What happened to thousands of Atlanta’s cheated students?

Valencia Dennis, student support coach, talks to Paul Askew, 17, during their Target 2021 program session at Maynard Jackson High School on Wednesday, February 7, 2018. HYOSUB SHIN / HSHIN@AJC.COM

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN / AJC

Valencia Dennis, student support coach, talks to Paul Askew, 17, during their Target 2021 program session at Maynard Jackson High School on Wednesday, February 7, 2018. HYOSUB SHIN / HSHIN@AJC.COM

In the years after a cheating scandal erupted in Atlanta Public Schools, researchers tallied the number of students who had their test answers manipulated: An estimated 7,064.

Those students were robbed of an education, officials said, because they were sometimes passed from grade to grade without adequate preparation, and they lost out on possible help because the inflated test scores hid their academic struggles.

Now, nearly a decade after taking the 2009 standardized tests that teachers erased and corrected, about 1,500 likely victims remain enrolled in Atlanta schools and are receiving remediation help -- to mixed results.

Read more here about the APS effort to help students and the results of that $7.5 million program so far.