In the Atlanta Public Schools test-cheating trial, 12 defendants are fighting charges that they engaged in a racketeering conspiracy to inflate test scores. The trial takes place Mondays-Thursdays in Fulton County Superior Court. The courtroom had to be modified to accommodate all the defendants and their lawyers.
Here are highlights from Week 3:
MONDAY, OCT. 13
Arn St. Cyr, a math coach at Harper-Archer Middle School, testified that he was happy when his school posted huge math score gains in 2009. “Everybody assumed that finally what we were doing was paying off,” he said. But teachers started looking at the gains and realized something was obviously wrong. “You can reasonably expect maybe 10 percent a year,” St. Cyr said. “To see a 30 percent jump, that was unheard of. It just didn’t add up to me.” The reason for the increase, investigators later concluded: cheating on tests.
TUESDAY, OCT. 14
Keylina Clark broke down in tears when a defense attorney repeatedly questioned her about her son’s disciplinary record at school, which included suspensions for bad behavior. “Don’t make my baby out to be a monster,” she yelled at attorney Annette Green. “What does this have to do with the CRCT?” Earlier, Clark testified she filed a complaint after her son told her a teacher gave him the answers to state tests.
WEDNESDAY, OCT. 15
Under cross-examination by the lawyer for former APS regional supervisor Tamara Cotman, witness Curt Green admitted he didn’t know the lyrics of a Tupac Shakur song that was to figure prominently during the day’s testimony. Green testified he was forced to resign as principal of The B.E.S.T. Academy, allegedly because of the school’s performance on state standardized tests. But Cotman’s lawyer, Benjamin Davis, tried to establish that Green’s refusal to discipline a teacher for using the Tupac song in a poetry class played a role in the decision to replace Green. When Davis showed an email indicating Cotman had concerns about exposing children to a portion of the song that dealt with pouring liquor, Green said he didn’t know the lyrics. This prompted Judge Jerry Baxter to jest: “Could you hum it for us?”
THURSDAY, OCT. 16
Prosecutors piled fact on fact to make their case that students at Deerwood Academy couldn’t possibly have performed as well as they did on state tests. Prosecutor Shondeana Morris questioned witness Tabitha Martin, who was an instructional coach at Deerwood, for more than an hour. When Judge Baxter grew impatient, Morris said she needed just three more minutes. After about five minutes passed, Baxter cut in. “You all promised us three minutes and then lied to us,” he teased, then quickly added, “Don’t promise us anything.”
QUOTES OF THE WEEK:
“I could have put answers on those answer sheets. … Nobody would have known. But I could not have lived with myself. My whole life is about teaching.”
— Former Turner Middle School teacher Mary Gordon on Tuesday about an envelope with benchmark test questions and answer sheets that was given to her.
“The Bankhead area was a war zone.”
— Former reading specialist Monica Hooker on Wednesday in defense of her decision to use the Tupac Shakur song ‘Dear Mama’ in her poetry class, even though it contains references to liquor, drugs and prison. Her students from the Bankhead area were exposed to worse, she said, including murder and robbery.
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