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
dougmo2
July 7th, 2011
8:21 pm
If ignorance is bliss, Beverly Hall is the happiest person alive.
Barry
July 7th, 2011
8:38 pm
Fire, fire, fire. And then prosecute.
Lewis Murray
July 7th, 2011
8:51 pm
It is all summed up by #10. Ambition and publicity-seeking, along with monetary incentives, drove the whole thing. Nothing too complicated about it. The old adage that “if it looks too good to be true, it probably is” applied here. But everyone wanted to believe in the advances claimed, it worked to everyone’s advantage – except the children’s, of course. The AJC has done a great service to the community by bringing this stinking mess to light.
MrLiberty
July 7th, 2011
9:00 pm
What integrity are you talking about? This is a government school system after all. There is no integrity there. How can there be? They don’t EARN the money they take in – the government STEALS it for them. They aren’t accountable to the parents or the students – I mean its not like these folks can take THEIR money and go elsewhere.
Integrity is earned – in the marketplace of free choice. Captive prisoners who are robbed at gunpoint and then forced by law to comply are not the foundation of anything deserving of the noun integrity.
Never mind, nothing to see here. Go back to rationalizing about how government education is actually helping society. Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha……
Hootinanny Yum Yum
July 7th, 2011
9:14 pm
No one is pointing out the elephant in the room.
Remember what happened in Clayton county and DeKalb county? Now this in APS.
Come on folks. Be honest with yourselves.
I Must Say
July 7th, 2011
9:17 pm
@MrLiberty… I went to public school, loved it, and was then able to attend a university that is consistently ranked in the top ten in the country. There are many fine public school teachers. In fact, many teachers are vastly underpaid for the work the do. I can’t count the number of times a teacher would pay for their own supplies or spent their own time at the end of the day to help students. I also met many people (at said university) who clearly would have enjoyed the diversity you find in public schools. Don’t be ignorant.
That said, this whole debacle is deeply distressing. These “educators” and administrators should be in jail for what they have done to the community and most of all the children. Their actions are deplorable and rightly maligned but they do not speak to the value of teachers.
I’m sorry you apparently never had a good education.
Hunter
July 7th, 2011
9:45 pm
Martha Mitchell was proof in reverse that Ignorance is bliss.
BADA BING
July 7th, 2011
9:52 pm
ATL Bumper Stickers
“My child is an honor student (subject to impending investigation)”
“ATL…The city too busy to teach”
“My Supt. won Supt of the year, and all I got was this lousy education”
Peter
July 7th, 2011
10:25 pm
Jim, I agree with you on this stuff including the final comment….Please…..why stop lying now Ms Hall ?
Badnewz
July 7th, 2011
10:44 pm
Jim, now that this disgrace has gone public, why are public officials (the city Mayors, APS Board, DOE, etc) and ATL Business leaders so-so-so surprise? Please save us the excuses, the wine and cheese for another occasion because no one is innocent except the kids and the whistleblowers who were punished. All were on public record for supporting Beverly Hall and her dictatorship of the past 12 years while serious questions of her leadership surfaced annually. We, the taxpayers, have seen this oxymoron culture and cesspool of corruption in Atlanta for years with little or no enforcement. No surprise here! We also have seen similar behaviors at City of Atlanta, DeKalb, Clayton, Fulton and HJAIA, where public officials consistently indulged in illegal activities at taxpayers’ expense with little or no enforcement of state and federal laws. Despite years of public outcry for compliance, these public officials (Beverly Hall, Kasim Reed, Shirley Franklin, etc), political (Andy Young, Roy Barnes, etc) and business leaders (Metro Chamber) turned a blinded-eye to the wrongdoings until my man, Sonny Perdue, finally stepped up to the plate and launched the independent investigation with subpoena power for Mike Bowers and others. Yes, as expected, Bowers got folks to react, holler, point figures and confess to wrongdoings because folks fear jail time like cats fear water. Now with this APS investigation report finally out in the public, the Nation knows in detail what we already knew for years – “systematic corruption” at its worst which explains why Beverly Hall’s allies, including APS Board, Mayor Reed, Andy Young and others, have distance themselves from her (I wonder if Hall’s Hawaii vacation is booked at taxpayers’ expense). Yes, there is no secret Atlanta is a major corrupt city where anything goes without enforcement. As evident of this investigation report, there is no accountability here. There is also no secret why many small and large corporations have either left Atlanta or bypassed Atlanta for another city as their Headquarters because of all the shenanigans (at city governments, school systems, state laws, etc) over the years. Let’s get real, this train has left the station and APS officials need to be indicted over this mess in order to recover any decency of the school system. We must see swift action. I do not feel sorry for these corrupt people because they deceived us, knew what they were doing and must face the prosecutor and judge. While DA Paul Howard won’t indict anyone because of political reason, I am sure others will. The main questions are who will get indicted under what charges, how high up the command chain will this go and when will DOE launch a federal investigation for the waste and mismanagement of federal funds over the years. As a taxpayer, it is time for justice to be served. So, let’s get the indictments and this party started NOW.
MikeB
July 7th, 2011
10:57 pm
Ms. Hall should be made to answer both civil and criminal charges as step 1 in the city of Atlantas effort to regain public trust.
Is it me, or does Ms. Halls attorney sound like former Congressman Weiner when he commented for another AJC article “Ms. Hall has no knowledge of wide spread cheating”. This dog will no longer hunt as an acceptible defense tactic.
When Ms. Hall returns from wherever she is, she should be taken into custody and do a perp walk (her administration as well) like every other criminal in Atlanta. The audacity of this woman is amazing…….
