The Atlanta school cheating scandal
[See UPDATE below.]
When I first saw the headline “Investigation Finds ‘Widespread Cheating’ in Atlanta Schools” I almost didn’t click on it, so ho-hum and ordinary that fact seemed to be. Cheating has probably always existed in schools, usually of a rather petty and impulsive sort such as copying from a nearby student, although sometimes it’s more premeditated and widespread. And I have little doubt it’s increased in recent years.
But it turns out that this particular situation is different from the student cheating of time immemorial, because it’s the teachers and administrators who were doing the cheating, not the students. Now, that’s news, a “man bites dog” story, and a terrible one at that:
The report found that teachers, principals and administrators were both helping students on the state’s standardized test, the Criterion-Reference Competency Test, and correcting incorrect answers after students had turned the tests in. Eighty-two educators confessed to the allegations detailed in the report from the Georgia Bureau of Investigations.
Calling it a “dark day” for Atlanta Public Schools, Mayor Kasim Reed said the yearlong investigation “confirms our worst fears … There is no doubt that systemic cheating occurred on a widespread basis in the school system. Further, there is no question that a complete failure of leadership in the Atlanta Public School system hurt thousands of children who were promoted to the next grade without meeting basic academic standards.”
Not only that, but the Atlanta cheating scandal occurred under the watch of a superintendent who had been much-lauded and honored for her success at boosting academic achievement in that beleaguered school system. But the results were bogus:
The investigation tarnishes the record of Superintendent Beverly Hall, who was named national Superintendent of the Year in 2009, due in large part to reported gains in the district. The 800-page report shows some educators reported cheating in their schools, but Hall and other school officials ignored the claims, and in some cases, punished those who came forward. Hall stepped down at the end of her contract on June 30.
“National Superintendent of the Year”—it has a real ring to it, doesn’t it?
Hall is not alone, either. Earlier, a similar thing happened in Washington, DC. Both districts feature especially challenging populations, with high percentages of black students with families mired in poverty and disruption of many sorts.
This report of cheating is just another example of breakdown in our society, not that we needed another example. The dire economic and cultural wasteland in which the students find themselves is the culmination of many decades of problems, some of them the legacy of discrimination but in recent years many of them the legacy of the welfare state. What excuse do the teachers and administrators have?
Investigators appear to be blaming the cheating (at least in part) on high standards:
…[I]nvestigators cited the following as the key reasons that cheating flourished in Atlanta: “The district set unrealistic test-score goals, or “targets,” a culture of pressure and retaliation spread throughout the district, and Hall emphasized test results and public praise at the expense of ethics.”
A fish rots from the head, and I have no trouble believing that if it was widely known that Hall winked at such violations and encouraged results at the expense of all else, it would have encouraged the spread of cheating in order to boost the stats. But that couldn’t have happened unless many teachers were already morally compromised.
Should this be surprising? Probably not. Teachers are just a macrocosm of what’s happening in society, and it seems that the end justifies the means more and more these days. If these are the mentors and role models for students, it does not bode well for our future.
[UPDATE: Just a few minutes after writing this post, I discovered (hat tip: Althouse) a much more detailed article on the subject which is far more shocking than anything I’d read earlier. It makes it clear that the evidence supports a massive, systemic, and coordinated scam of long-standing duration under Hall’s supervision:
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.
The decision whether to prosecute lies with three district attorneys ”” in Fulton, DeKalb and Douglas counties ”” who will consider potential offenses in their jurisdictions.
For teachers, a culture of fear ensured the deception would continue.
“APS is run like the mob,” one teacher told investigators, saying she cheated because she feared retaliation if she didn’t.
This is not just a case of ethically-challenged teachers and an administration that created pressure for them to cheat, and winked at violations. This is a group of of deeply corrupt and even criminal thugs running a school system. If these allegations are true, prosecutions should follow.]
[NOTE: Ironically, it may have been the meeting of those high standards that was the cheaters’ downfall. Results were so good that people became suspicious:
Among the achievements [Hall] cited: a 33 percent increase in graduation rates and one in three elementary students exceeding state standards…
U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan praised Hall as recently as last month, noting that under her leadership Atlanta students made double-digit gains on national exams known as the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP.
But over the last two years, APS has faced a series of reports and investigations questioning improbable test score gains at some city schools…Questions about the tests were first raised in December 2008, when the AJC [Atlanta Journal Constitution] published an analysis that showed improbable gains at some Georgia schools ”” including some in Atlanta ”” on tests taken first in spring and then in summer by students struggling to master core skills.
