The collapse of integrity at Atlanta Public Schools
Thinking Right’s free-for-all — today on a single topic, the tragedy of Atlanta Public Schools.
Ten observations:
1. The metastasized corruption that spread through the body of Atlanta Public Schools is the most heart-breaking collapse of public-sector integrity in Georgia in my adult life. Investigators found that 178 educators, including 38 principals, participated. More than 80 have confessed. Of 56 schools examined, cheating was found at 44. My God! So deep. So widespread.
2. Once in, cheaters were trapped in their own dishonesty — prompting Part 2, the cover-up. Investigators attributed a quote to now-retired principal Armstead Salters that explains how wrongdoing by individuals descends into systemic corruption. Said Salters, according to the report, “If anyone asks you anything about this just tell them you don’t know. … Just stick to the story and it will all go away.” That, one suspects, is the defense bureaucracies teach and learn to avoid accountability for program failings long before the don’t-know-don’t-tell strategy slip-slides into corruption.
3. Those who say “testing pressure” drove good people to cheat make excuses for the unethical and aid and abet their crime against children. That crime is failing to educate children while passing them through the system with self-esteem rallies and unearned grades. Meanwhile, they hold weekend “changing parties” to erase wrong answers on accountability tests.
4. Once the lie is spawned that children have been educated, their teachers, principals and administrators are vested in deceit. In one example offered by investigators, a hot-shot principal quickly produced unreal improvements in CRCT scores. Did Superintendent Beverly Hall drill down to find out how, as one might expect if a subordinate had indeed discovered a statistically impossible cure for nonperformance? Apparently not.
5. Hall and the Atlanta business community, as represented by the Metro Atlanta Chamber, were far too desperate to create a public image of success. A senior vice president of the chamber, according to investigators, sought to depict the cheating as limited and suggested that it be “finessed” past then-Gov. Sonny Perdue. It wasn’t. He appointed independent investigators. Hall cultivated business leaders, and they bought in to the “successful urban public school system” idea.
6. The scandal provides a clue to how segregation existed for so long in Southern communities. Leaders fell into an unspoken compact to create a mutually beneficial system based on illusion — mutually beneficial, that is, for those who controlled key institutions. That kind of compact is not always evil. At its best, it can elevate. Atlanta, “The City Too Busy to Hate,” was a community compact founded on illusion.
7. When bureaucracies or like-minded blocs come to believe it’s Us against Them — whoever “Us” and the more powerful “Them” are — it’s easy to self-justify cutting corners and disregarding laws or rules.
8. It’s a real tribute to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, to former editor Julia Wallace, to other editors and reporters, and to the principle of a free and independent media, that the sacred cow Hall personified was held accountable. Nobody wants to see the community’s National Superintendent of the Year or the system she ran brought down. Asking the questions that lead to truth required guts.
9. In every group scandal, there are individuals whose exemplary conduct under pressure inspires us all to hope that in similar circumstances we’d have been just as true to our conviction. An example is Arthur Kiel, the testing coordinator at Parks Middle School. He strongly resisted efforts by superiors and colleagues to tamper with tests, prompting elaborate efforts to deceive and to get him out the door.
10. Finally, nobody in the top job could be unmindful of that much corruption.
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142 comments Add your comment
Glenn
July 9th, 2011
7:21 pm
Fortunately I don’t know what SCOTUS is supposed to mean to the Secret Service, or to AP.. Initially I took it as a reference to Medieval reformists, but evidently that is not your meaning.
Anyway, it’s true that on balance I was for busing. That whole interlude was a perfectly tragic American story. Recently a Canadian friend, a bit older, asked me what that whole scene was about. At first I tried straight reporting. No go. Really, the whole story makes little sense. at the end of the day I can’t help but conclude that my Lord abhors seggregation in any form. So Sheila was OK with that, and frankly I esteem her opinion moreso even than yours.
“Accountability” is just grand. But who/whom, and to what, in a Republic of free-born sovereign citizens? It’s a quintecentially Jeffersonian problem. Not fer nuthin’ is Dubya’s question asked so rarely. You’ve got to admit, though, that his wife moved the ball all her life and still does so.
