Atlanta Schools Killed Thousands of Egos

Atlanta Schools Killed Thousands of Egos

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation recently uncovered a systemic, systematic conspiracy by Atlanta teachers and administrators to misrepresent and falsely enhance the achievement of their students and usurp student rights to do their own cheating by changing answers on statewide tests and creating the illusion that both teachers and students were doing well.

The effort gained Atlanta’s Superintendent of Schools Beverly Hall wide national acclaim and accolades as an outstanding educational leader. After the cheating was revealed, she resigned in disgrace while still maintaining her innocence and ignorance of any wrongdoing.

Hall may have been ignorant but she is hardly innocent. Not unexpectedly, Hall pledged her “full cooperation” in the GBI investigation and provided none. (http://bit.ly/p6MPo5)

New details on the massive scandal involving 178 teachers and principals in 44 Atlanta public schools have now emerged.

Teachers not only altered student answers but deviously located slow students near better students during tests in order to facilitate cheating, thereby giving the teachers somewhat of a break from erasing all those incorrect answers. Cheating for their students also saved teachers from the onus of providing extra help for those struggling.

One of the accused teachers–82 have confessed–told investigators that Supt. Hall’s district was “run like the mob.” Another claimed, “Everybody was in fear. It is not that the teachers are bad people and want to do it. It is that they are scared.” Others ”complained to investigators that some students arrived at middle school reading at a first-grade level. But, they said, principals insisted those students had to pass their standardized tests. Teachers were either ordered to cheat or pressured by administrators until they felt they had no choice.” (http://huff.to/oTIjhh)

Not bad, my foot! . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=4997)

Teachers Who Cheat

Teachers Who Cheat

It’s bewildering why the powers-that-be are all in a dither over the revelation that teachers have been cheating on state achievement tests in Texas. Teachers have been cheating almost as much as kids from time immemorial.

The mandates of NCLB, President George W. Bush’s program of No Child Left Behind, have been roundly castigated but not seriously challenged by any state although the pressures of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 have been a burden for almost a decade on educators and students, as they should be, a burden in the sense of greater emphasis on actually educating children.

In some districts, because of NCLB, salary raises and sometimes tenure are predicated on teacher–and administrative–performance determined through student scores on standardized tests.

Apparently, some teachers–and administrators–have succumbed under the pressure. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1730)