Investigators uncover cheating in Dougherty; 49 implicated

By Nancy Badertscher

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

As many of 49 educators have been implicated in a test cheating scandal in Dougherty County, The Albany Herald is reporting.

Former Attorney General Mike Bowers, former DeKalb County District Attorney Bob Wilson and special investigator Richard Hyde investigated cheating on the 2009 Criterion-Referenced Competency Test in Atlanta and Dougherty County.

Both investigations were triggered by an erasure analysis conducted by the Governor's Office of Student Achievement. That analysis showed a statistically improbable number of erasures and wrong-to-right answers on the 2009 CRCT.

In July, the investigators issued a stinging report about widespread test cheating in Atlanta Public Schools over several years.

Investigators spent the last few months interviewing hundreds of people in Dougherty County, in Southwest Georgia. That school system was second only to APS in schools flagged for potential cheating as a result of the erasure analysis.

Before former Gov. Sonny Perdue ordered an investigation into potential cheating in Dougherty, the local school board hired former Fulton County School Superintendent James Wilson to look at the erasure analysis. Officials said he found no evidence of cheating.

Local school officials in Dougherty are expected to be briefed on the investigators' findings, possibly as early as Tuesday, prior to their public release.