Atlanta schools cheating probe faces scrutiny

By Alan Judd and Heather Vogell


The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The head of Atlanta Public Schools promised an impartial inquiry into reports of cheating on state achievement tests. Recusing herself, Superintendent Beverly Hall declared the investigation would be conducted by “a respected outside organization.”

Five months later, the investigation remains incomplete, and questions have emerged that challenge its independence.

The “blue-ribbon” commission appointed to oversee the investigation is populated with business executives and others who have done business with the school district or who have other civic or social ties to the district or to Hall.

One of the firms chosen to run the inquiry also is a school district vendor, having collected $1.7 million for other work performed as recently as 2008.

And, raising perhaps the most serious doubts, the district has been far more involved in investigating itself than originally suggested. Administrators from the district’s central office took part in questioning lower-level educators at all but a dozen of the 58 Atlanta schools under scrutiny. High-ranking district officials — described by a spokeswoman as “director-level” employees — took charge of conducting interviews at two dozen of the schools.

The district’s role in the investigation represents “a major conflict of interest,” said Barbara Payne, executive director of the Fulton County Taxpayers Foundation. “APS should not be involved in any of these reviews. APS should not be involved at all.”

The familiarity between the investigators and their targets could color public perception when the Atlanta Board of Education receives the report on the inquiry, perhaps later this month. Twice already, Atlanta has missed deadlines to complete the investigation.

State education officials demanded last week that the district finish by Aug. 2. A district spokesman responded that the work was in the hands of a third party.

The board authorized the investigation after state officials ordered examinations of 191 schools across Georgia — including more than two-thirds of Atlanta’s elementary and middle schools — because unusual numbers of erasures were detected on the 2009 Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests. The state review followed a year of articles in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that reported statistically improbable gains in test scores at some schools.

‘Top heavy’ with backers

When the school board approved what it called “a transparent and independent investigation,” it hardly cast a wide net in selecting 15 panelists to oversee the inquiry.

It chose from names submitted by the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, which has vetted candidates for the school board; by the Atlanta Education Fund, a nonprofit group that promotes the district and is paying for the investigation; and by members of the school board itself.

This approach resulted in the appointment of a group that is closely aligned with the school district — including six panelists whose firms have been district vendors.

The group’s chairman, Gary Price, is a partner in the Atlanta office of the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, which collected almost $1.5 million from the school district from 2002 to 2006, records show. The firm’s work has included creating a pay scale and performance review system for district employees. It also analyzed the salaries of Hall and other top district officials.

Another panelist, John Rice, is vice chairman of the General Electric Co.; its finance subsidiary, GE Capital, collected $1.9 million in computer lease payments from the school district between 2002 and 2005. Rice, who lives in Atlanta, is among the district’s strongest supporters. He has helped the district obtain $22 million in grants from his company’s philanthropic arm, the GE Foundation. He also is chairman of the Atlanta Education Fund.

Among the other panel members affiliated with district vendors: Jack Capers, whose Atlanta-based law firm, King & Spalding, collected $443,817 from the district, and Beverly Tatum, president of Spelman College, which the district has paid $782,089.

The largest payment to King & Spalding, $265,159, covered work on a personnel matter, a district spokeswoman said. The district paid Spelman to operate summer programs and for “professional development” related to math and science instruction and the CRCT.

Many of the commission members have been public supporters of the school district in general and Hall in particular.

Price, for instance, has praised Hall as a reformer whose efforts are good for business. Rice said this winter that General Electric remains “100 percent committed” to Hall, despite the cheating allegations.

Seven members of the blue-ribbon panel also are members of the Atlanta Education Fund; Hall sits on the organization’s board. All but five panel members have served on chamber of commerce committees, most aimed at boosting local schools. Four panel members sat on the 2009 board of Edu-PAC, a chamber-created political group that presents slates of candidates for the Atlanta school board. The chamber and Edu-PAC have been strong advocates of Hall’s administration.

Several panel members have served on other nonprofit boards with Hall, and others have been photographed at social events with the superintendent, such as a gala benefit for the National Black Arts Festival. One panelist, LaChandra Butler Burks, chairs the school board.

The panel is “top heavy” with Hall supporters, said Payne of the Fulton taxpayers group.

“How in the heck can you get a realistic, objective report when the entire blue-ribbon commission, basically, has worked with these people before?” she said. “You need a fresh set of eyes.”

To critics, KPMG, the auditing firm hired to conduct the investigation, also is ill-equipped to offer an unbiased perspective. The school district paid KPMG $1.7 million between 2002 and 2008, records show. Most recently, the firm audited the performance of the district’s public broadcasting operations.

