din wrote: “wonder if the APS will have the balls to sue Dr. Hall to get back the bonuses paid her based on student achievement? any criticism of her is perceived as racist. too much money spent on students that can not and will not learn. let the dumb asses quite after middle school and focus on those who will contribute to society. send the rest to the fields to replace the illegals aliens that we run out of the country. there was a reason that even on the plantations the blacks were divided in to field hands and house staff !!!”
The only problem with that is that there are now too many illegal Mexicans in the SW United States to deal with as a police problem. As the old saying goes, “1000 illegals is a police problem. 1000000 illegals is a military problem.” We have more than 10 million illegal Mexicans in the US now, and they are ready for war. They want to annex to Mexico, or else form a new country from, what have been the US states of California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Texas. Plus maybe parts of Nevada and Utah. In reality, the Mexicans will just keep coming and taking land until they are stopped forcibly. This invasion has always been a war; we just didn’t realize it until it was too late to prevent that war.
If the fighting begins in earnest now, Americans can still win, but it will not be an easy victory. We’ve delayed too long. If we delay longer, even a difficult victory might be impossible. In fact, the Latinos might just take over the entire continent, if we fail to confront them with decisively massive military action in time.
David Sims
July 5th, 2011
5:33 am
Consider: the illegal Mexicans now have strategic nuclear weapons in territory that they mostly control. They are in Vandenberg Air Force Base. If the Mexicans overrun that AFB and learn how to use those missiles, they could threaten the rest of the USA, either directly with the missiles, or else indirectly by launching them at their preset targets in China or in Russia.
Brad J
July 5th, 2011
6:12 am
LACK OF CHARACTER amongst the guilty teachers,pure and simple. Stop making it the tired excuse of lack of resources. Pathetic.
Tyrone
July 5th, 2011
6:17 am
Maureen is an apologist for the racist Atlanta City Schools system.
more money
July 5th, 2011
6:19 am
the government needs to pump more millions into schools to improve performance of students. Right now, they don’t get enough funding especially the inner city schools. A lot more money is the answer.
The Phantom
July 5th, 2011
7:06 am
@more money:
You must not own property in the COA, or you would realize how wrong that statement is. APS gets the majority of the property taxes collected within the COA.
The amount of funds is not the problem; How those funds get spent (and to which pockets they line) is the bigger question.
GrannyCares
July 5th, 2011
7:14 am
One big problem and disappointment in the entire debacle is the lack of sheer integrity on the part of administrators and teachers. Elements of our society, including businesses, have all undergone sustained stress during their respective life times. That stress does not justify cheating or short cuts.
Regardless of the punishment that is subsequently doled out, these administrators and teachers have given a LARGE BLACK EYE to the teaching profession.
And, before teachers in other systems say ‘not me’, how many have raised a test score, or overall grade of a student because the parents want the child to qualify for the Hope Scholarship??
I just fear that we have lost our standards and focus over the years, and test scores (compared with international scores) show it. We also may have too many individuals involved in teaching who need to be in other fields. LET US JUST BE HONEST — STARTING WITH INTELLECTUAL HONESTY!
Vince
July 5th, 2011
7:15 am
(thinking “more money” surely must be speaking tongue in cheek)
vcatron
July 5th, 2011
7:25 am
The real key to student success is parents involved directly in their childs education. Stop teaching to “pass a test” and hold parents and children accountable for their actions. Poverty is not a valid reason but an excuse.
@Maureen
July 5th, 2011
7:30 am
The system is rotten from top to bottom, it didn’t even account for the HS train wreck
Doris M
July 5th, 2011
7:31 am
@more money.
I know you have got to be kidding. More Money! The APS has taken more than it’s share of my tax money and there is nothing to show for it. Don’t go throwing good money after bad.
Make the APS educate kids with the same per pupil expenditure as other systems. Make Beverly Hall repay the bonuses she received due to cheating. Make the APS trim their administrative numbers because none of their programs have worked.
Sally
July 5th, 2011
7:37 am
“Are we asking too much?” We are never asking too much to ask for the best education for all of our children. I suggest a different phrasing of what the intent of that question seems to be: “Is it realistic to expect the same results under more challenging circumstances, while resting the lion’s share of the responsibility for those results on teachers?” No one who’s normal wants sub-standard education for any student anywhere, but there are some circucmstances, such as this article outlines, that make giving (and getting) an education more of a challenge. What is unrealistic is to lay the responsibility for those students’ performance so squarely on the shoulders of the teachers. It seems that there are other ways to support children under such unfortunate circumstances within our schools (such as enrichment programs, which cost money). Nothing, however, can reverse the effect of what happens to the children when they go home for the afternoon. If, after school, they go home to poverty, poor diet, violence, and role models who disdain education, there is no way to control that.
Sin I Cull
July 5th, 2011
7:49 am
Cmon People, It’s all about the money
Red Herring
July 5th, 2011
7:55 am
the education panel presently working on improving education in georgia needs to look at this carefully. they also need to look at what works in other areas, particularly privates schools, church schools, etc. These schools don’t have the massive layers of overpaid administrators running around figuring how to justify their jobs and “fix” test scores. You “fix” test scores not by cheating but by education and that comes from inside the classroom not the offices of the schools. The amount in salaries/benefits that the taxpayers of georgia are paying for all this layered on administration is absurd and must stop. The salaries of these school superintendents and other administrators is simply obscene. I’m all for improving education but to continue to line the pockets of people like this is not doing it.
3rd Grade Teacher
July 5th, 2011
8:08 am
I spent the last year teaching very poor students who go to a have/have not school – 50% free & reduced lunch; 50% from high income homes. I found that strong, high expectation teaching brought my low income students up to the testing bar NCLB requires. In some cases, I had students who did not pass or barely pass the crct receive exceed scores. It can be done with out cheating.
However, I had a handful of students that never could get beyond the “lizard brain.” (That’s not an insult – it’s a term for the the limbic, flight or fight part of the brain.) These kids had been traumatized at some point in their life. They were constantly on alert ( fight piece) or completely checked out (the flight piece). Learning just wasn’t going to take place.
I felt so much pressure to get these traumatized kids to pass that I contemplated leaving teaching every day. The testing goals ignore the fact that some students were “left behind” due to the violence and inconsistencies in their life. There truly is only so much that dedicated teachers can do. Cheating is not an option, but unattainable goals shouldn’t be an option either.
Mal Renyolds
July 5th, 2011
8:11 am
The Military is able to educate and train the defective product that the schools produce. How do they do it by using tried and true education methods, the methods that have been discarded by the social engineers that run our schools today.