I like to read
July 7th, 2011
11:02 pm
I read all three volumes of the APS report–quite disturbing and enlightening. Thank you for finding a bright spot: Arthur Kiel. I think there is another bright spot: Michael Milstead. In reading the report on Harper Archer MS (in volume 2), it became evident that genuine efforts were made at that school to resist the corruption. I’d like to shake his hand.
Bama Bill
July 7th, 2011
11:25 pm
All professional educators have known that the “results” achieved by Hall and her team of pricipals and teachers were flawed – impossible ! Now, why did all the Chamber, GE’s John Rice, IBM’s Ann Cramer fall for such outrageous fabrications – maybe they listened to Jeff Dickerson spin his story of absolute rubbish ?
Hunter
July 7th, 2011
11:26 pm
Wow, Jim, we here expected your commentaries upon these events but didn’t expect them to be so studious and nuanced, despite your deep commitments and journalistic record. the AJC was splendid throughout, though I would ave wished for a bit more vision from the investigative team as well as the distressingly unimaginative Editorial Editors. and yes, it’s nice that the organized business community pressed the case, but then it was they who were progenitors of this brain-dead regime of “standards, assessment, accountability”, as though schools, as a late colleague put it, “ever could have a yield comparable to that of a ball bearing factory.
You speak of unaccountable bureaucrats (quite redundantly), and of the bureaucratic mindset of Us and Them. Naturally teachers will continue to fight this counterproductive regime of high-stakes testing because it was not originated in their ranks and adopted as a discipline of their own field but rather was imposed upon them by politicians and businesspeople who blatantly doubt that a frontline educator just might know or care about pedagogy more than an interloping opportunist does.
i warned you all along that this boorish bean counting would come to bankruptcy. I’m surprised that you’re surprised, because it’s happening all over the country, while meanwhile Harcourt Brace makes record profits.
i always thought that a true Conservative stood before the townhall insisting, “There are no shortcuts!”
Glenn
July 7th, 2011
11:46 pm
Yes, that was I, just now.
you can’t seriously expect teachers to explain what constitutes “education”. most of them went into the field, playing dodgeball with the deeply confused grad schools, because they want to help the Young. now Georgia finds itself with a serious problem in retaining apprentice teachers because, to them, it all seems like drill-and-kill in pursuit of votes & profits. It’s all so damn foreseeable, and so unfortunate from here to Guam..
Glenn
July 7th, 2011
11:50 pm
Yes, Bama Bill.
Glenn
July 8th, 2011
12:10 am
Honestly I understand if someone wants to take this story as a text–an index or an example–of modern corruption, but I see it rather as good-willed arrogance wedded to the usual power plays, with children as usual as, at best, pawns; at worst, sacrificial victims. It’s all so expected. Jim thinks that the predictable racial dynamic in this falls to inveterate racialists. I wouldn’t know. but definitely there is here a dynamic of systematic separation and scapegoating by a ritual class. And I just don’t see the point of playing such adult games at the expense of a child the price of whom is a score on a store-bought pencil test sold to the General Assembly because the publisher gave the best party, as it were.
Alice
July 8th, 2011
12:42 am
BADA BING, You are on a roll tonight. I think you may be ready for prime-time. Those bumper stickers are hysterical. Where can I get one?
B.
July 8th, 2011
2:16 am
I don’t understand quite the bit about ethics education for teachers, and perhaps administrators, next year. This will be done during in-service days–on paid time? If, by the time they are certified teachers, the teachers have not learned that cheating is unethical and illegal, should they receive training on taxpayers dollars? Or should they be dismissed, perhaps with consequences?
Chas
July 8th, 2011
3:51 am
Hootinanny @ 9:14: No one is pointing out the elephant in the room.
If you point out that Black controlled entities such as city councils, school boards, etc. are always a completely disfunctional hot mess you will be labeled a racist and the subject dropped.
The Black community will not improve without a strong family foundation. A community with mothers and fathers working 24/7 to raise decent childern. A community educated to the point of responsibility.
This POTUS was supposed to be the bridge across the racial divide. So far, nothing.
When someone tries to have a dialog it is labeled racist at the first hint of a remark that is unsympathetic toward the Black community.
We need to quit pretending Black people are qualified when they do not meet the criteria. Let them stand on their own merit.
RC
July 8th, 2011
6:35 am
All this screaming about corruption at the highest level. And what is the highest level? Why, it is the people, the voters, the parents who elect those who run their government and public agencies, set the rules, and do the hiring and firing. So, go ask the people why they seeming fail to notice this kind of behavior year in and year out. Seriously, go ask them. As Lincoln said, “Government of the people, by the people, for the people…”
jd
July 8th, 2011
7:36 am
Cheating on standardized testing (for all kids) is shameful. Let’s hold the wrong doers accountable. Let’s not be fooled into thinking that this ONLY happens in the APS.. Let’s be realistic..Hey let’s have a discovery of all the Georgia PS and see if there is this same kind of Cheating happening in other school districts. I’ll bet that the findings will have a lot of PS administrators singing the GOOD-BYE SONG!
Will Jones - Atlanta Jeffersonian Exegesis
July 8th, 2011
7:39 am
Put in perspective:
Local corruption flies under the sheltering wings of corruption at the national level all know exists: Bush and Cheney committed 9/11, re: “The New Pearl Harbor,” Griffin, Ph.D. (and common sense); and Bush’s father and Cheney’s mentor, Nixon, using the Roman Catholic, Knight of Malta-led CIA, assassinated President Kennedy to send us to die for lies on behalf of the five percent Roman Catholic elite of VN which owned 95% of the wealth. So what “character” is required of those, fully aware of the truth known by G-d, to get secure jobs teaching innocent children Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated JFK and OBL committed 9/11?