Last fall, a second AJC analysis showed 12 Atlanta schools posted highly unlikely gains or drops on the spring 2009 Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests, the state’s main academic measure for students in grades one through eight.]
Neo, I’m really interested in hearing your take on the woman who hired herself a rapist to get over her PTSD. Anything forthcoming?
Leftist bureaucracy games results to meet quotas from Five Year Plan.
Where have I heard that before?
Ah yes, Beverly Hall, a credit to her profession.
Nothing wrong here. Just wealth of knowledge redistribution in search for social justice.
Tom: link?
We all know what this means: the Atlanta public school system needs more money. Isn’t that the solution every time a government program or institution fails? In addition to blaming the high standards, of course.
Just curious to get your take…
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/reporter-mac-mcclelland-stages-rape-cure-post-traumatic/story?id=13995013
This sort of thing is inevitable in a regime that demands all of its children are above average. There are a lot of jobs that depend on the assumption that all progress comes from an interventionist, compassionate government.
Tom: I skimmed it, and my quick take is as follows:
(1) the therapist sounds as though she may have been both incompetent and unethical.
(2) the journalist probably has some other trauma in her own background to have had such a strong reaction to the Haitian woman’s story.
(3) it says the journalist chose a man she knew, and with whom she had a prior history of rough sex. My guess is that she’d always been drawn to this sort of thing and the Haitian PTSD was some sort of excuse.
(4) her writing about it is fairly exhibitionistic.
(5) it sounds like a twisted and incorrect application of the therapeutic technique known as “flooding.”
As a former math teacher in a low income school, I can only say I am relived I am no longer doing it. I do not condone what was done in Atlanta, but I can understand why it was done.
I will leave tales from teaching for another day.
Freakanomics had a chapter on detecting bogus test scores.
neo, I skimmed it too, and my uninformed unprofessional take is
1) she’s a whackadoodle, and
2) see #1.
Liberals want to continue throwing more and more money at education while pretending the bell curve does not exist. If liberals understood that 50% are on the left side of the bell curve and can not be moved to the right side no matter what is done or what is spent perhaps these unrealistic standards imposed by government (federal & state) would be removed. That would remove a major incentive to cheat on test scores.
Parker, you’re right, but it’s worse than that. Liberals fail to accept that not only does the bell curve exist, but that it is desirable that it do so.
Society throws up a panoply of tasks, only some of which are amenable to the academically talented. For others, such people would be a disastrous choice, every bit as inappropriate as the converse situation. (For example, the academically talented are hopelessly ill-suited to be President. Fortunately, and perhaps not coincidentally, we haven’t had an academically gifted President since Wilson.)
A monarchy or other dictatorship can have a Marcus Aurelius, but a democracy needs a Reagan, someone who can connect with the electorate on a visceral level. That’s a skill not usually found among the academically talented.
Let’s be honest here. Public schools do not exist to educate students. They exist to provide jobs for union hacks, to indoctrinate kids to support the Democratic party, and as daycare providers for working parents. If the kids happen to learn something while there, it’s pretty much by chance.
I have two kids. I have no evidence either of them actually learns anything at school.
Trimegistus, speaking of indoctrination, look at this Red drivel. Our younger son was shown this rubbish as part of his science class, as if the agitprop contained therein had even a nodding acquaintance with science.
Fortunately, our son had been vaccinated against unthinking acceptance. As for the rest of the class … I prefer not to think about it.
My favorite part was the narrator’s description of how raw materials are taken to a factory where the toxins are introduced.
Oh. OK.
Same thing happened in the local inner city here is Sunny Pennsylvania. Students taking a similar test in one of the inner city elementary schools wound up with >96% in the highest category in math and writing.
The local rag sent a reporter to interview the budding geniuses. They told him it was easy: teachers were writing the correct answers on the classroom blackboards.
And the paper seemed surprised that such shenanigans could be found in these schools.
How naive…
Further thought…betcha they were union members. Teachers and administrators…
They’re stupid too…and how did they get their degrees (if any) and teaching license. Betcha they too cheated…
Charlie, you’re right – they were incredibly stupid not to anticipate that 96% scores might attract some attention and, frankly, skepticism.
With a little more cleverness, the teachers would have cheered up the scores a bit, but not to an improbable level. Say bump aggregate scores up from 50-60% country to low 70s, something good, but within the realm of possibility, and unlikely to draw detailed scrutiny.
This neglects the ethical aspect entirely, of course, but clearly ethics didn’t get a look-in here anyway. Neither did basic intelligence, either, by the looks of it.
we haven’t had an academically gifted President since Wilson.
