Hall’s PR magic can’t save APS now

By John S. Sherman

Atlanta has been in denial about the poor performance of its public school system for at least a decade.

A complacent business and government elite has stonewalled questions about test performances, graduation rates and bloated administrative expenses at the Atlanta Public Schools. EduPAC, the chamber-linked interest group, protected school board incumbents who toed the superintendent’s line. The Atlanta School Board awarded Superintendent Beverly Hall with generous bonuses.

The sad reality is finally emerging about true test results, thanks to an independent review by the state. This review appears to expose a pervasive culture of cheating within APS and, at a minimum, casts grave doubt about Hall’s fitness to remain on the job.

Will Atlanta’s taxpayers now wake up to reality and insist on wholesale changes at APS?

Evidence that all was not well at APS goes back to at least 2001 when the AJC reported that 30 of 68 Atlanta elementary schools had gains of 30 percent or more in one or more state Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests (CRCT).

At that time, one APS board member, Jean Dodd, a veteran teacher, expressed doubts. Neither Hall nor the school board investigated the data and fired those responsible. Instead, Hall attributed those unrealistic gains to impressive leaps on school reform and better class room strategies, according to the AJC. A 2004 scandal concerning misuse of federal funds for computer procurement was also swept under the rug.

When the state found suspicious scores at one APS school last year, Hall said there was “no evidence, no basis in fact” that cheating occurred. This drew a rebuke from Gov. Sonny Perdue.

On Feb. 10, the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement reported its review of spring 2009 CRCT answer sheets, which measured how often wrong answers were changed to right ones.

The worst instances occurred in Atlanta where the data suggested that cheating occurred in 37 of 55 elementary schools. Six Atlanta middle schools were found to have a “severe” level of test result tampering.

While finally committing to review what happened at the schools with the most severe test erasures, Hall continues to look for excuses, suggesting that somehow small class sizes make wholesale wrong-to-right erasures reasonable. The superintendent’s track record isn’t reassuring. According to the AJC, “in three years, just two teachers left after the District found cheating.”

The Fulton County Taxpayers Foundation hopes that Atlanta’s leadership will now demand that the school board assume responsibility for rebuilding a badly damaged system.

First, the board must require APS to undertake a sample re-test under controlled conditions of the classes in which high erasures occurred. If students in these classes perform as well as originally reported, the evidence of cheating itself becomes suspect.

Conversely, if the re-test confirms that students are unable to pass the CRCT, then we will all know that the suspect schools tampered with the answer sheets. In that case, the board must replace the superintendent and senior administrators and remove the principals of the schools involved.

The board will then need to recruit a superintendent from a respected system who has the ability to repair the damage. The board and the new superintendent would also need to open a dialogue with parents and taxpayers about the realities of urban education. Atlanta’s young people need real educational reform, not the public relations magic that we have endured for the past decade.

John S. Sherman is president of the Fulton County Taxpayers Foundation.