Churchill's MOM
July 8th, 2011
7:42 am
Who says birds of a feather stick together, 2 weeks ago Reed was Hall’s main backer now he has thrown her under the bus. If you think APS is corrupt just wait until the new set of airport contracts come out.
Not So Casual Observer
July 8th, 2011
7:46 am
Ivan Allen left the Mayor’s office and the corruption began in earnest.
City council bribery scandals were just the beginning and the corruption has continued to this day.
Mayor after Mayor who ignored the crumbling infrastructure to use the money for their supporters and family. To have added one of these bums to William Hartsfield’s name at the airport is a disgrace.
Interesting that an earlier post raised Jeff Dickerson’s name, since he has been nothing more than a paid schill for the Black governments around Atlanta for several years. No problem for Jeff however, just as Lanny Davis (Clinton’s primary voice of denial on Monica until the blue dress) has now resurfaced on Fox and other networks – those with power will see that this bum will be cared for financially. Will Dickerson still try to claim Beverly Hall was ignorant of the scandal?
The business leaders (oxymoron?)should also be held accountable for the personal and finacial support provided to the Mayor and APS.
The APS failures are nothing more than an indication of the systemic failures throughout Atlanta, Fulton and DeKalb.
Not So Casual Observer
July 8th, 2011
7:51 am
The purge needs to begin in the White House and US Congress and continue throughout the country until every small town Mayor and council is also “trash free”.
midtownguy
July 8th, 2011
7:58 am
Arthur Kiel should be promoted to Principal.
That said, where was the State Department of Education during all this? Should they not have questioned the almost impossible improvement in test scores? Or were they also invested in the lie and reaping rewards for the progress made in their state’s largest urban district?
Aquagirl
July 8th, 2011
8:04 am
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
Next time anyone starts celebrating the declining circulation of this “liberal rag” they should re-read this. The traditional press serves a vital function that cannot currently be duplicated by talk radio or independent bloggers.
BW
July 8th, 2011
8:23 am
Chas and Hootinanny
Race is less of an issue…the common denominator is always class. All you need to do is look at Gwinnett and Hall Counties in Georgia and throughout the country, City of Bell, CA being a prime example, to see that corruption extents past color lines. We get it…you don’t think African Americans are able to lead anything. In some cases you are correct…in others not so much. Unfortunately the prevalence of news stories on the bad ones always indicts the entire race in some people’s eyes. It’s clear that your mind is made up on this matter but it’s food for thought.
Guy Incognito
July 8th, 2011
8:24 am
APS is the prime example of why I, as a teacher, do not pay any attention when those, who can’t even speak english properly, try to tell me how I should teach.
BADA BING
July 8th, 2011
8:25 am
ATL Bumper Stickers
“My Principal is Unprincipled”
“My Child Got a Hall Pass”
Cutty
July 8th, 2011
8:34 am
While I don’t dispute any of Wooten’s assertions, I would like to know why he isn’t as gleeful to write about Deal’s transgressions for the last 12 months. When in doubt, just bash Atlanta.
midtownguy
July 8th, 2011
8:35 am
There were no schools that cheated in my neighborhood, or Buckhead, or Druid Hills, or VIrginia-Highlands, or Garden Hills or Morningside etc. etc. The difference is not the teachers, its the parents. The issue is socio-economic status, not race.
But there was an agenda to prove that kids from lower income, single parent families could achieve on par with their middle class counterparts. Anyone who has ever been near a classroom knows that never has, and never will happen. Money buys educational opportunity, and not just in private schools.
Public schools in neighborhoods where the median house price is $300,000 provide quality education. If they didn’t the parents would be on the Principal’s doorstep. Those parents EXPECT that their children will get into UGA and Tech and the principal will lose his job if the school doesn’t provide that.
Tall
July 8th, 2011
8:38 am
Aquagirl: “Next time anyone starts celebrating the declining circulation of this “liberal rag” they should re-read this. The traditional press serves a vital function that cannot currently be duplicated by talk radio or independent bloggers.”
You’ve got a good point. However, I still refuse to support Jay Bookman, Cynthia Tucker and Mike Lukovich.
Junior Samples
July 8th, 2011
8:44 am
Who woke Jim up?
Down in Albany
July 8th, 2011
8:49 am
Could we please get the AJC to come to Albany and investigate the Dougherty Co CRCT scores? We can’t depend on the Albany Herald to do anything but publish off of the AP wire. Thanks in advance…
lefttheschoolsystem
July 8th, 2011
9:02 am
I was a teacher in APS for six years. There is a lot of pressure placed on teachers, and administrators, to do well. I can honestly say, the principals know EXACTLY who to go to “run their erasing” game. Some teachers, like myself, weren’t having it. Although I never heard of my principal telling teachers to erase answers, I am sure it was happening. As an educator, I would not risk my teaching certificate in which I worked so hard for just to be recognized at the Georgia World Congress Center each year. I am sorry. If the child came into my room not knowing anything, I would teach the child to best of my ability, ask for additional help, and direct his/her parents to agencies that would help outside of school. Parents must also remember that sports aren’t their first priority; school is. Who wants a dumb athelete on their team??
Tancred
July 8th, 2011
9:05 am
“In a statement to investigators, Waller said if tampering occurred,
it must have been after test papers left Parks. He wouldn’t have cheated, he said, because he wouldn’t have risked his $107,000-a-year salary — and because he is a minister.”
This guy sounds like Richard Pryor.
