Sham leads to shame #2

The Atlanta Public School (teachers) cheating scandal is getting national attention.   The New York Times began the story on its front page and devoted nearly a full page as it continued inside.

More details show what a strong case against Beverly Hall there is, despite her lawyer's claim that "Not a single person has testified that she ordered them to cheat."

Well, duh !   Only those who just fell off the turnip truck think you have to explicitly order people to do something wrong, when you have power and control over their fates and you order them to produce certain results.   Dr. Hall did not order them to cheat.   She merely gave her underlings an ultimatum:   you have three years to get these scores up.   Do whatever you have to do.   And then she backed this up with firings.   Nearly 90% of the school principals were fired or voluntarily left during Dr. Hall's ten year tenure.

It seems undisputed by anyone that she was ruthless in her demand for meeting goals and for punishing those who crossed her ambitions.   According to an AJC article, she always kept a copy on her desk of Sun Tzu's The Art of War, a classic of military strategy and tactics.  She apparently saw her job as a general waging war, and those who did not go along with her plan must be removed from the field.

Another example in the indictment:   One teacher filed a whistle-blower report on a colleague, whom she accused of changing test scores.   The alledged cheater got a 20 day suspension ordered by Dr. Hall;  but the whistle-blower was fired.

Another bit that's hard to explain away:   Both Dr. Hall and her aides always put on gloves before handling test score sheets.    Why were they so intent on not leaving finger-prints?

The most damning evidence will probably be from one of the original "insiders group," who participated in the changing students' test answers, and later decided to cooperate with the investigators and a wore a wire to allow them to tape conversations and meetings.

Whether Dr. Hall ordered her staff to cheat in so many words or not, she could not possibly have failed to know it was going on;  and she certainly created the climate of fear that abetted the crime.   There is evidence that she refused to do anything about the reports that were given to her of cheating.

In addition, Dr. Hall profited both financially and with fame from the sham success of her program.    Bonuses tied to "success" in raising scores brought her over $500,000 in the 10 years she was superintendent, in addition to her $300,000 salary.   She was named Superintendent of the Year by a national educators association;  and a reception honoring her was held in the White House hosted by Education Secretary Arne Duncan.   So we know what she got out of it.

But what did the children get?   Fake fame for their school, loss of a learning opportunity, a disillusion by teachers cheating.

And it was all based on teachers' lies and cheating, done at the behest of Dr. Hall.  For shame.

Ralph