Former Kennedy Middle School principal Lucious Brown admitted to working with three other Kennedy staff to change answers on state tests for two years in a row.
Brown said they vowed to keep what they did secret. “We said we wouldn’t say anything and we would take it to our graves,” he said.
The secret came out during interviews with investigators and in previous hearings and again in court Monday.
Brown, who pleaded guilty in January, is one of state’s key witnesses against former regional superintendent Sharon Davis-Williams, one of 12 defendants on trial for the scandal.
But Brown’s testimony did not directly tie his former boss to his erasures.
Brown said Monday it was his own idea to cheat.
“No one asked me to do it,” he said.
Brown pleaded guilty earlier this year to a single felony count of interference with government property – his school’s standardized tests. He was sentenced to two years on probation and ordered to perform 1,000 hours of community service. He was also sentenced under the First Offender Act, meaning if he successfully completes his probation he will not have a conviction on his record.
Judge sees no end in sight - 1:20 p.m.
The judge overseeing the Atlanta Public Schools test-cheating case expressed frustration Monday that the trial is getting bogged down because of unnecessary questions asked by lawyers.
“At some point, I’ve got to have control over this trial,” Fulton County Superior Court Judge Jerry Baxter said. “Otherwise, it will last until the Fourth of July of next year.”
Baxter made his remarks during an exchange with defense attorney Scott Smith, who represents former Benteen Elementary School testing coordinator Theresia Copeland. Smith had complained to Baxter for earlier cutting off his line of questioning to prosecution witness Judy Atwater.
Baxter told Smith he had already made his point during his cross-examination — that teachers gossip and sometimes tell lies about one another. “I can’t let you go on ad nauseam,” Baxter said. ” … I don’t want you to waste time.”
The judge said he is trying to move the case forward as efficiently as possible while giving all the defendants a fair trial.
Baxter was already irritated by the slow pace of testimony given by Atwater, a former state education monitor. She occasionally gave long-winded answers to yes-or-no questions.
“That lady went on and on and on,” Baxter said during a break in testimony. “I thought I would jump out the window.”
At the rate the trial is going, the judge said, the prosecution’s case should finish early next year.
6:15 a.m.
Educators who changed students’ answers on standardized tests at Kennedy Middle School vowed to take that secret to their graves, prosecutors have said.
But this week, some of those same educators are expected to take the witness stand in the Atlanta Public Schools test-cheating trial and tell jurors all about their involvement in the scandal.
One of those witnesses, prosecutors said last week, is expected to be Kennedy’s former principal, Lucious Brown. In January, Brown pleaded guilty to a single felony count and was sentenced to two years on probation. He admitted erasing his students’ answers and changing them from wrong to right on standardized tests given in 2008 and 2009.
Previously, two other former Kennedy educators entered guilty pleas and agreed to cooperate with the prosecution: former school improvement specialist Tamaka Goodson and former secretary Carol Dennis.
When Brown pleaded guilty, he read a letter of apology in which he said he needed to held accountable for his “self-centered acts.”
“As a result of my actions, time has vanished, lives have been destroyed, friendships lost, veracity misplaced, academic achievement scarred, the eruption of parental turmoil, the loss of millions of dollars and, most of all, our children are aggressively looking for solutions, ” he said.
Brown is expected to testify against defendant Sharon Davis-Williams, the regional School Reform Team director whose office was in Kennedy Middle School. She is one of 12 defendants on trial, charged in a racketeering conspiracy to inflate students’ test scores.
Kennedy, located in a crime-ridden area known as the Bluff, had terrible disciplinary problems when Brown took over in late 2007. There were frequent fights. Many students arrived late and hungry. Some students cursed at teachers and walked out of school during instruction, prosecutors said.
Kennedy was designated a needs-improvement school by the state in 2007, with 40 percent of its student population performing below grade level. Yet Davis-Williams, who was well aware of the problems and the testing data, set unrealistic test goals for Kennedy, Deputy District Attorney Fani Willis said during Brown’s plea hearing.
Kennedy met its test targets in both 2008 and 2009 because of the cheating. “There’s no way (Davis-Williams) didn’t know what was going on, ” Willis said.
Brown pleaded guilty to interfering with government property — his school’s standardized tests. He was ordered to perform 1,000 hours of community service and return $1,000 he received in bonus pay for his school’s improved test scores. He was sentenced under the First Offender Act, meaning he will have no conviction on his record if he successfully completes his probation.
Dennis and Goodson admitted they helped Brown change students’ answers on standardized tests. Both women told prosecutors that Davis-Williams put extreme pressure on Brown. After emerging from one particularly intense meeting with his regional director, Brown looked as if he had been crying, they said.
Prior to the start of the 2008 Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests, Brown asked Dennis and Goodson to help him change answers of “Level I” students — those who were expected to fail the test, Willis said. They agreed and helped Kennedy meet its targets that year and again in 2009.
They also entered into a pact, vowing to “take this secret to their graves, ” Willis said.
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