Should a teacher lose job for urging kids to check answers?
As demonstrated with North Atlanta High School, APS chief Erroll Davis is fond of the emphatic gesture. That was also evident when he suspended all the educators implicated in the cheating investigation by Gov. Sonny Perdue.
But some of those educators are fighting to return to their jobs as a tribunal sorts through the evidence against them in a series of hearings.
One of them is M. A. Jones Elementary School teacher Precious Moon. Her case seems among the murkiest, given the lack of clear evidence against her. Take a look at the AJC story on this week’s hearing and let us know what you think.
Atlanta Public Schools pressed its case Monday to terminate M. A. Jones Elementary School 5th-grade teacher Precious Moon for her alleged involvement in the 2009 Criterion-Referenced Competency Test cheating scandal that has implicated about 180 educators.
APS Superintendent Erroll Davis testified before a three-person tribunal that he had lost confidence in Moon because of numerous violations of school policy and for her allegedly prompting students to change answers or giving them the correct answers while she monitored the tests. The tribunal adjourned early Monday evening without a decision.
Davis said APS built its case largely on a state investigation of the school system that cited Moon for prompting students during tests and the Georgia Professional Standards Commission recommendation that her teaching license be suspended two years, which Moon has appealed.
Moon’s attorney, Gerald Griggs — who hammered at the APS case throughout the day citing lack of proof and witnesses — asked Davis if he would change his opinion and let Moon keep her job if she won her appeal to the PSC. “I do not believe that I would,” said Davis, because of all the information he had been given by investigators.
But there was no “smoking gun” testimony Monday, such as witnesses saying they had seen Moon tell students to change answers. Stan Williams, a private investigator hired in 2009 to do an internal investigation for APS, testified that he could find no conclusive evidence she cheated, and none of the estimated 20 Moon students he questioned said she cheated or helped them cheat.
APS said Moon violated test procedures when, as she admitted to investigators, she repeatedly advised students, “You need to focus and check your answers” during the tests. GBI agent Eugene Howard played part of his taped interview with Moon in which she explained she focused on one student in particular during the test and told him to quit playing with a new watch and to reread a section of the test she thought he moved through too quickly.
“Playing with the watch is one issue,” said Howard, explaining that it was within accepted procedure to focus a student’s attention during a test. “But redirecting him back to the test is not right.”
Earlier in the day Melissa Fincher, Georgia Department of Education Associate Superintendent of Assessment and Accountability, conceded under cross-examination that state regulations give test monitors the leeway to repeat instructions during tests. How often, and whether it’s acceptable to remind one student and not necessarily all the students, is a “grey area,” said Fincher.
Moon took the stand after Davis and testified that she never prompted students to change answers, didn’t give students the answers, and never in any way “signaled” that what they had answered was wrong.
“Do you think there is any reason the superintendent should have lost confidence in you?” her attorney asked. “No,” she said.
–from Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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71 comments Add your comment
Anya
October 30th, 2012
3:12 pm
@Pompano – you are beyond arrogant, and yet I find your comment humorous. It is people like you who create such a negative perception of dedicated, hard-working teachers. To suggest teachers could not make half of what we make now in the private sector is insulting and just plain wrong. Like in any profession, there are some bad apples, but most teachers do what we do because we are passionate about helping children. Having to put up with ignorant and self-righteous people like yourself is just one downside of a very rewarding job.
WHATAJOKE
October 30th, 2012
3:14 pm
If telling students to check their answers is a violation, why are we told to do this when we go through the training to administer the test. This is a joke and I’m so ready to leave this zoo called the classroom. If she is losing her job for this, I guess they better come to Clayton County where the high ups tell you you better tell kids to check over their answers and make them left their heads if its down. Education in America….what a worthless thing nowadays!
Another comment
October 30th, 2012
3:34 pm
I grew up in both public and private school and college having teachers tell me and the rest of the class review your answers. I was always one of those first finishers, I was always handed the paper back and told to review it again before you turned it. Especially, when I finished in 20 minutes while the class would struggle for the whole hour.
It is not cheating.
I also did this in the Graduate school classes I taught at a top 20 school.
Maybe two Private schools that recently hired their male teachers would be willing to hire Ms. P. Moon. Private schools, in particular want the teachers to make sure the students have reviewed their answers before they have turned it in. They won’t be hiring any males, for a while. They also don’t require that State Certificate.
Tonya C.
October 30th, 2012
3:44 pm
Knowledge:
Oh, that very fact has been debated on this blog for eons. That’s the real rub: the people who overlooked this for so very long are essentially getting away with it.
what's best for kids???