Incidentally we in Georgia could clean up this mess by spending LESS money, not more. for starters we might want to dump the chumps who sold us the BS exams at top dollar. The Girl Scouts are not so expensively foolish as to enquire once a year where a given girl stands. Rather, they evaluate her constantly, and do it for free. However, Scouting is different from APS. Scouting is interested in the child, wheras APS is a Pavlovian creature of hungry politicians and unionists. So, apples and cinder blocks. See? We won’t extricate ourselves from this trap until we think a bit crazy.
Unfortunately I never participated in Scouting–am exploiting it here merely as a metaphor–but the choice appositely illustrates my main point that brilliant Georgia had better look to its own skirts. Just as the Girl Scouts were invented in Savannah, so can sincere people in power stop buying imported fixes and instead try to re-focus themselves in dedication of authentic learning for Atlanta’s schoolchildren.
Glenn
July 9th, 2011
7:25 pm
What in HELL is with the jokey racist tirades? Jim Wooten never was like that. Why poison his remaining well?
Glenn
July 9th, 2011
7:48 pm
Part 2: the cover-up. Mr. Wooten is so right to observe that this active malfeasance compounded a serious problem. yet were we to ascend the ladder, who then might w blame? it’s ever the country club set in smart blazers that goes free, yet they ever are to blame.
The quick fixes just don’t work. it’s no longer a question of perpetuating an underclass of Georgia pickininnies; rather APS has to deal with a heterogyny dominated by Latino children. Fundamentally I would ask the Governor: “Are you sincere about educating these children, rather than miseducating them?”. Because those are two quite different things. Today, it’s become far cheaper to educate rather than deliberately to miseducate.
Glenn
July 9th, 2011
7:50 pm
literacy and numeracy and civics come cheap. the rest is expensive.
j madara
July 9th, 2011
10:42 pm
Beverly Hall was as good a school superintendent as George W. Bush was President.
Glenn
July 9th, 2011
11:00 pm
Agreed. So what? WHITHER?
Glenn
July 9th, 2011
11:06 pm
It’s over. Please let’s go.
himey
July 10th, 2011
9:55 am
@ Will Jones -, Glenn , Dr. Stan , YKW-TBO, Our Lord and Savior ……………
You may fool some, some of the time, but…………………..
You are a fraud, a moniker munching idot who comes on here using multiple names , trying to stir up CRAP !!!!
Go to Cynthia Tucker’s dumpster page with your racism and politics………….
And why can’t you spell ‘God’ with all 3 letters?
Are you afraid, or are you sooooo far left that it compels me to believe you are a muslim.
FOOL ME ONCE, SHAME ON YOU……….
FOOL ME TWICE, WELL YOU KNOW………….
And , as well as this country is being controlled with YOUR government control, George Bush would be met with open arms at the White House door to take back this country.
Amen? ……….You damn well betcha !!!!!!!!!!!
Lee
July 10th, 2011
11:17 am
“All it takes for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing.”
So goes the well-worn adage.
So, this investigation implicates 178 administrators and teachers involved in a wide-spread cheating fraud. You cannot tell me that many multiples of that number, perhaps thousands, knew or suspected that cheating was going on, but failed to do anything. “Good men” doing nothing.
Beverly Hall said that APS has a hotline so that anyone could report concerns – even anonymously. I know that in my company, we also have a hotline and the results of that hotline are summarized and provided in a monthly report to executive management, which includes the CEO. So, if even a handful of “good men” reported this scandal, Beverly Hall knew about it.
The Professional Standards Board (PSB), which issues certifications to teachers, has a published Code of Ethics as well as a reporting procedure that anyone can lodge a complaint. I’m wondering how many complaints they received over the past 5-6 years and the bigger question, what did they do about it? If I’m Gov. Deal, I think I would want to know the answer to that question.
Finally, should we be surprised that that the same folks who pass students from grade to grade and graduate illiterates would stoop so low as to scam an exam? Sadly, I’m not.
