Atlanta Public Schools Cheating Analysis

The line that separates what doing the right thing as opposed to doing the wrong thing is often very thin. This line holds a grey area that prevents many things from being deemed as either right or wrong. For example, a lot of times somebody does the wrong thing, but for reasons that are not explicitly wrong. The Atlanta Public Schools cheating scandal demonstrates this example well. The Atlanta Public Schools cheating scandal refers to the 44 Atlanta schools that were found to have cheated on standardized tests a few years back. Educators manipulated the tests to make the students score higher and were eventually caught. The grey area regarding this situation does not include the cheating, but the underlying issues that led to the cheating.
The court’s decision in the Atlanta cheating scandal trial rightfully reprimanded those accused of cheating, but failed to address problems such as how the scandal was a result of overbearing pressure for educators to reach certain goals by means of how well their students scored on government issued tests. In a case such as the Atlanta cheating scandal, cheating does not happen for no reason. Multiple issues arise and pull together in a way that leads to cheating. A substantial issue for Atlanta Public Schools was that the students there were not retaining important information that was being taught by teachers. Not retaining this information made for incredibly underprepared students when it came time for standardized tests. Standardized tests can make or break a school depending on score levels. Certain goals must be met when these tests are taken to prove that students are advancing in their education. When these goals are not met, jobs and funding can be lost. This puts a tremendous amount of pressure on teachers that need to keep their jobs and schools that want to remain open. Enough pressure to make somebody believe that cheating is a logical solution. Origins of the cheating are said to have begun around the time of the indictment of the Atlanta Public Schools former superintendent Beverly Hall.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution refers to Beverly Hall on their website observing: “Beverly Hall came to Atlanta Public Schools in 1999 with the reputation as an urban school reformer bringing tough school standards and voicing a mantra of “no excuses” for failure.” The pressure that educators at Atlanta Public Schools felt, not only by the government but also by higher administrators such as Beverly Hall, was certainly enough to result in cheating. According to Georgia Public Policy Foundation (2015), investigators found more than 178 educators, including 38 principals, to have cheated on the standardized Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests (CRCT) that were given in Georgia at the time. This cheating determinedly spread across 44 different Atlanta schools out of the 56 that were examined, making it one of the largest cheating scandals in public school history. The vastness of the Atlanta Public Schools cheating scandal raises the inquiry of how it was accomplished. While some educators simply erased incorrect answers on student’s tests and replaced them with the correct ones, some educators went as far as sneaking tests out before they were given to the children and copying the answers or making cheat sheets for their students. Rachel Aviv of The New Yorker wrote a piece that featured the story of a math teacher, named Damany
Lewis, who taught in an Atlanta public school and who used the method of sneaking tests out beforehand:
The tests were wrapped in cellophane and stacked in cardboard boxes. Lewis, a slim twenty-nine-year-old with dreadlocks, contemplated opening the test with scissors, but he thought his cut marks would be too obvious. Instead, he left the school, walked to the corner store, and bought a razor blade. When he returned, he slit open the cellophane and gently pulled a test book from its wrapping. Then he used a lighter to warm the razor, which he wedged under the adhesive sealing the booklet, and peeled back the tab. (2014)
Rachel Aviv goes on to describe how the teacher then photocopied the different sections in the booklets and distributed them to other teachers to do as they wished with them. Even though they had the advantage of knowing what was on the tests and giving their students this information, some students still did not score high enough. This was when the process of changing incorrect answers to the correct ones came into play. When the test scores were returned, the schools were elated with the results.
Students felt an immense pride in themselves, having not known what their authority figures had done, and educators felt a sense of relief that their jobs were now safe. This jubilant state did not last for long, as things began to unravel with the publishing of an Atlanta Journal-Constitution story in 2008. The story illustrated a substantial increase in scores on the CRCTs in an Atlanta school and also doubted the likelihood of such an increase. This story is what sparked the first state investigation of some Atlanta Public Schools. In 2009, the investigation reported having found cheating at 12 Atlanta schools. However, another Atlanta Journal-Constitution story was released and it suggested that investigators had not looked at all of the schools that they were supposed to. This prompted former Governor of Georgia, Sonny Perdue, to order a special investigation by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation in which they find evidence of cheating at 44 Atlanta
schools.
Although 178 educators were said to have taken part in the cheating, only 35 were actually indicted, including Beverly Hall. Among the 35 educators, 21 of them chose to plead guilty. The remaining 14 educators were meant to go to trial, but only 12 actually made it to the end. One educator passed away before trial and Beverly Hall announced she was ill with breast cancer and was excused for most of the trial until she passed away before closing arguments. In the end, 11 of the 12 educators received guilty verdicts and 1 walked away with no convictions. The Atlanta Public Schools cheating scandal robbed hundreds of children of the proper education that they all deserve and there is no excuse for what was done. The better part of the whole situation is that those who aided in the cheating were reprimanded and some justice was given to the children who were affected. However, the grey area, the reasoning as to why these educators did what they did, holds an underlying problem that the American government has yet to address. This problem lies with the pressure that is put on educators and school districts to assure that their students achieve a certain score level on standardized tests. A child’s intelligence should not be measured on how well they can can sit in a room for three hours and bubble in answers. If the government wants to enhance American education, they should start by finding better ways to make sure students are advancing and offer incentives to those who are not rather than threatening to take away from the people who are attempting to help them succeed.