# ATL Public School System Cheating - Admin and Teachers

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atl-public-school-system-cheating-admin-and-teachers/588539>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [July 10, 2011, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atl-public-school-system-cheating-admin-and-teachers/588539 "2011-07-10T20:27:26Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Bloodless\_Turnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@Bloodless\_Turnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bloodless_Turnip)\
**Post date:** [July 10, 2011, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atl-public-school-system-cheating-admin-and-teachers/588539/1 "2011-07-10T20:27:26Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> Across Atlanta Public Schools, staff worked feverishly in secret to transform testing failures into successes.
> 
> Teachers and principals erased and corrected mistakes on students’ answer sheets.
> 
> Area superintendents silenced whistle-blowers and rewarded subordinates who met academic goals by any means possible.
> 
> Superintendent Beverly Hall and her top aides ignored, buried, destroyed or altered complaints about misconduct, claimed ignorance of wrongdoing and accused naysayers of failing to believe in poor children’s ability to learn.
> 
> For years — as long as a decade — this was how the Atlanta school district produced gains on state curriculum tests. The scores soared so dramatically they brought national acclaim to Hall and the district, according to an investigative report released Tuesday by Gov. Nathan Deal.
> 
> In the report, the governor’s special investigators describe an enterprise where unethical — and potentially illegal — behavior pierced every level of the bureaucracy, allowing district staff to reap praise and sometimes bonuses by misleading the children, parents and community they served.
> 
> The report accuses top district officials of wrongdoing that could lead to criminal charges in some cases.

[Full article](http://www.ajc.com/news/investigation-into-aps-cheating-1001375.html)

IMHO this should lead to a whole lot of criminal charges. How will those kids recoup the time lost? Time they could have been getting help in whatever subject they needed it in, but they didn’t because they were told they were doing fine.

This is disgusting, for many reasons.

I’m speechless.

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**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\
**Post date:** [July 10, 2011, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atl-public-school-system-cheating-admin-and-teachers/588539/2 "2011-07-10T21:19:17Z")

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Welcome to the Culture of Assessment. Merely doing your job is no longer enough. Now you must find some objective way of measuring student progress (but not grades! Too subjective). Your funding is dependent on not only doing well, but showing improvement.

I despise the dishonesty and I feel for the students, but I can’t say I’m shocked. It’s the same culture that produced Enron, etc.; cooking the books for financial gain is apparently morally acceptable to a small but powerful minority, who can influence the culture at their place of work, be it financial brokerage or school system. With all the school systems in the country that have these high-stakes tests with financial strings attached, I’d be really surprised if this were the only example.

If it’s not a tiny minority, please don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.

PS: My own experience with assessment at the college level is neutral to positive, so it’s not the assessment itself I have a problem with. It’s the strings attached and people who let fear and /or greed lead them into doing harm to others.