October 30th, 2012
3:53 pm
Guest,
I don’t smoke; you apparently don’t read.
I said that the KIDS don’t understand why they are being punished…taking tests is a hassle. Imagine how it feels to an eight year old…or a seven year old…or a six year old.
Knowledge
October 30th, 2012
4:09 pm
@Toyna C.
Listen, everyone in the political world knew that APS ( as well as most other counties) numbers were inflated and was cheating. Not only did they know it, they was OK with it. They was/are OK with it because everyone was smiling (read between the lines). Its not about if these kids from APS are learning, that’s not their concern. I’m going to make a prediction and you heard it here first: Dr. Hall is never going to have to testify about ANYTHING concerning the cheating scandal.
Beverly Fraud
October 30th, 2012
4:58 pm
“And by the way, with what Ms. Moon ADMITTED, this is pretty black and white to me.”
Thank you for proving Wisdom Speaking’s point. You should consider getting a paid endorsement from Just for Men: Get rid of ALL the gray LOL
Atlanta Mom
October 30th, 2012
6:28 pm
From pages 296-300 of the GBI report:
Ms. Moon had previously been investigated for cheating and found innocent.
Ms. Moon’s class had a high number of wrong to right erasures.
One teacher claimed that Ms. Moon and another teacher wanted to open the vault and look at the test materials.
The same teacher claimed that Ms. Moon knew the exact writing prompts for the fifth grade writing prompts.
I think there is more to this case than urging a student to stop playing with his watch.
Atlanta Mom
October 30th, 2012
6:30 pm
excuse me, I meant “for the fifth grade writing test”
Joy in the Private Sector
October 30th, 2012
8:01 pm
I recently left the classroom after 24 years because I could no longer stomach what has become of education. Last year, for example, I was written up by a spineless administrator and screamed at (repeatedly) by a parent for attempting to refocus a student during a test. I tapped silently on the edge of the desk. The student claimed that I embarrassed him. The parents claimed that I did irreperable harm. The administrator placed a letter in my file and said that I may have compromised the student’s results. By the way…that particular student’s score went up 40 points from last year on that particular section of the test. Was I apologized to? Absolutely not.
I don’t even miss teaching. I definately don’t miss the stupidity of adminstrators. I certainly don’t miss parents who are all too ready to place blame on the teacher. And last but not least, I don’t miss people like “guest” who are ready to crucify all teachers. I don’t work nearly as many hours as I did when I taught. I certainly don’t have as much stress and I no longer need high blood pressure medication or anti depressants.
Precious Moon is just a pawn in all this. I feel sorry for her. But, she should get out while she can.
Hermione
October 30th, 2012
8:37 pm
Atlanta Mom: Thank you for enlightening us with the information from the GBI rreport. I was wondering if her class had an unusually high number of wrong to right erasures, or if there was other evidence. I wonder why this information was omitted from the AJC article. It seems like the report had an agenda, or a slant in favor of Precious Moon. The issue of the student’s watch and PM asking him to reread a section of the test didn’t seem like enough evidence to get her fired.
Ed Johnson
October 30th, 2012
9:23 pm
“As demonstrated with North Atlanta High School, APS chief Erroll Davis is fond of the emphatic gesture. That was also evident when he suspended all the educators implicated in the cheating investigation by Gov. Sonny Perdue.”
Exactly. The more morally relevant issue has less to do with whether teachers and schoolhouse administrators cheated or did not cheat. The more morally relevant issue has to do with the fact that Davis’ “emphatic gesture” slammed shut the door that was open to the possibility to engage the “cheaters” to learn why they cheated and then, with that knowledge, work to rid APS of its systemic cheating culture. And, yes, all the while affording the “cheaters” redemption.
Fact is, Davis’ “emphatic gesture” to rid APS of the relatively few cheaters comes nowhere near representing APS’ systemic cheating culture – again, APS’ SYSTEMIC cheating culture. His “emphatic gesture” has only set up conditions to pretty much guarantee the next APS cheating scandal, or whatever, will be more virulent and a heck of lot harder to deal with.
Could Davis’ “emphatic gesture” toward NAHS be but his reaction to a “tip of the iceberg” signal of APS’ continuing systemic cheating culture? How could he know?
Thank you APS
October 30th, 2012
9:26 pm
Teachers similar to Mrs. Moon are the good teachers that are accused of nonsense and false information which led the horrible system to get crappy teachers who are not passionate about the children. They are just there for the money! At the end of the day, if the main focus really on the children then why are we the ones suffering from horrible teachers. I am currently a junior and has been in the APS System for nearly 10 years;I have came to learn this system is political and it all about who you know. Thank you APS for the suffering you cause to my family physically and emotionally because of how you portrayed my mother.
