Panel to be picked Tuesday; will oversee investigation into Atlanta test scores

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By Kristina Torres and Eric Stirgus

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A "blue ribbon" panel that will oversee investigators who will scrutinize more than two-thirds of the city's public elementary and middle schools for possible cheating on state tests will be picked Tuesday, Atlanta school board Chairwoman LaChandra Butler Burks said Monday.

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That panel will work with the Atlanta Education Fund as well as the Metro Atlanta Chamber on what the school board said should be a "a transparent and independent investigation." School board members will vote on a resolution to that effect next Monday, effectively formalizing requests by members and others to seek outside help in response to a recent state report questioning the schools' testing results.

That work, however, comes as Atlanta-area lawmakers warn they will watch the process closely. State Rep. Edward Lindsey (R-Atlanta) in an e-mail to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution said he thinks there should "be more independence from either the board, the school administration or the [fund]."

Lindsey was one of five lawmakers who sent the board a letter Monday expressing concern about how the investigation would be handled. The fund, which is a nonprofit organization that works closely with the system, "is not a completely independent body," the letter said. It implies that such a relationship between the system and the fund could influence the investigation.

Burks said that was not the case. "The board is asking the blue ribbon commission to do this," she said. "So it is really a board-led process." The panel, whose members will be chosen from recommendations by board members, the chamber and the fund, is expected to pick an outside investigator or organization to do the work, possibly by early next week. Costs will be paid for through the fund.

The state's report identified 191 schools statewide as needing scrutiny for unusual erasures on state tests in which a large number of wrong answers were changed to the right ones. Atlanta had the most schools flagged in any system with 58.