Tall
July 8th, 2011
9:12 am
To Left the School System: “Parents must also remember that sports aren’t their first priority; school is. Who wants a dumb athelete on their team??”
Sadly, many folks do. Who is more important, Mark Richt or a top flight mathematics professor? Who is the most important man in Alabama?
My son is an elementary student in the Fulton County School district. As I see it, the biggest single problem is trying to make school fun instead of what it is. My son is bright, but lazy. He has no interest in learning for the sake of it. I hear the same complaints from his friend’s parents as well. Girls, too.
Churchill's MOM
July 8th, 2011
9:16 am
“Hell just froze over”.. I am listening to WABE & NASCAR is sponsoring the hour.. Going to load the Kids & Husband in our truck & head for the race.
The Austrian Brotherhood
July 8th, 2011
9:24 am
@ I Must Say – Mr. Liberty does have a good education. He educated himself about the top-down inspired corruption of the government schools. And he didn’t need Beverly Hall to do it, just some choice reading is all it took. Books by Mises, Hayek, Rothbard, Rockwell, Paul, and others. But you wouldn’t know about that would you stooge? No independent thinking for you. Just more death and debt. Right Statist?
BADA BING
July 8th, 2011
9:28 am
Let’s have some more ‘Erasing Parties’. Erase the cheater’s names from their paychecks, awards, pensions, diplomas. I’ll bring the pizza!
lovelyliz
July 8th, 2011
9:38 am
lovelyliz
July 6th, 2011
9:22 am
The Texas Miracle that never was: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/06/60II/main591676.shtml
In December 2000, the New York Times introduced us to the president elect’s choice for Secretary of Education, a former football coach with a penchant for “snake-, lizard-, ostrich- or alligator-skin boots.” In that article, Jacques Steinberg reported that under his leadership as the superintendent of the Houston Independent School District, Rod Paige “helped nudge test scores steadily upward in the Houston district, which is largely black and Hispanic. It now ranks among the highest-performing in the state.” Houston, the commentators cooed, was nothing short of a miracle. In 2002, the district won the first Broad Prize for Urban Education.
By 2003, the press – and the Texas Education Agency – started looking more closely at Houston’s results. Ten days later, the Times editorial page wrote that Paige “owes it to the country to share his thoughts on how this happened and what it means.” In an interview with the Times editorial board a few days later, Paige defended his record. Gains in student achievement were real and “still standing,” though he said ”there probably was” a dropout problem.
But the cat was out of the bag. By December the Times had acquired test score data – both on the Texas TAAS and the nationally normed Stanford tests – and established that Houston’s state test score gains were enormously inflated. In other words, Houston’s sizable gains on the Texas test largely evaporated on the Stanford 9. In August 2004, 60 Minutes ran a segment on the Texas Miracle. When the Dallas Morning News uncovered widespread cheating in Houston late in 2004, it appeared that the game was finally over.
And President George Bush made Rod Paige Secratary of Education
lovelyliz
July 8th, 2011
9:38 am
lovelyliz
July 6th, 2011
9:24 am
Lest you think that private companies do any better:
June 2011: LAUSD moves to close 6 charter schools after cheating scandal
In an unprecedented move, the Los Angeles Unified school board is set to close down six charter schools involved in a test cheating scandal last year. The board’s convening a public hearing on the proposal today.
An L.A. Unified investigation found that John Allen, the founder of Crescendo Schools, directed school administrators to break seals on state standardized tests and prepare students for the questions
The Ghost of Lester Maddox
July 8th, 2011
9:38 am
1. This is all George Bush’s fault.
2. Only Obama can save us.
3. Those who actually work for a living and pay taxes should pay even more taxes to help Obama save us.
4. Anyone who dares to disagree with 1, 2 and 3 above is obviously a racist.
Weiner's Wiener
July 8th, 2011
9:57 am
Aquagirl
“Next time anyone starts celebrating the declining circulation of this “liberal rag” they should re-read this. The traditional press serves a vital function that cannot currently be duplicated by talk radio or independent bloggers”
A blind squirrel will always find nuts occasionally, doesn’t change the overall reality regarding the AJC
I'm just saying
July 8th, 2011
10:04 am
PARENTS – The next time your child comes home and tells you he/she passed the CRCT and you KNOW that he/she cannot read or has not passed a test all year…………………..
BELLS SHOULD GO OFF IN YOUR HEAD. yOU SHOULD KNOW THAT something is wrong here. You should IMMEDIATELY notify the principal, the teachers, the administrators, etc.
THAT IS IF YOU CARE!!!!!!!
Don
July 8th, 2011
10:05 am
It is a classic example of leaders blaming the troops for failure.
Another Voice
July 8th, 2011
10:12 am
@Bama Bill … Dickerson is the spokes-piece for DeKalb, Bromery is APS’s mouth. But your point is well-taken. Both systems have hidden the truth and are failing heavily. These leaders should have been digging deeper into APS’s operations to find the truth. And now, some of the key contributors to the scandal are moving onto other school systems. Hope those systems have stronger Boards to ensure that this doesn’t occur again. And Yes, I’m talking about Kathy Augustine. (Wonder if Joyce is moving to Texas, too?)
jconservative
July 8th, 2011
10:15 am
Nice column JIm. Nice piece of writing. Of the 10 observations I could not find one to dispute.
BADA BING
July 8th, 2011
10:24 am
Is your APS student getting an education? I guess you will have to take an educated guess.
