The first APS firing: School spent more time projecting excellence rather than attaining it.
The first teacher has been fired in the APS cheating scandal. Damany Lewis confessed to using a razor blade to cut into test booklets and make copies for other teachers at Parks Middle School. A panel of educators today fired Lewis for his misdeeds, which spanned four years.
In his comments to the panel, Lewis described relentless pressure to raise sagging test scores. “We were told failure was not an option,” he said. “Teaching and learning was the primary focus of the teachers. Results were the primary focus of this district and our administration.”
Lewis described the positive culture and spirit at Parks, but said the caring and supportive nature of the school never produced higher test scores.
Having visited Parks a year before the cheating came to light, I was impressed with the well -spoken and courteous students. In fact, everyone I met at the school was upbeat. There was an apparent attitude among students that theirs was a special school.
What unsettled me were the writing samples in the hallway. As I have noted here before, they were too good. They were New York Times good. They were Newsweek good. It wasn’t that Atlanta middle schoolers couldn’t write such great stuff. High school seniors at the best prep school in Atlanta couldn’t write such good stuff.
It seems now that the school spent a lot of effort projecting excellence rather than attaining it.
Lewis, who started at the school more than a decade ago as a substitute, said he cared for and believed in the students. Teachers worked hard, and he himself coached softball and other sports and advised clubs to contribute to the impoverished community.
“When students were at Parks, they were motivated to be positive and attain goals. It became a large part of their self-worth,” he said. “The school climate and overall culture was wonderful. However, the [test] scores were dismal at best. The results overshadowed all of Parks’ positive effects.”
Lewis is the first of several educators scheduled to go before a tribunal to contest his termination. Atlanta Public Schools is paying $1 million a month to about 110 educators accused of cheating who are on administrative leave. So far, the district has taken formal steps to fire 11 educators. Three have chosen to resign rather than go through with hearings, which are scheduled through March 30.
Lewis was granted immunity for his cooperation with special investigators. He confessed because he believed telling the truth would help students, and he encouraged others to do the same. Attorneys for APS said Lewis only confessed after he was granted immunity from criminal charges.
Fighting back tears, Lewis encouraged the district to grant leniency to himself and other teachers from Parks. He thanked APS for allowing him to collect his salary after being placed on administrative leave in July, saying he was “broken” when he learned he would no longer be able to teach.
“The people who are being honest and who have exuded the most character are being persecuted the most and being let go first,” he said. “Let us not crucify the teachers and act like there weren’t and aren’t systemic problems that need to be addressed all the way up.”
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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73 comments Add your comment
C Jae of EAV
March 15th, 2012
10:26 am
Mr. Lewis offers a compelling albiet contridictory statement as he laments, “The people who are being honest and who have exuded the most character are being persecuted the most and being let go first,”. The fact remained he allowed to pressure of an overjealous central office admin team to compromise his values and professional integrity. The fact that he admitted to buckling under the pressure is on some level admirable, but he and others who participated in these acts should be suffer the punishment being pursued. If he truly valued being an educator he should have respectfully resigned instead of submitting to the actions that now call for his rightful termination.
My only problem with these collective proceedings is that real power brokers who excerted the pressure on teachers like Mr. Lewis are not being crawled on the carpet in the same way. Dr. Hall and the senior staffers should be held accountable for what they have wrought. Instead they have effectively rode off into the sunset leaving behind kaos in their wake.
Shamefull, utterly shameful !!!
Exactly how he cheated...
March 15th, 2012
10:31 am
This is the quote that shows exactly how he did it. ““Mr. Lewis used that razor blade to open the cellophane – he made a slit in the packaging. Each test booklet inside that packaging had its own seal. To remove the seal he heated the razor blade and peeled the seal back.”
Which goes to show, if we remove the teachers and staff from all aspects of testing, literally not allowing them to handle any test materials and not allowing them to administer the test, we can ensure honesty and the teachers can breathe a sigh of relief that even if pressured, there is nothing they can do to cheat. Administrators cannot force them to do it because it won’t be possible.
GM
C Jae of EAV
March 15th, 2012
10:53 am
@ APS lost a great teacher – I would argue that a great teacher compromised his professional integrity and may well have surrendered his career as an educator as a result of it. There is simply no way to excuse the behavior of any teacher who admittedly cheated given the lasting impacting resulting from it.
@Mountain Man – The hiring qualifications you’re proposing are not an absolute template for success and don’t guarentee anything. Especially when the management culture at the central office level does not change & is content to foster an environment simular to what generated this unfortunate circumstance.
@TP – I offer you this, had not the sheer scale of APS’s misgivings not been so large, its likely we may not be experiencing half of what we’re seeing now. APS wasn’t the only metro area district cited in this CRCT expose. The fact that the impacted students in every district cited were disportionately black and economically disadvantaged does speak volumes, but more to the quality of the educational experience offered to this segment of the demographic.
