State senator, taxpayers group demand Atlanta school superintendent's resignation

By Steve Visser

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A state senator joined forces with the Fulton County Taxpayers Foundation on Wednesday to denounce the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce and demand the Atlanta school superintendent and school board president resign.

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John Spink, jspink@ajc.com Left to right- Former Atlanta city councilman, Derrick Boazman, supporter, Abdullah Bilal, parent and president of S.N.A.P.P.S., (Southwest and Northwest Atlanta Parents and Partners for Schools) Shawnna Hayes-Tavares, parent, Jennifer Freeman, and Georgia Senator Vincent Fort address the media.

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Vino Wong, vwong@ajc.com Atlanta Public Schools Superintendent Beverly Hall discussed the district's cheating scandal on Tuesday.

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Metro chamber of commerce President Sam Williams.

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At a news conference held in front of the Metro Chamber of Commerce by Centennial Olympic Park, Sen. Vince Fort and FCTF Executive Director Barbara Payne said that a recent e-mail showed that the “Blue Ribbon” committee, appointed by the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce to investigate the CRCT erasure scandal, was a farce designed to protect Superintendent Beverly Hall and the image that she had created for the Atlanta Public Schools through test scores.

They also want Sam Williams, head of the Metro Chamber, to step down because of his meddling in the school scandal.

Fort produced a February e-mail from Williams that outlined discussions between Chamber officials, Hall and LaChandra Butler Burks, board president, and how the committee would be set up.

“The chamber of commerce should not have controlled this investigation,” Fort said. “Some people on the investigation had contracts with the Atlanta public school system … worth millions of dollars.”

Shawnna Hayes-Tavares, a parent and school activist who spoke at the conference, said that cheating by school officials to raise school test scores threatened the academic progress of children and cast a stigma on solid students who attended schools linked to the wrongdoing. Two of her four children attend those schools.

“My children ask me, ‘Are we cheaters,”’ she said. “It gives me chills. They have cheated children out of an education.”

She said she was specifically disappointed that Mayor Kasim Reed recently intervened to persuade the Atlanta school board not to replace its president, LaChandra Butler Burks.

She said Reed was being “puppeted” by the business community and asked that he use his leadership to ensure a proper and transparent investigation of the cheating scandal.