Will Jones - Atlanta Jeffersonian Exegesis
July 8th, 2011
10:26 am
9/11-committing Bush was cheated into office by only the SCOTUS Roman Catholics’ illegal votes in the patently unconstitutional ‘Bush v. Gore’ decision. Should he not have picked cheaters for his cabinet?
midtownguy
July 8th, 2011
10:31 am
There have always been “two Atlantas.” One Atlanta has the majority of the money and by association the economic power, the other has the majority of the votes and, therefore, the political power. Neither group is really interested in changing that. 95% of the residents of my neighborhood could care less what goes on “south of Ponce” including the public schools. As long as the associated violence and crime that festers in the low income neighborhoods stays there (see uproar over Screen on the Green).
Neither group wants to share their power.
Sam
July 8th, 2011
10:36 am
For ALL involved in this scandal I want to see:
1) Terminate employment
2) File criminal charges
3) Revoke pensions
Now we have some teachers saying they were pressured to cheat but did not participate. Not that I believe them, but even if that is true, by their own admission thay had knowledge of the cheating and because they did not report it they are guilty of a code of conduct violation and still should be terminated. I’m sick and tired of the malfeasance by government workers in Atlanta and counties (Fulton, Dekalb, Clayton, etc). We need to clean house and stop this from happening in the future.
Tanisha Green
July 8th, 2011
10:40 am
No matter how screwed up or poor a school system is…there are always some kids every year who graduate, go on to college, and do very well. The main asset these successful students have is that they come from a stable family background (doesn’t always mean a two-parent household) where education and hard work are valued and promoted.
In the APS, the great majority of the students do NOT come from such backgrounds. There are a lot of socio-economic problems in our African-American community, and some problems are the kind that simply can’t be overcome by the time and resources that our education system has available. I do believe that every child can learn…but as a teacher, I simply do not have the time (or the authority) to do…in every case…what needs to be done in order to reach some of my more difficult students. (For one thing, I’ve had students who would have demanded just about my entire attention…just to educate that one student. But I didn’t have just one student. I had 28.)
Unlike most other education systems in the world, we tell ourselves that we have to educate every single child…and we don’t kick kids out completely, even those kids who do little more than just disrupt the education of their peers.
Yet we demand that a school system’s success be judged by the test scores of the entire student body, including students who do little more than just fill out the dots to make pretty pictures.
DawgDad
July 8th, 2011
10:43 am
The system (testing system) did not fail the kids, parents, taxpayers, and community, people failed them. Unethical, greedy, corrupt people. Education became a racketeering enterprise under amoral leadership. The heart of the blame (and accountability) runs through the Board, Administration, and teachers who perpetrated or enabled the scam, but the blame extends to the parents, voters, and community leadership too selfish or uncaring to mind their most basic parenting and stewardship responsibilities. To that point, one still has to wonder whether the future is bright or stormy.
It is very healthy to push this embarrassment out into public. Many people need to held accountable, prosecuted or otherwise expelled from the schools to the fullest extent possible. No doubt there will be some hefty civil suits as well.
Will Jones - Atlanta Jeffersonian Exegesis
July 8th, 2011
10:48 am
Blame teachers for not blowing the whistle on cheating pressure by admin? We all know Bush and Cheney did 9/11. Is John Lewis doing any thing but supporting illegal immigration instead?
Sarah Caldwell
July 8th, 2011
11:09 am
Several observations.
1. For years, the Atlanta Public Schools have embraced a culture of looking good whether it was good for children or not. Student work, which should be posted to show improvement or exemplary (for the grade-level), wasn’t posted because it wasn’t perfect by adult standards. “It would look bad.”
2. It isn’t so much a “Testing Pressure” that drove good people, as if any of us are good (Can I have an Amen, brothers and sisters?), as it is that this kind of one-shot measurement leads to gaming the system in every circumstance. It happens in sales (”I’ve already won for this quarter; I’ll push this new sale onto next quarter’s records.”), in politics (”We’ve got Texas in the bag, we can ignore Kansas and Oklahoma and New Mexico.”), in hospitals, etc. Whatever is easy to count is emphasized. This scandal ought to lead to better ways to assess children, teachers and schools, but sadly, it won’t.
tar and feathers party
July 8th, 2011
12:24 pm
Lets see what the common denominators are in this cheating scandal, that will dictate the direction we go in for a solution: The Superintendent – A fat black female with a big mouth used to promote herself; Numerous fat black school principals with big mouths used to promote themselves; Numerous black school teachers with big mouths used to promote themselves. I think I see the problem, black self promoters. Solution: Do not hire another black superintendent, school principal, or teacher, they are all big mouthed liars and cheats.
tar and feathers party
July 8th, 2011
12:27 pm
The rumor is no one will be fired, all the liars and cheats will just have to take an Ethics course and promise not to lie, cheat, and steal again. Hmmm, much like the UGA football program, imho, when the NCAA had them one step from the NCAA death penalty. Hmmm, could these cheating teachers all be uga graduates?
AtlantaGator
July 8th, 2011
12:42 pm
WHERE is the NAACP while these so called “educators” and union thugs are ensuring another generation of African American illiterates? They’re busy protesting charter schools or school vouchers in the inner cities and lack of “diversity” at CNN. Doesn’t CNN need employees that can read and write intelligently?
APS Parent 3
July 8th, 2011
1:01 pm
@ Midtownguy. My kids attended (both in College on HOPE) 2 schools cited for cheating right at the beginning of Hall’s reign. I was overly involved then and still go to the board meetings. You are right-it is up to the parents. I checked bookbags, assisted in class, took tutorials to help my kids in any way. I even tried to speak with parents of class clowns to help my teachers. But, there is still the untold line drawn between North APS and South APS which needs to be addressed. The South schools have lost great teachers to the North and other systems when they earned higher degrees or national certification and would not comply with the cheating standards. It is a very well known untold fact that teachers that excelled were given contracts at north APS schools or told to leave.