Double Zero Eight
March 15th, 2012
12:26 pm
In the game of Chess, you sacrifice the
pawns to protect the “Queen”.
To 008
March 15th, 2012
12:37 pm
The queen will get her day in court and get her time in jail.
Savor it and relish it. Pay back is coming.
GM
ScienceTeacher671
March 15th, 2012
5:47 pm
“School spent more time projecting excellence rather than attaining it.”
Doesn’t that apply to the state DOE as well? When an 8th grader who is reading and doing math at a 4th or 5th grade level can “meet expectations” on the CRCT? When a high school student who can’t even answer half the questions on the EOCT can “meet expectations” and a student doesn’t even have to get 70% correct to “exceed expectations”?
In fact, when we have our “best and brightest,” the HOPE scholars, going off to college and needing remedial courses, it seems to apply to the entire state.
mountain man
March 15th, 2012
6:15 pm
My post about the hiring qualifications was tongue in cheek, if you could not tell. It is NOT the teachers, it is the STUDENTS and their PARENTS that make or break a school. Of course, there are some bad teachers, but the majority are decent teachers that get blamed for what their students (don’t) do.
mountain man
March 15th, 2012
6:17 pm
“My guess and my sincere hope is that they will not only lose their jobs as the teachers will, but the administrators will receive criminal convictions, which they justly deserve”
I am not holding my breath. About 14 years ago the DA in the JonBenet Ransey case assurred everyone it would be eventually solved. I didn’t hold my breath on that one either, and good thing.
joe the teacher
March 15th, 2012
7:48 pm
The teachers cheated for the money, plain and simple. For those who have taught for APS under Hall, you remember the yearly convocations where all employees of the district went to the GA dome. I felt this event was a complete waste of time and money. If your school met its targets, you got a seat on the floor and APS awarded a bonus ranging $1000-1500 per school employee. Many elementary and middle schools made it to the floor with few high schools. The cheaters did not have their school in mind but only their own pockets for a possible bonus. I have no sympathy for greedy, selfish people. I think it is cool for APS to try to reward good schools but every year I went to this thing, I smelt something fishy. (usually dome has that smell) . I think it is hard to fairly judge who is doing a good job or just pretending to do a good job.
APS Teacher
March 15th, 2012
7:51 pm
Why in the HEll is APS still paying three former area superintendents and firing all of the teachers. Sharon Davis-Williams, Michael Pitts and Tamara Cotman should not be on the payroll because they are earning six-figure which should not be the case.
Fred ™
March 15th, 2012
8:41 pm
TP
March 15th, 2012
8:58 am
Fred,
I’m white moron. I also speak from direct observation. Hall County was shown to be doing something just as underhanded, investigated by the AJC and Atlanta TV stations. But since the State School Superintendent Dr. Barge used to be a principal in that county his reaction was a big ole ‘Meh’.
Since the Governor, Nathan ‘ghetto grandmothers’ Deal is from that county the reaction from Governor’s Office of selective Accountability didn’t bother themselves to look into it.
So yeah, I do believe there is some race element there. They investigate the uppity black folks and leave the good old white boys alone.
But I see you are on board with that apparently.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I’m on board with the fact you aren’t very bright. None of the stuff you say adds up. I don’t believe you. I think you are a liar.
As to the Nathan Steal stuff? This WAY preceded him you jack ass. Try to do better when you lie.
TP
March 15th, 2012
10:04 pm
Here are two of the articles as for the TV report you can look it up yourself troll boy.
http://www.ajc.com/news/dekalb/the-transfer-track-on-945991.html
http://m.ajc.com/news/hall-county-students-pushed-960650.html
Atlanta Mom
March 15th, 2012
10:32 pm
APS lost
What’s with the personal attacks?
Duh!!!
March 16th, 2012
10:17 am
Maureen if you make that comment ONE more time about the research papers that were on the bulletin boards at Parks Middle School I am going to scream. FIRST of all you saw at the MOST 12 examples of writing from a pool of about 300 to 400 students. These same students work with their Language Arts teachers to ensure that they are producing a quality product. Parks Middle Schools writing scores are not an issue and they have been doing well in writing for years.
Is it not feasible in your mind that maybe some of the “poor little disadvantaged students” could read and write?
You DO REALIZE that everyone at Parks IS NOT FROM THE PITTSBURGH COMMUNITY AND ARE EXPOSED TO MORE THAN SEX, CRIME AND DRUGS!
You do realize that we have graduates from this school that have gone on to college, yes college.
Clemson, Claflin, Emory (yes Emory) to name a few and guess what? They are not in remedial classes. In the future please think before you speak!