Misterbill
July 10th, 2011
1:25 pm
A society that turns is back on God , turns its back on decency and honesty. With the tack records of politicians, ministers, priests and other people in positions that once commanded the highest respect and demanded the highest integrity in life, how can you expect teachers to be any different. I do not excuse, endorse or accept it, but I see it and so do the teachers.
I know that in today’s climate of money, money money, what I say next is unacceptable to many,but, you cannot put in place a reward for passing marks system without being the serpent in the tree offering the forbidden fruit.
Many teachers enter the profession with noble intentions. They have little control over the students, quite unlike my era where parents and teacher worked together for the best education for the children. Today’s parents seem to think that parent decision and guidance is a joint effort. It is not the guidance provides the rules and our youth needs to follow it or pay the consequences. The whole era of student/parent/equality has resulted in a spate of sexual counters between the students and teachers that I never saw or even heard of in my school days.
No God, no punishment, no guidance. We reap what we sow.
BADA BING
July 10th, 2011
6:25 pm
Superintendent Hall…..a teacher with no class.
Eric
July 11th, 2011
8:12 am
“Hall and the Atlanta business community, as represented by the Metro Atlanta Chamber, were far too desperate to create a public image of success.”
Therein lies the problem. Our society is so hellbent on the idea of success that it drives otherwise good people to do bad things. It’s human nature. We ask too much of people in the workplace in terms of meeting goals, etc.
Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will crush the heads of the perverted New World Order integrationist crowd and their devilish black minions
July 11th, 2011
10:06 am
When President Bush and others said “Al-Qaeda thought that we were weak, they believed that we would take them to court.”
I wonder what conclusions or inferences do the confused publicly educated integrationist African Americans leaders draw from that statement and subsequent actions.
Amen?
Dr.EB
July 11th, 2011
11:07 am
I will not excuse the officials at the APS. They must be held responsible. However, I seem to remember that there are problems across the state though they are a lot of problems in Atlanta. Let’s not forget that. As long as there are high stakes testing and No Child Left Behind, I am not confident of the overall improvement of our school systems. This comes from a person who has taught on the college level.
Not So Casual Observer, I guess you forgot about Watergate, Iran Contra, Sam Caldwell, and reading about Teapot Dome. I have to wonder about the governor. The other mayor whose name is on the airport did a lot for the city and included people who were excluded because of the color of their skin.
Is it Nov. 2012 yet ???
July 11th, 2011
2:21 pm
Is anyone really that shocked about this whole train wreck called APS ? They couldn’t teach kids to spell cat if you spotted them the c and the t !!! However, they as well as the entire city of Atlanta are getting exactly what they deserve. The entire political structure in Atlanta is corrupt. The kids end up getting short changed, then get passed along into the next grade where they aren’t prepared for the work and they continue to struggle. Some go off to college and take remedial classes, then (if they manage to graduate) they become dependent on the government to work,house,feed them. Thank you democrats for making our future a little more dim. Keep on voting for someone because they are the same color as you. Maybe one day you will grow up, get a real job, and support a family and pay taxes !!!! Call me racist, at least I pay my own way. Hope and Change, more like Candyland dreams and unicorn farts !!!
Glenn
July 11th, 2011
4:27 pm
Dear Lee,
If you mean the Professional Board for Teaching Standards, the Carnegie creature of the late ’80s, it was suspect from the beginning–though teachers who challenge those assessments and evaluations, and pass them, are pretty heroic. Since evidently you are (also?) a businessperson your understanding of the low extent to which classroom teaching now devolves upon systemic games and gaming, isn’t surprising. The quick fixes and vote-wiining silver bullets of the past three decades–all the facile panaceas and Band-Aids–recoil on us now. There’s no substitute for the authentic learning of both pupil and instructor. We can only build on instructional tradition, sometimes in pursuit of efficiencies and accelerators, but we can’t productively pretend to supersede it. Both major parties persist in promising this brass ring. (In unusually similar fashion). Both are wrong, at the expense of children and their families, of educators and their own families also.