-Sincerely, her daughter!
Top School
October 30th, 2012
10:20 pm
A reported teacher at Northside APS Jackson Elementary school stood at the overhead prior to giving the test booklets out to her children…reviewing what she thought would be difficult problems for her students from the test.
She retired…and the teacher at WT Jackson Elementary admitting to redirecting students retired.
How does their action of taking the “easy way out” …retirement…and allows them to substitute teach or re-employment to other systems with no record or their wrong doing. Should their teaching certificates be removed? Their years of service are based on years of dishonest teaching. And they earned Pay for Performance benefits during the years they were cheating.
Like Lance Armstrong…why isn’t someone asking for the return of money by administrators Beverly Hall and her minions and all those teachers involved?
As for APS and the grievance process…anyone that attempted to use their process to report wrong doing should have their cases re-opened and properly investigated.
Corrupt administrators CHEATING in APS remain…
The cover-up continues…especially on the Northside.
crankee-yankee
October 30th, 2012
10:25 pm
Pompano
October 30th, 2012
3:05 pm
Your ignorance is showing. The best you can do is try to bait teachers with your non-starter of a challenge? Thank you, I needed that laugh. By the way, I spent quite a few years in the private sector, I didn’t go back to it because it isn’t much of a challenge compared to teaching.
catlady
October 31st, 2012
6:55 am
However, Ms. Moon DID know that there are pretty specific limits on what you can say during the test. In the weeks leading up to the test, you can hammer in that if you finish early you should check over your answers. Then, there are the test directions, which you have to read exactly as they are stated. That is it. There is no provision for going past that, UNLESS the student has a previously written accomodations plan (TPC) (as for sped, ESOL, or 504) that allows repeating or paraphrasing the directions! Absent that, NO. She erred, and did not follow the explicitly stated directions, UNLESS SHE HAD A ROOM FULL OF KIDS WITH ACCOMODATIONS STATING THAT.
Ole Guy
October 31st, 2012
3:18 pm
Look Joy, your plight is no different than that faced by the rest of the world. Do you seriously think your example is, in any way, unique to the plight of the “down-trodden” teacher corps. One of the necessary ingredients in any responsible endeavour is the development of a thick hide. Those who understand this are the winners in life. Unfortunately, from what I read, and from what I recall during my abreviated soujourn in the classroom, the teaching profession has become one of a game of survival, where the goal(s) is either retire or transfer to that “greener pasture”.
I’ve had rather successful careers, both in the commercial sector and in the military; well into retirement, I continue to enjoy the sting of battle; the hard-nosed organizational relationships which constitute any dynamic endeavour. This is all made possible by the realization that THE WINNERS IN LIFE HAVE PROFESSIONAL SPHEROIDS; ARE NOT AFRAID TO TAKE A STAND FOR WHAT THEY BELIEVE TO BE TRUE, WHILE LIFE’S LOOSERS SEEM CONTENT TO ALLOW THE WINDS OF HAPPENSTANCE TO CARRY THEM THROUGH THE STORMS WHILE THEY…WRITE ESSAYS.
Get a grip, Joy…and the rest of you teachers. Your plight; the difficulties with which you must contend daily are no different than that with which the rest of the world must contend. The big difference lies in the big question…WHAT DO YOU INTEND TO DO ABOUT IT?
20/20
October 31st, 2012
10:14 pm
Why is Enroll Davis testifying in tribunal hearings? He is unethical and immoral and several people have proof!!! Everyone will see real soon, to make sure the board sends him packing before December!!!
Top School
November 1st, 2012
12:20 am
With a little investigation…and comparing the two…I would say the NORTHSIDE SITUATION has some privilege in these tribunals.
Private Citizen
November 1st, 2012
1:23 pm
My take-away from reading this is that it is unfortunate that a teacher is compelled to interfere with a student taking a standardized test and that there is something wrong with the student playing with their watch instead of taking the test which they obviously have little interest in. That there is something wrong with failing kids who want to fail and like to fail.
Anyway, seems like a case of poor boundaries. But the whole forced system is a case of poor boundaries. In my opinion, education should be based in volition, not depending on an adult trying to motivate a student. This sets up a ridiculous loop that has very little to do with educating and seems to me would take much from it, just on a practical level.
Private Citizen
November 1st, 2012
1:24 pm
Stand up for your right to fail!