Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed voiced his opinion about the prison sentences in the Atlanta Public Schools test-cheating trial, saying the consequences should be “severe.”
After a news conference about an unrelated matter Thursday, Reed was asked about his views on sending teachers to prison, after former mayor, congressman and ambassador Andrew Young asked the judge for lenience.
“I’m in a slightly different place,” Reed said, “because I think when children have been harmed the way that they’ve been harmed that consequences should be severe.”
Reed called Young “the conscience of the city of Atlanta” and placed him among the greatest leaders in the city’s history.
“So when he expressed his views, it did not surprise me that people listened,” Reed said. He added, though, that “thousands of children were passed along and damaged” by falsified test scores. “And so my feeling about the guilty verdict is a little different than most.”
Fulton County Superior Judge Jerry Baxter sentenced many of the convicted former educators to prison, reserving the longest terms — seven years of incarceration — for the three highest-ranking administrators. He may have had a change of heart, though: in an unusual move, he has decided to re-sentence those three on April 30, after correspondence from his office indicated he believes he may have been too harsh.
Said Reed: “I thought the sentence was appropriate there because children were involved.”
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