It is sad that it took this long to uncover this mess when complaints were being heard from former board members (Jean Dobbs and former teacher) and even sent to the State DOE. The PSC and State should look back at complaints filed by teachers and parents during Hall’s administration.
To those who aided in this mess, the Chamber of White Atlanta who has the final say on the Superintendent and assisted in the cover up with L.Burks and company; Shirley Franklin, Reed and every State Superintendent – you all should now hold your heads in shame and apologize to the kids. Hall, her cabinet, principals and all other administrators should be jailed and force to repay all bonuses to help fray the cost of now re-educating every student in Atlanta. Lastly, those teachers that participated will now manage the local McDonalds, Wendys or Family Dollar because you will lose or be put on probation from the PSC.
carlosgvv
July 8th, 2011
1:36 pm
Starting in the 60’s, social programs were put in place to bring the performance level of black school children up to the white level. In the ensuing 50 years, every kind of social experiment imaginable has been tried to achieve this level. Nothing worked. So, certain Atlanta educators did the only thing left to do. They cheated. Now that this has been exposed, we’ll go back to former forgotten social experiments and start over. The inherent reason for this performance disparity will never be openly acknowledged because of political correctness.
Will Jones - Atlanta Jeffersonian Exegesis
July 8th, 2011
1:47 pm
Blacks know the “White” false elite is evil and hypocritical. Let’s establish Righteousness by sticking to the Truth, pursuing Justice all round, hanging Bush and Cheney and giving Black kids something toward which to aspire: a place in the Œconomy of G-d’s Promised Land where hypocrisy and racism is gone and Truth and Justice reign under G-d alone…the American Dream for all Americans.
If not in Atlanta, Dr. King’s hometown, where?
nodawg
July 8th, 2011
2:11 pm
If Beverly Hall received any bonus, raise or cash awards for superintendent of the year, the State should sue to get them back.
Will Jones - Atlanta Jeffersonian Exegesis
July 8th, 2011
2:39 pm
Exact measures against Beverly Hall but let Bush and Cheney off scot-free? Doesn’t sound like Equal Justice Under the Law to this American, by G-d.
Will Jones - Atlanta Jeffersonian Exegesis
July 8th, 2011
2:55 pm
The premise of this column is “integrity,” after all.
Who has it, who gives it lip service?
What part of clueless don't U git?
July 8th, 2011
3:45 pm
Asking the questions that lead to truth required guts.
The collapse of integrity at Atlanta Public Schools
Dunce cap making for dummies.
July 8th, 2011
3:46 pm
The dunce cap is the cornerstone of a nutritious education. Bring back the dunce cap.
Dunce cap making for dummies.
July 8th, 2011
3:48 pm
I think castor oil, the dunce cap, and an oversized ruler is the way to a more educated Georgia.
Glenn
July 8th, 2011
4:39 pm
@ BADA my BADA:
iyour proposed bumperstickers are great! I just might go to Underground this weekend and get them made for myself, so should you spot them on the back of an ancient Caddie don’t come after me for failing to pay you licensing fees. this whole drill-and-kill dad really was just a bumpersticker to begin with. We now have recourse to far more sophisticated, continuous and even educative, forms of student assessment–as you must know. The evaluation of a school’s health, however, still is better done the old-fashioned way, by experienced evaluators observing on the ground and making subjective as well as empirical evaluations. No shortcuts!
@ B.:
The mandatory ethics training is itself somewhat unfair and disingenuous, I agree. For decades now, this kind of prescription itself has served has served as a ready panacea in all the professional fields. By the early ’80s Ethics, as a philosophical study, was moribund in all the elite universities in the U.S. Then, though, came and interesting wave of developments: very prominent stories of criminal corruption in finance, politics, medicine, etc. Adding to that wave’s momentum was an increasingly felt lack of Bioethics instruction for, e.g., those in the biopharma and biomedical fields. Consequently, in only a few years, Ethics became a groth industry.
Judges kept sentencing the functionaries of errant organizations to mandatory ethics training relevant to the organizations’ respective sectors, and quite suddenly every fancy professional school in the country felt it needed a house ethicist to teach business ethics or medical ethics or whatever. This trend created problems for (esp. the) postgraduate schools of education, because the mindset of the legal authorities pressuring educators to board thiat bandwagon–basically, judges and politicians, abetted by the Press–is somewhat distinct from an educator’s motives and notional constructs.
First, there is no such thing as ethics “training”. Pigeons are trained, yet pigeons, like lawyers, have no discernable ethics. Humans cannot be trained in ethics anymore than an attorney can be, but they can be instructed, enlightened, EDUCATED in that direction.
Second, Education itself is a moral enterprise, for both teacher and the student; therefore the notion of educational ethics is, at worst, meaningless and at best a euphemism for vying political approaches to teaching.
Finally, you can be sure that the syllabus that State authorities plan to impose upon school personnel will have little or nothing to do with actual Ethics. The higher officials are abusing that term. Ethics is simply the attempt to distinguish in practice the moral Right from the moral Wrong. While, in a way, it might be charming to see Atlanta’s educators subbordinated to compulsory education by force of Law, such that they might taste the sting of their own lash, in practice they will be taught, not Right from Wrong, but merely what is legal vs. what is criminal. that course of study is almost the antonym of Ethics. (Or of Education, for that matter.)