What about Herbert Hoover?
If you can afford to send your kids to private school, do so, or if your family is capable, then home school.
1. Hall claims she knew nothing about the cheating.
A ploy of dishonest corporate CEOs is to set performance standards so high that they can only be met by cheating. The unspoken but fully understood message to subordinates is: cheat or be fired. If the cheating is uncovered, the CEO is shocked, shocked–but presumably not shocked enough to return his bonuses.
2. The dire economic and cultural wasteland in which the students find themselves is the culmination of many decades of problems, some of them the legacy of discrimination but in recent years many of them the legacy of the welfare state.
“Compassionate conservatism” added to that welfare state. Heckuva job, George.
OT: The welfare state is not responsible for all cheating. For example, it’s easy to find cases of plagiarism by Ivy League faculty and students.
3. OT: Is it cheating when you are covered by laws that are tailor-made for you? The superelites who did so much to bring the economy down have suffered little if at all.
4. Is it cheating when you are covered by laws that are tailor-made for you? Cf. affirmative action and attempts to impose race norming.
5. If a teacher cheats on behalf of students, it’s only a hop skip and jump to cheating to the detriment of disfavored students.
6. In a rational world, the cheating would reduce public confidence in public education and teachers’ unions. I’m not holding my breath.
PA Cat, yep, Hoover qualifies.
Let us not forget that Teddy Kennedy getting caught cheating:
http://www.americans-working-together.com/politics/id7.html
Occam’s July 6th, 2011 at 5:07 pm post…
All great leaders use common sense gained through real life experiences and a belief in first principles to make decisions. Reagan is indeed a prime example. He certainly made a few mistakes, but all in all he was a great president, the best in my lifetime (so far).
It may be too much to hope for that multiple criminal prosecutions will occur. That could conceivably extend to the level of Federal crimes, since fraudulent data were submitted to DC for Education $$$.
But more likely it will be another ‘Nothing to see here;just move along’, since E. Holder & Obama will have the final say, and members of the teachers’ unions are involved.
White-collar black-on-black crime? Sorry, couldn’t help it!
Don Carlos says, “That could conceivably extend to the level of Federal crimes, since fraudulent data were submitted to DC for Education $$$.”
Yep! A tremendous amount of the work by education administrators is an attempt to get more Fed $$$$. I saw this way back in the 70s when our kids were in school. The dollars since then have increased tremendously, the quality of education has not. The Dept. of Education, implemented by Jimmy Carter to improve education in the nation, has failed and should be eliminated.
When bright women were largely barred from medicine, law, and business they often became teachers. Schools benefited from having these talented people in the classroom. Now education majors are among the intellectually weakest among college students.
Widespread testing became necessary when teachers and administrators lost their integrity and began giving inflated grades. Fifty years ago students who could not read or do math got bad grades. Now teachers have learned that if you give everyone good grades your life is much simpler.
Wretchard (at PJM) also dealt with this topic (and cited Neo). He has a couple of videos, including one a with a black pastors group attributing this scandal to (take a guess) RACISM.
Occam’s,
Your link didn’t work for me, but I found this one:
http://www.youtube.com/storyofstuffproject#p/u/22/9GorqroigqM
It is truly a disgusting piece of simplistic idiocy. The woman is guilty of child abuse in my mind. She probably studied under Bill Ayers.
Expat, someone needs to do a rebutal video called the “story of no stuff”. And just show footage of empty Soviet grocery store shelves with cute little animations of Vodka toxins being introduced to a hopeless people.
Mr. Frank:
That could also be changed from “Now teachers..” to “Now principals..” – at least based on my year of teaching at the low income school.
Before the grades for the first marking period were due, the principal informed the teachers that it was important to give passing grades. Nudge them up, count all efforts, etc. I complied, though a fair amount of students deserved failing grades. I could understand to a degree handing out passing grades to students who were making the effort. However, perhaps 10-20% of my students were both misbehaving and not doing the work. But even those clowns were supposed to be passed.
The second half of the year I wised up and handed out more failing grades. I noticed that in a number of cases, but not all cases, handing out failing grades resulted in students buckling down. Like they say, if you can get the milk for free, why pay for it?
Several years later, the principal’s contract was not renewed. The principal is now a professor at an Ed School. Those who cannot administer, become Ed School professors.
If the teachers had lowered the smart kids grades instead of raising the bad students grades things would have been cool. Of course, that would mean no bonus or raise for the teachers. White- only schools of the past have now become “Private Schools”.