Reaction to the Atlanta cheating verdicts
“This has been a sad and tragic chapter for Atlanta Public Schools that has now come to a close. … (Superintendent Meria) Carstarphen and the school board continue to work together to create a new culture at APS, that is a caring one of trust and collaboration where every student graduates ready for college and career.”
— Atlanta Board of Education
“I knew some of the teachers. It was heart-wrenching to me to know they were involved in it. I am very glad that it’s over. It hopefully will die down somewhat and not have such a negative impact on the school system which is trying to restructure itself for the positive.”
— Kay Sheats, whose daughter is a junior at Carver Early College
“The APS cheating scandal marked one of the darkest periods in the life of our city. It am hopeful that with the jury’s verdict today, we can finally close this chapter and move forward with the education and development of our young people.”
— Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed
“This is all we can do to make it right besides APS continuing to find children who aren’t performing at grade level. Unfortunately, there are some children who are never going to have full restitution. Whatever sentence the judge gives to these people, if it’s within the confines of the law, they deserve it.”
— Abby Martin, whose twin sons are juniors at Grady High
When deputies handcuffed former Atlanta teachers and administrators Wednesday, the justice system brought resolution to a long-running case of crimes committed in the classroom.
Parents of students in Atlanta Public Schools said the jury’s guilty verdicts against 11 defendants sent a forceful message: Cheating by educators can’t be tolerated.
Educators cheated by erasing incorrect answers on standardized tests, an effort to make it appear that students were making progress. In return, the perpetrators won job security, pleased their bosses and earned bonus money.
Their victims were thousands of children, many of whom never realized their test scores were falsified. These students progressed through school without learning the material or getting remedial help.
“The only way that this would have been stopped would be for them to be caught,” said Shannon Williams, whose daughter is a sophomore at Carver Early College. “It needed to happen so now maybe they won’t do it anymore. Let’s hope they don’t.”
Those who altered test scores could learn their hard lesson while spending time in prison. Each of them was found guilty of racketeering, which comes with a maximum sentence of 20 years.
Denise Romeo, whose two sons recently graduated from Grady High School, said the defendants earned the steep price they’ll pay behind bars.
“Those educators that were convicted today knew the difference between right and wrong, and they chose to do the wrong thing,” Romeo said. “They let those students down by short-changing them and doing the wrong thing.”
Former Superintendent Erroll Davis spent much of his three years in charge of the school system dealing with the consequences of the scandal. When Davis replaced Superintendent Beverly Hall, who was among those charged, a state investigation found that 185 people in the school system had been involved in cheating. Hall didn’t face trial because she was suffering from breast cancer, and she died March 2.
“Every teacher understands now the downsides of bad integrity. That’s abundantly clear to all teachers,” Davis said. “If you don’t go about life in general with integrity, you’re going to have problems. Life’s hard enough. You can’t cut corners.”
Others said the criminal case made scapegoats out of teachers who were under intense pressure to perform at any cost.
Andrew Young, a former United Nations ambassador and Atlanta mayor, said the real crime was the standardized testing system. He said the educators had already been punished enough because they’ll never be able to work in schools again.
“To put the teachers and the city through all of this is in itself criminal,” said Young, who had appeared in court last year on behalf of Hall. “We had a multibillion (dollar) crisis in the global economy and no bankers went to jail. They were bailed out for screwing up worse than teachers.”
The racketeering charges, more commonly associated with organized crime, seemed to be too severe an accusation to bring against career educators who worked with children, said David Payne, president of Southwest and Northwest Atlanta Parents and Partners for Schools.
“Now we’ve got third-grade teachers who are compared to John Gotti racketeering. That’s kind of heavy for me,” Payne said. “This is bittersweet for us as parents. It was proven that children were cheated.”
Teachers should have known that educating children is more important than bubbled-in results on a standardized test, said Rewa Berry, who has children in Atlanta Public Schools in fifth, seventh and eighth grades.
“I hate that teachers felt the need to go to this length,” Berry said. “The whole situation is such a letdown for our children. I’m so sorry for the teachers who felt compelled to have to do this, but if they did do it, then justice is served.”
The educators who cheated must now suffer the consequences, and they’ll set an example for others who think about betraying the trust parents put in them when they drop their students off at school, said Beth Hamilton, whose children are in sixth grade at Sutton Middle and fourth grade at Bolton Academy.
“From a human level, it’s sad because they are people who made mistakes, but at the same time, they need to be punished for those mistakes,” Hamilton said. “This will send a message about how serious this is.”
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