Glenn
July 8th, 2011
4:59 pm
Oh. And I’m not comfortable with punishing teachers for undermining the testing regime. The culpable administrators, as the more immediate state actors, should feel the brunt of opprobrium and sanction for the State’s unthinking policies. The classroom teachers themselves were all but patsies. What they did was wrong, of course, but the playing-out of ill-considered state legislation eventually set them up for a fall. teachers who work for years on the front lines, however jaded they may have become about workplace politics, however gamey about optimizing the civil service system, almost always will awaken as from a nightmare when they here some authentic call to return to their original motives to educate children. That’s not a fond whim. That’s something I’ve found for years in good and bad schools all over this country.
Glenn
July 8th, 2011
5:06 pm
“Who has it, who gives it lip service?”. That is succinct beyond my powers.
Rafe Hollister
July 8th, 2011
6:24 pm
It is not race nor cultural, it is one party rule. No city, state, or federal government can long exist corruption free, unless there are checks and balances from the other party. Atlanta is much like Daley’s Chicago, everyone scratching each others back and favoring the political donors.
Producer
July 8th, 2011
6:53 pm
Fire all of their lying, cheating, corrupt a$$es! Every one of them. All 180. Union be damned! I don’t know what made us think the supposed academic progress was legit in the first place. I mean, Atlanta surely qualifies as a Georgia school, a distinction that automatically puts them in 48th or 49th place as far as student smarts anyway! These kids can barely walk and chew gum at the same time!
Michael H. Smith
July 8th, 2011
6:56 pm
Nothing will clean-up the corruption that exists in the government education monopoly of public schools like school vouchers: “Let the money follow the student.”
Georgia needs a School Choice Amendment to the State Constitution on the ballot for 2012.
Glenn
July 8th, 2011
7:05 pm
practically we can’t fire them. any more than we could afford to fire nurses wholesale. They’re all but impossible to replace without seriously expensive downgrading, and anyway, as I’ve tried to express, were we to jumpstart their commitment to teaching we’d have the benefit of veterans. that advantage shouldn’t be sold short.
Glenn
July 8th, 2011
7:14 pm
It’s a pickle, admittedly. I would offer the red-meat administrators to the public as scapegoats and try to retain and enoble as many of the teachers as possible. (This Rx gets sexist and racist in a hurry, I know). But that’s the Pragmatist, not the Idealist, talking. The Chamber and its electeds have got to eat some crow on this too, as it was they who incubated the crow.
Producer
July 8th, 2011
7:15 pm
I understand, Glenn, but there are literally thousands of teachers out of work across the country. I think these folks might be replaced by hungry, more idealistsic replacements more easily than you and I think.
Producer
July 8th, 2011
7:17 pm
And seeing as these students are scraping the bottom of the academic barrel anyway, how much worse could a new crop of teachers do? Seriously…
Glenn
July 8th, 2011
7:30 pm
Rafe, there are no checks here. this is “Chinatown”. the Paper never will win Pullitzers for this because this mess cannot have a happy ending for children, partly onnacounta the AJC is and always has been part of the Complex in Atlanta. this is all a shadowy puppet show, and I feel sorry for the young, front-page reporters who presume otherwise. The Paper has done some noble work on this, but still functions as not much more than Damage Control for the imposing political forces that made these unutterably simplistic mistakes as though a one of them knew squat about pupil assessment or school quality.
J.B. Stoner-(the white one)
July 8th, 2011
7:37 pm
Glenn doesn’t have the FIRST clue. I tried to tell you YEARS ago when school systems were turning from white to black to back OFF busing. What did yiu do? You let the black brotherhood take control of administrating the school systems. (Case in point, Dekalb Co.) Then what happened? Money had to be controlled….
My point is CONTROL when talking about MONEY and BLACK control DO NOT MIX.
Glenn
July 8th, 2011
8:05 pm
@Producer,
Fair enough. It’s not the instructors who fail the pupils, however; what fails us is the increasingly politicized and therefore forbiddingly complex yet ignorantly political takeover of the schools. Bad teachers should be shunned from polite society, yes, but trust me they are few. The remaining miscreants ought better to be counseled in private by the heroic holdouts and reminded of the nobility of their collective mission apart from governmental imperatives and union packages. trust me, this approach would work in stopgap.
Longrun, Georgia should quit adopting edu-fads from other states and summon its own unique genius in resolution of its lasting difficulties in schooling its own. I’ve found that this state, even from colonial days, produces its own inventiveness, perpetuates its own particular wisdom. it would be nice to believe that the happy graduates of Georgia’s schools are distinctive products of Georgia, and heirs to this state’s special patrimony. Toward that end I’d like to see the State’s great Land Grant university develop its own battery of portfolio entrance exams, which in turn and inevitably would shape the state schools in higher ed and, thereby, ultimately define the operations of all the feeder schools, secondary and therefore presecondary. Georgia is too great a state to buy its student exams or its silly “standards” off the shelf. So I look to UGA. It possesses the werewithal. so does GA Tech do, for that matter.
the new Governor is a relatively good guy, but he’s looking too often to the wrong people, best I can tell.
Glenn
July 8th, 2011
8:17 pm
@ Stoner,
It’s true that I was for busing. Dig your irony, though. How crazy that whole scene was then! even pseudo-redistricting, and the “freedom school” rebellion and everything. Black and White tried everything to prevent children from learning together as child learners. Thank you for reminding me that there so recently was a time when Politics all but shut down the day-to-day operations of simple instruction.
