Friday, May 24, 2013 | 4:57 p.m.
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Stories by Heather Vogell
Atlanta school district denies trying to obstruct
Lawyers for Atlanta Public Schools have sent state investigators a defiant letter, ratcheting up the tension in an already-strained relationship.In a three-page letter, sent Friday and obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, district officials denied obstructing the state’s criminal investigation into test-tampering, as investigators alleged last week. The letter objected to ...
Atlanta school board to meet on cheating response
Atlanta school board members will meet Monday with Superintendent Beverly Hall about how she and her staff handled both the system's response to an ongoing state cheating probe and actions by top aides that drew a piercing rebuke last week by investigators.The meeting follows reports that two high-ranking Atlanta Public ...
State: Atlanta schools protect those who would intimidate whistleblowers
State investigators have uncovered what they call a pattern of “intimidating, threatening and retaliating” against Atlanta Public Schools employees who report cheating or other improprieties.In a piercing letter Wednesday to the school system demanding a stop to obstructive practices, investigators suggested the district has acted “to protect those in its ...
Another APS official disparages cheating probe
Atlanta Public Schools Superintendent Beverly Hall’s deputy blasted the state’s cheating investigation during a rambling conference call with principals last fall.It is the second incident to come to light in recent days suggesting high-ranking members of Hall’s administration have disparaged the state criminal investigation into possible widespread test-tampering in Atlanta ...
Atlanta schools official reassigned pending "go to hell" investigation
The Atlanta Public Schools official under investigation for advising principals to tell GBI agents to “go to hell” was reassigned Monday.District leaders moved Tamara Cotman from her position supervising about 25 elementary and middle schools to another job in the system's English as a second language department until the inquiry ...
Para-professional ordered to talk to CRCT investigators
A Fulton County judge on Friday ordered an Atlanta schools para-professional to talk to investigators in the test-tampering probe, rejecting a request to dismiss a subpoena demanding the woman's cooperation.During a brief hearing, Superior Court Judge Craig Schwall resolved a showdown between special investigators appointed by the governor and a ...
DeKalb earns praise for CRCT response
The DeKalb County school district’s reassignment last week of two dozen educators while they await inquiries into allegations of test tampering stands in marked contrast to the business-as-usual approach taken by the system’s neighbor to the west.In Atlanta, nearly 100 educators suspected of cheating — or, at least, of causing ...
APS suppressed scandal
This is the latest in a series of AJC investigative reports on possible cheating in Atlanta Public Schools. Since the AJC began investigating in 2008, state officials and independent experts have confirmed the AJC’s findings, leading to ongoing criminal investigations into Atlanta testing practices. Atlanta Public Schools officials, including Superintendent ...
Atlanta charter school scrambles to recover from fire
The day after a two-alarm fire engulfed the roof of the KIPP Ways Academy charter school, no one had yet tallied the damage in dollars and cents. The computers. The desks. The books.But for Panya Evans’ son Dezsjon, 14, the loss of one object was felt most sharply: his saxophone.“I ...
Fulton DA sees ‘clear-cut' evidence of APS test cheating
The investigation into test tampering at the Atlanta Public School system appears headed toward criminal prosecutions with the appointments Tuesday of Mike Bowers and Bob Wilson as special assistant district attorneys.Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard designated Bowers, the former state attorney general, and Wilson, the former DeKalb district attorney, ...
Atlanta Public Schools cheating: Some teachers admit guilt
Numerous Atlanta Public Schools employees have confessed to changing students’ test papers, providing answers to students or watching others manipulate tests, according to an official briefed on the state’s investigation into cheating on standardized tests.The official, who was not authorized to discuss the investigation and spoke on the condition of ...
Strife strains school board
Atlanta schools Superintendent Beverly Hall’s announcement that she will step aside when her contract ends June 30 comes at a time when the district is facing uncertainty on multiple fronts.Feuding among city school board members, in which one faction of the board has sued the other over leadership changes, has ...
Atlanta superintendent Beverly Hall to step down
Embattled Atlanta Public Schools Superintendent Beverly Hall announced Saturday that she will step down in June, ending a remarkable 11-year tenure that won praise nationally but soured under the glare of a test-cheating investigation. Hall’s decision to leave APS had been expected by year’s end, precipitated by a power struggle ...
AJC files complaint with state over school cheating scandal
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution asked the state attorney general Friday to investigate Atlanta Public Schools for withholding a critical report largely confirming the newspaper’s findings last year that test results in a dozen schools were highly suspicious.The AJC asked Attorney General Thurbert Baker to determine whether the district’s denial in July ...
Perdue to appoint investigator to look at Atlanta schools
Gov. Sonny Perdue took the extraordinary step Wednesday of announcing that a special investigator will look into the cheating scandal at Atlanta Public Schools, calling a local review “woefully inadequate both in scope and depth.” “This is about individual students being robbed and cheated of their one fair shot at ...
Hall: Enrollment data may be ‘dirty’
Atlanta Superintendent Beverly Hall blamed “dirty data” for state records indicating her school district dropped thousands of high school students from its rolls during three years in which the graduation rate soared.“We have looked at that very, very closely,” Hall said, adding the district is now conducting a more detailed ...
Atlanta grad rate doesn't add up
Thousands of high school students vanished from the rolls of Atlanta Public Schools in the past eight years, often with few hints to where they went. Schools recorded many of them as “transfers” to other systems, at times without proof that the students hadn’t dropped out altogether. In 2008, a ...
Atlanta test-cheating probe fails to satisfy
Investigators chosen by Atlanta’s school system gave only cursory attention to evidence suggesting extensive cheating on standardized tests in more than half the 58 schools they examined.Seventeen schools suspected of some of the most widespread cheating were barely investigated and, consequently, avoided recommendations for sanctions. Another 14 schools where state ...
Atlanta schools cheating probe faces scrutiny
The head of Atlanta Public Schools promised an impartial inquiry into reports of cheating on state achievement tests. Recusing herself, Superintendent Beverly Hall declared the investigation would be conducted by “a respected outside organization.”Five months later, the investigation remains incomplete, and questions have emerged that challenge its independence.The “blue-ribbon” commission ...
CRCT failures rise at schools suspected of cheating
State test scores at metro schools suspected of the most widespread cheating last year dropped markedly this year, falling further in Atlanta than in other districts, preliminary data shows. Steep declines in the number of Atlanta students who passed key subject tests threatened to reverse the upward climb that has ...
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