Personally I suspect that this might be the last or else the penultimate opportunity for the Governor and General Assembly to seriously restructuring APS, an imposed change that would reverberate to non-urban schools and also to the University System. Stragecally, toward this end there are three alternatives, I guess: restructuring that either is internal, external or else combination of the previous two. Internal restructuring–not the same as “reform” of enforcement–might involve breaking up the present APS. The State unquestionably holds this power. “External” restructuring might include Georgia’s far greater reliance on its own University System to decide tandards and assessment at the Secondary level rather than for arse-covering bureaucrats and politicians to hide behind off-shelf, abstract tests purchased from foreign vendors with party pull.
THAT might result in the accountabilty–probably even the results–you all deserve.
Glenn
July 11th, 2011
5:06 pm
Hope that made sense to you, guradian of the bridge. Just for you.
Glenn
July 11th, 2011
5:29 pm
(What I sent you previously about your hang up with the locution “G-d”. For me it’s primarily out of respect for Orthodox Jewish friends who might be corresponding; then, a derence to that rare breed of formal Atheist (not many of those canaries in today’s mines); next, to such sinners as I who prefer not to approach The Father of Creation in intimidating terms but rather in the words of of countless believers who prefer to call Him “Pop”, or “Bop” or “Bapu” or “Dad” or simply “Da”, through the years. as Jesus–or Yeshua–did so; and finally, so as to dodge the symmetrical disagreement between Witnesses who want to invoke the Tetragamaton and those Jews for whom doing so is a sacrilege. For me, “Pop” is a more felt monosyllable than is “G-d” (or the latter’s equivalent) because when I address “Abba”, my “Bop”, my “Da”, He harkens, whereas not so often when I’m dealing with “Almighty God, Creator of the stars and Universe!”
Glenn
July 11th, 2011
5:50 pm
Besides, presumably you know that the Hebraists–Jewish, Christian, Agnostic–scholars in exegesis have held since the 1940s that no good end comes from trying to phoentecize the old tetrammaton for God, whether as “Yahweh” or as “Jehovah”. What could it mean except that we take with salt a foundational People who give thanks, in two disparate writings (Isaiah and Habakkuk) for the divine gift of Phoenetic language yet refuse to employ that method in pigeonholing their Creator?
Glenn
July 11th, 2011
5:53 pm
I miserably just misspelled “phonetic”. Mea culpa maxima.
Harlemisha
July 11th, 2011
7:41 pm
“That crime is failing to educate children while passing them through the system with self-esteem rallies and unearned grades.”
Scads of these robo-promoted APS children with inflated grades graduated high school this year thinking they were educated, and they’re knockin at the door of our state colleges and universities. Think about how many millions in Hope Scholarship $ will be expended on these illiterates before they’re washed out.
Glenn
July 11th, 2011
7:53 pm
True, that “passing” them probably should be made a crime, but fairly what crime might that be, these days? out of cynical and unkowowing convenience we’ve set up a system in which educators only succeed by defaulat or else lose as crminals. We leave them–especially the new–little choice but to cheat abhorrently. Yet still we wonder why they leave in droves and why decreasingly few wish to replace them. It’s an oversimplistic game they cannot win, and Georgia ever hass lacked the fortitude to game it out honestly.
Glenn
July 11th, 2011
9:05 pm
To play it out truly as any honest state would do were it to claim regional leadership and any sophistication whatever in the Armed Forces. Yet Georgia takes pride in immitating the likes of Oregon. how dispiriting, that the Governor’s people consider such capitulations forward-looking. georgia might do so much better so much of what the West Coast has done wrong.
Glenn
July 11th, 2011
9:08 pm
Enter your comments here
Glenn
July 11th, 2011
9:22 pm
Admittedly it was a miseducating error but I’ve never advanced an illiterate and frankly I don’t see how anyone could do who has any love for weird literacy itself, which enobles and liberates despite our best efforts to politicize it or otherwise to mess it up. It stands on its own, amazingly indomitable. And if a girl has literacy she thereby can win Free Thought, or Physics or Mathematics or the Humanities or whatever moves her, and thereby the World has a future. it’s surprisingly unsentimental to conclude therefore that the present crop of dictators is doomed so long as educators exist broadly in roughly unadulterated form. (Perhaps you’ll come back at me as too Right or Left, but the terms are not so simple.)