Glenn
July 9th, 2011
4:59 am
@ Producer:
Your macro-think is a balm. All along here I’ve tried to follow Mr. Wooten’s suit in not indicting the unions, because at some point that ostensibly fruitful line of argument ends in a cul-de-sac. If you’d please keep your somewhat astonishing mind on the ball, then sure I get how cool it is that we here can speak frankly about race politics and the who’s-who that screws up a great city and a great state, BUT please, let’s look toward accelerating the next Georgia according to the lights of young persons now in schools secondary and postsecondary. We won’t have long to wait. They deserve the honest evidence of what we’ve done, otherwise they can’t judge and correct. it’s bad enough that a huge cohort of schoolteachers should be found guilty of cheating on a universal test that was itself, by definition, a political cheat, but obviously none of us wants children of any color reared in a culture of cheating. If I take anything from this Governor, probably it amounts to a general sentiment that “It’s over. Let’s go!”
Glenn
July 9th, 2011
5:12 am
Sorry to belabor, but I just recalled, apposite of Producer’s fearful observation, that Al Shanker, of all forgotten people, once told me and a boardroomful of people that “we could fire two-thirds of teachers and double the salaries of the remaining third” and be better off. Obviously he was espousing radical restructuring, as already he had in mind a de-professionalization of teaching combined with a (Carnegie-underwritten) hyper-professionalization of the old practice.
Glenn
July 9th, 2011
7:01 am
5. Funny but not really funny.
Sophie
July 9th, 2011
7:10 am
Since this mess is going to cost all of us some how. I would not be surprised if Kasmin and his Common Council are already trying to use this APS mess to add a another charge to the SEWER BILL . APS CLEAN UP FUND .
h
July 9th, 2011
8:58 am
Ironic that Glenn was for busing. What simple minded so and so would want busing. He jumps in and out of bed with stupidity daily.
Still believe he needs to pull off the mask, you know “Dr. Stan/ YKW-TBO/Our Lord and Savior ” and quit the crap.
himey
July 9th, 2011
8:59 am
Yes, the ‘h’ is me.
Nope
July 9th, 2011
9:04 am
“Is our children learning.” GW
Yep
July 9th, 2011
9:28 am
” Are our children learning”. G.Bush. ……….. you dope.
Will Jones - Atlanta Jeffersonian Exegesis
July 9th, 2011
9:39 am
Black kids all know Bush and Cheney did 9/11. Their teachers know they know. Denied truth leads to all sorts of cancer, institutionally and personally. This cheating scandal’s being one example should lead Atlanta to lead America toward Truth and Justice…toward G-d, the Creator upon Whom all our “Annuit Coeptis” blessings rely.
Nope
July 9th, 2011
9:52 am
“Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning” qouting George Bush 43rd President of the USA
Yep, I concur. GW is a dope.
Will Jones - Atlanta Jeffersonian Exegesis
July 9th, 2011
11:35 am
GWBush is a homosexual draft-dodger cheated, by only the SCOTUS’ Roman Catholics, into the White House to commit 9/11 treason on behalf of the Roman Anti-Christ and PNAC Netanyahu’s false Jews who helped him. It is no coincidence that his father “can’t recall” his whereabouts upon hearing of JFK’s assassination, nor that his grandfather was the money conduit from Vatican banker Rockefeller’s Roman Catholic collection plate funds to the author of “I Paid Hitler.” That is why papal baron and Prescott Bush’s fellow Knight of Malta, Fritz Thyssen, was called “The Rockefeller of Germany:” he was an extension of the Rockefeller of America, who, leading the CFR and the cabal which runs the illegal Federal Reserve President Kennedy ended, is the Roman Anti-Christ’s Fifth Column’s head in Our Country and in much of the world.
Death for Treason
P.S. Black kids in Atlanta know all the above, too. White, Black, Jew, and Gentile received America in covenant with G-d. There is only One G-d, where Truth and Justice rule.
Dabir Dalton
July 9th, 2011
12:46 pm
The collapse of integrity at Atlanta Public Schools just barely scratches the surface of the complete lack of journalistic integrity so amply demonstrated by wooten and his fellow conservatives pundits on a regular basis.
lugnut
July 9th, 2011
3:59 pm
I do hope the perp walks pf the perpetrators is in bright sunshine with lots of news cameras all around. Ms. Dr. Hall, the fashion maven, will perhaps look a bit on the dowdy side in the standard issue orange jumpsuit. Note to Ms. Dr. Hall, ask for one that’s new. The old one’s have these funky stains that even oxy-clean can’t remove.
Chris
July 9th, 2011
5:25 pm
Accountability must be part of the culture in our public institutions. What isn’t being discussed are the parents whose children were impacted by this scandal. Not only did many children not pass these tests but are that much further behind their peers. Where were the parents?
Parents must be actively involved in their children’s education. There simply is no way around it yet today it seems parents are all to eager to abdicate responsibility for their children’s education. It is difficult to believe such widespread cheating was taking place and many parents were blissfully unaware. Hogwash! The teachers and administrators should be held responsible for their conduct but the parents who knew and did nothing should be ashamed of themselves. They turned a blind eye not only to cheating but also to the abuse of their own children.
Jess
July 9th, 2011
5:45 pm
I see Ms. Hall has finally apologized to the children in Atlanta for any harm this may have done to them. Apparently she has no idea of the true damage she has done to this city. Businesses who were considering Atlanta will surely drop their consideration. Businesses currently in Atlanta who see a way out will surely pull up stakes. There is no telling the economic harm she hs done.
I would say she has caused Atlanta more harm than anyone since Sherman.
FROMAWAY64
July 9th, 2011
6:58 pm
Fruits of diversity………….what would you expect of a people that for lack of contact with other races would still be squatting in the dirt (oh yeah, they are still doing that despite everything)………..and we give these people positions of responsibly with the help of affirmative action and dumbing down of standards. Oh well, isn’t diversity great?????
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!