Charles Riepenhoff of KPMG, who is leading the Atlanta investigation, declined to comment. “It’s the commission’s investigation,” he said, “and that’s where you should be directing your questions.”

Rice and Tatum could not be reached for comment. Capers referred questions to Price.

Other panel members, including Burks, did so as well, or did not return phone messages. Price did not respond to a request for an interview. However, in a statement e-mailed by a public relations firm, Price said the panel has “pursued our work in an independent manner, enlisted the guidance of some of the nation’s top independent experts, and allowed the facts to guide us.”

In June, the task force abruptly canceled plans to release its report, saying it needed more time. Last week, Price said only that the group is “intensely focused” on finishing the inquiry.

Fear of retaliation?

Although the blue-ribbon panel said an outside firm would investigate the cheating allegations, high-level staff from the school district’s central office participated in interviews of potential witnesses from all but a dozen of the 58 Atlanta schools flagged in the inquiry.

Working alone, investigators for KPMG and a second firm, Caveon, interviewed educators, students and parents from the 12 schools where data analysis showed the highest level of suspicious erasures or score increases in the 2009 CRCT.

But the district and KPMG workers conducted interviews together at another 22 schools where concerns about cheating were considered moderate. A district spokeswoman described the school employees involved as “note takers.”

Further, the district handled all interviews at the final 24 schools, according to a presentation last month to the blue-ribbon commission.

KPMG requested help with the investigation, said Su Yeager, a district spokeswoman.

“KPMG conducted the training and provided the questions,” Yeager wrote in an e-mail. “The answers to the questions were given to KPMG for their review.”

But the mere presence of central office administrators in such delicate interviews could have an intimidating effect. Atlanta teachers have said repeatedly that they are reluctant to report wrongdoing because they fear retaliation. In the past, Atlanta was more likely than other metro districts to receive internal complaints of cheating through anonymous tips. Such reports can be more difficult to investigate than those with an identified complainant.

Atlanta’s ability to police its own employees has come into question before.

Gov. Sonny Perdue accused Hall last summer of ignoring evidence of test tampering at one school. And in August, the AJC reported that district investigators sometimes left cheating allegations unresolved and were more likely to mark complaints unsubstantiated than those in other metro districts.

Most of the earlier inquiries were completed by Atlanta’s internal investigations office or outside attorneys. This year, however, the district used higher-level officials — department heads or other administrators from the central office, Yeager said.

In all, outside and internal investigators conducted 260 interviews as of early June. They spoke with principals, teachers, testing coordinators and examiners, and “executive directors” who oversee clusters of schools. They also questioned Hall and reviewed her e-mail, along with that of other staff involved in testing.

Last to report

Atlanta is the last of the 35 districts suspected of cheating to report its findings to the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement, the state agency that flagged the 191 schools. Allowing districts to oversee the investigations has drawn criticism from a national expert in testing and test tampering, Gregory Cizek of the University of North Carolina, who suggested school officials had no incentive to conduct rigorous probes. But state education officials said they didn’t have the resources to fully investigate all 191 schools.

The student achievement office told each district to determine who handled test papers, from their distribution to their collection; to identify irregularities in following protocols; and to explain why erasures at flagged schools varied so much from others. Districts also had to detail corrective actions they would take.

The office has marked about half the districts’ initial submissions incomplete and requested more information, said Kathleen Mathers, the agency’s executive director. In all cases, the state is comparing districts’ findings with classroom-by-classroom data to make sure officials properly scrutinized the most suspicious test results.

“What we are absolutely not doing is taking every report and saying, ‘Check it off, you’re done,’” Mathers said.

State officials have no problem with Atlanta’s involvement in its investigation — as long as the inquiry is substantial, Mathers said.

“We haven’t seen anything yet on Atlanta Public Schools’ investigation, so we don’t know how thorough and rigorous it has been,” she said. “I would emphasize we would expect to see 58 schools thoroughly investigated — not 12.”

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How we got the story

Reporters used numerous sources to establish connections between the Atlanta Public Schools and members of a commission investigating alleged cheating on state-mandated achievement tests.

Published material detailed the work of several panel members on committees devoted to supporting the school district, as well as social links to Superintendent Beverly Hall or other top school officials. Reports by charitable organizations showed that at least two panelists serve with Hall on the boards of nonprofit groups.

A list of school vendors, provided by the district, showed which panel members had done business with the district.

Details of the investigation were outlined in a presentation to the commission.