Glenn
July 11th, 2011
9:46 pm
Jefferson came to these conclusions much the same way as I, but spelled them so succinctly, to his own and Monticello’s Doom. It’s quite sad that only decades following his death did anyone dare to question him, otherwisise Merrill Peterson, a born historian, by now would not have stewarded UVA to its greatest distinction, except that he went easy on Mr. Jefferson, and did so quite knowingly, and politically.
Glenn
July 12th, 2011
6:07 am
Anyway that’s what I would say about th collapse of integrity of Atlanta shools. It is everyone’s collapse of integrity. No scapegoats. No shortcuts. None.
It’s over. Let’s go!
BADA BING
July 12th, 2011
9:55 am
What kind of grades would the Hawaiian students be making if Big Mama Hall was their School Superintendent?…………They would be making all leis!
guy
July 12th, 2011
10:06 am
When you have ignorant and unqualified people in charge this is what happens.It’s like Katrina and all the looting that happened.You can’t fix STUPID!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Cal
July 12th, 2011
1:34 pm
Atlanta’s black community wanted a chocolate smoothie. Hope they enjoyed it.
eddie
July 13th, 2011
11:47 am
“No chill-rens left behind” Well perhaps now is the time to leave many behind and let them repeat the grade until they have mastered the subject matter and then advance to the next grade. The alternative is to allow social promotions (wouldn’t want to bruise an ego even though the ego can’t read, write or speak basic and correct english and do basic math) and kick the ego down the road to be someone else’s problem. It just seems that the Black community is more concerned about a functionally illiterate kid’s self-esteem than really being educated.. Look at Dexter Manley, pro football player, who went to college for 1 or 2 years yet could not read…not read a lick!!! Poster child for APS. The system and 178 of its parts failed miserably. BUT it was a calculated and systemic failure orchestrated by its leaders. It was not an accident. It was deliberate. Hall and all who cheated should never have a teaching certificate again anywhere; all bonus money returned immediately and those found guilty of cheating should be prosecuted. Even with all of this retribution, the problems will still exist. The kids who come from the inner city are generally ill-prepared to begin school and it only gets worse after they start school.. For many, it is just a day-care center, sadly. If a teacher tried to hold a black student back, Al Sharpton, the NAACP and every other black organization would be picketing and protesting. Instead of being concerned about the kid and the kid’s education, they are concerned about the perception of a black kid being held back so that he/she could master the current grade’s materials before going to the next grade. The rabble rousers are the problem not he kid,
Rockerbabe
July 13th, 2011
5:26 pm
I disagree; teachers have little control over students when they are not in the classroom.
Teachers do not control what, when or if the kids eat and good nutrition supports learning on all levels and this has been proven over and over in referried research journals.
Teachers do not control the home environment the kids live in or even if the kids have a roof over their heads. Kids are deeply affected by how their parents act, speak and believe as well as treat one another. Discord in the home is not conducive to learning, nor is violence and divorce.
Teachers do not control the homework aspect of a kids’ learning. Is there any enrichment in terms of reading materials at home, tutoring from the parents or help with homework assignments. Or do the parents leave the kids to their own devices with TV, computers and play stations? The “average” kid watches 4 hours of TV daily; so when is the school work being done?
Teachers do not control the parent’s attitudes towards academics vs athletics on or off the field. Teachers are still pressured to change grades for “academic eligibility” or are threatened with loss of the job.
Teachers are not often consulted on cirriculum issues surrounding the subjects they teach or are experts in. That seems to be left to the school boards and their political hacks. All one has to do is watch last year’s TV special on the “deliberations” of the Texas School Board’s changes to the social studies cirrculum and how these elected officials just ignored educators and their concerns with regard to textbook chapters.
Cheating is never a good thing; maybe the teachers and principals need to be heard on this issue to see just corrupt the NCLB program is operating. Teachers are suppose to teach, give tests, correct test, give project assignments, grade assignments, have counseling and conference sessions with parents, etc. Teachers CANNOT DO THE LEARNING for the kids, they must do tha for themselves. We are holding teachers accountable for that which they have little control over…whether a kid learns or not is up to the kid and their parents.