Maureen Downey
March 16th, 2012
11:00 am
@Duh, My point is this: The writing that I saw posted was not student work. No aspersions on the writing skills of the kids. It is simply a fact that the writing samples posted were written in the condensed journalism style that is hard to do and harder still to do as well as those pieces did it.
My argument is with the posting of work that is clearly lifted out of news publications. These were essays on global warming and the environment, not personal essays. (I have found that students do far better when asked to write about a personal experience than when asked to write about news events. Those personal pieces tend to be more authentic.)
I have judged national student newspaper contests several times. I have taught college journalism. I can tell graphs lifted out of national publications. By the way, students always lift info from news stories.
(I was involved with a writing contest where we had to give the prize to the fourth place winner because the first three kids chosen admitted that they plagiarized.)
The difference is that teachers don’t usually post those obvious thefts on bulletin boards designed to show the school’s best work.
Maureen
AJC is not Credible
March 16th, 2012
11:10 am
I agree with @duh @Maureen: Do you have proof that the writing was ‘lifted’? if not, you are making slanderous statements…the more and more this case falls apart the AJC is pulling at straws….inflating the numbers of people who resigned since July…I have proof that some of those people the AJC is counting left in 2007 for new jobs…80-90 people have not resigned as a result of this cheating scandal since July…the AJC is losing credibility with this story as the days passes….Jaime Sorreto is he biggest liar…she inflates numbers by the day….show me the proof before you slander innocent children Maureen…also…publish the retire or resign dates of all the implicated that have left since July 2011…
Maureen Downey
March 16th, 2012
11:16 am
@AJC is not credible, Don’t buy it. Also, the AJC has been hearing accusations of its credibility on the APS cheating story since we first did our CRCT investigation that then led Gov. Perdue and the state to conduct its own audit. That state audit confirmed every finding of the AJC’s probe.
Maureen
AJC is not Credible
March 16th, 2012
12:06 pm
@Maureen: unless your employer has you snowed…you are being naive….I challenge you and Jaime to print the names of all the retires and implicated who have resigned since July 2011… It is far less than 80…more like 15 maybe…See when I post…my information is accurate and credible….yes, AjC started this investigation off as credible but it is ending it on a poor note…because most of the educators can’t be charged with anything on any front using that report…..or the data…experts have proven that the data can’t prove cheating…but back to the topic…Corliss Davenport is included in your numbers as an implicated educator who resigned after July 2011… She is the former principal
Of Dunbar ElementAry…guess what she resigned in 2007… Salters, clarinet tea Davis, mable Johnson, left before they were implicated…so, why are they being included…???
AJC is not Credible
March 16th, 2012
12:10 pm
Also, if you are do credible…start printing interviews from the statisticians from MIT and Tech who have proven the data to be flawed…and based on formulas that can’t be applied to real life….be fair…talk to those people who the media have been suppressing…staticians from all over this country have contacted the AJC and other media outlets offering to prove the data is flawed… Not saying cheating wasn’t going on…but many educators were pulled into this mess based on an incorrect formula…
AJC is not Credible
March 16th, 2012
12:19 pm
The Zero Erasures formula can’t be applied to real life situations…the curve becomes scattered and not a bell curve…
unionize now
March 17th, 2012
10:12 am
We need a union to represent the interests of Georgia teachers.
Beverly Fraud
March 17th, 2012
1:33 pm
the AJC is losing credibility with this story as the days passes
Yes AJCNotCredible. That’s why scores took a MONUMENTAL drop in APS when the AJC shined a spotlight on CRCT testing. Because there WAS no cheating; it was just a smear job by the AJC.
And THOUSANDS of statisticians have been trying to get the AJC’s lies out in the open, but they just can’t because AJC controls EVERY media outlet in the world (along with Al Gore of course)
Ed Johnson
March 17th, 2012
11:23 pm
Gosh, it would have a great public service had the AJC covered Friday’s Atlanta Board of Education Ethics Commission Training Workshop facilitated by Emory University Center of Ethics’ Dr. Edward L. Queen.
Importantly, Dr. Queen touched on what went wrong with APS and why:
What Went Wrong?
1. Bad Individual Choices
2. Pressure from Supervisors
3. Misplaced Priorities
4. Perverse Financial Incentives
5. Toxic Corporate Culture
6. Insufficient Oversight
7. Insufficient Whistleblower Protections
Why?
1. Drive to Succeed Defined Solely by Test Scores
2. Fear of Consequences
1. Institutional
2. Personal
3. Siege Mentality (us v. them)
Hmm. Come to think of it, it might be interesting to dynamically model What Went Wrong?
But then by their actions to “move on,” as they’ve say, the APS school board members show they have no interest in knowing and learning from what went wrong and why. However, the board members seem quick to uphold the firings of those from whom they could learn the most – that is, the teachers who made “Bad Individual Choices” (1) that emerged out of interplay between (2) through (7) over which teachers had no control.