While I will concede that there are always a few bad apples in any barrel, blaming teachers for the student’s not learning is misguided and just plain wrong. Being held accountable for that which YOU have no control over is suicide. . .no wonder teachers feel the need to cheat and leave the profession. I would too, but then again, my foray into education many years ago, left me disheartened, so I went into healthcare and haven’t looked back. In fact, I have worked with a number of former teachers over the years and have been impressed with all of them on some level. So, Mr. Wooten, get over your outrage and start looking a the root cause for all of this cheating. But then again, YOU folks didn’t do much about all of the gross misconduct by the banking, finance and real estate folks. . .I think the double standard is there for all to see.
w
KenFromCalifornia
July 13th, 2011
6:30 pm
…………………The Top 10 Excuses Beverly Hall Gave for Doing All This Cheating………..
10) the state prison system promised me a kickback for each youth referral i sent them…this was the best way to make sure i kept up my end of the deal.
9) it wasn’t me. #shaggy
7) if you ain’t cheating, you ain’t trying!
6) i’ve always believed that a mind is a terrible thing to waste on studying
5) intimidating witnesses, stealing money, raking in millions for low-quality output….GANGSTA STYLE, baby!
4) i met my future husband at one of those erasing parties.
3) hey, these kids are too poor to be in school, and they’re not smart enough…waitaminit, that’s what the kkk always said.
2) shirley franklin will still love me not matter what i do
and the number one excuse beverly hall gave for doing all this cheating:
1) hey, what do i care?? my grandkids go to private school!
Rockerbabe
July 13th, 2011
7:22 pm
KenFromCalifornia: real stupid and even more crass than usual, even for someone from California.
SaveOurRepublic
July 13th, 2011
8:25 pm
The city of Atlanta has been going downhill every since that shyster Maynard Jackson. Like far too many large urban cities (see D.C. & Chicago), Atlanta’s “leaders” are largely corrupt &/or incompetent.
SaveOurRepublic
July 13th, 2011
8:26 pm
^^^ Correction/edit for above….”large cities”.
Glenn
July 13th, 2011
11:42 pm
It ’s true, about the powerlessness of teachers, true because of decades of public policies that insult and disempower them through cynical conveniences. It’s stll possible to honor their uniquely vital role while giving them a new one. the question is, What constitutes an educator in the 21st Century? My guess is that it’s both a more productve and a more efficient one, more in the interest of the learner than in the interest of either state or business interests (which in many cases have merged).
Glenn
July 13th, 2011
11:51 pm
As for large cities, a classic essay published by the architectoral theorist Christopher Alexander in, as I recall, 1966, was entitled descrptively, “The City As a Mechanism for Sustaining Human Contact”. Perhaps that work was the best argument I’ve met for cities as organisms educative of the young; by extension, against suburbs as phenomena that educate the young in neither the virtues of the farm nor the virtues of cities, but rather teach them nothing save perhaps shopping.
Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will crush the heads of the perverted New World Order integrationist crowd and their devilish black minions
July 14th, 2011
8:47 am
As a matter of fact, all of the jobs that African Americans have are make work jobs etc. They are really not needed. In other word, prior to integration, white businesses and institutions were fully staffed by mostly Europeans. And when integration was enforced, white people made room or work in their institutions for black people.
Amen?
Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will crush the heads of the perverted New World Order integrationist crowd and their devilish black minions
July 14th, 2011
9:11 am
If African Americans practice good morals, watch what they eat, and exercise on a daily basis, they can solve the problems that’s ravaging the black community. They don’t need the assistance of politicians etc.
Amen?
Glenn
July 14th, 2011
2:44 pm
Por nous amis ancient Francais: Joyeux Quatorze Juillet! Et a mon confreres dans L’Acedie Louisiane, Bonne Fete!
Glenn
July 14th, 2011
2:51 pm
Sorry. my schoolboy French is so poor that I misspelled “Pour” (”For”) as “Por”.
Four our old French friends, Happy Bastille Day! And for my Franco-American compatriots in Lousiana, Enjoy the Celebration!