Cheating cloud follows group of reinstated Atlanta teachers

Atlanta cheating by the numbers:

• Thirty-five former teachers and administrators, including former Superintendent Beverly Hall, face criminal charges. They're accused of racketeering, theft, influencing witnesses and making false statements. Judge Jerry Baxter last month refused to dismiss the indictment based on claims that the prosecution's case was tainted by coerced statements provided to special investigators and Georgia Bureau of Investigation agents.
• Atlanta Public Schools has completed all but two cases of educators accused of cheating. About 114 educators resigned or retired from Atlanta Public Schools, and 38 were terminated or didn't have their contracts renewed. Twenty-one educators were reinstated. Of those, the Georgia Professional Standards Commission recommended certificate suspensions or revocations against 14, including teacher Joya Florence. The commission found that there was no probable cause to move forward against five. Open investigations are pending against the remaining two.
• The Georgia Professional Standards Commission has recommended that 112 educators have their certificates suspended — including Florence — and that 45 have their certificates revoked. Many of those cases are being appealed. The commission found no probable cause in six cases, and 22 cases haven't yet been considered by the commission.

First-grade teacher Joya Florence thought she was done with Atlanta’s cheating scandal after the school system put her back in the classroom and prosecutors granted her immunity.

She was wrong. Accusations of cheating continue to follow her and threaten her livelihood.

Florence is one of 14 teachers who might lose their teaching licenses even though Atlanta Public Schools reinstated them after investigations into cheating. The Georgia Professional Standards Commission last month recommended that her teaching certification be suspended for two years, but she’s able to teach while her case is under appeal.

“This is an unending nightmare. Every time I feel like I’m getting a little peace and moving forward, a little serenity, something else comes up that I have to deal with,” Florence said. “I’m back where I started.”

Besides the 14 educators who were reinstated and still face PSC sanctions, the agency found no probable cause to move forward against five others who were reinstated. The cases of two more reinstated educators remain under investigation.

None of the 21 reinstated educators is among the 35 people facing criminal charges related to cheating.

An attorney for two other reinstated teachers appealing certification suspensions, Mel Goldstein, said their teaching careers shouldn’t be ruined after they were successful in winning their jobs back.

“Our clients won’t think it’s fair if any of that does proceed to happen, but in the end I think the PSC and their attorneys will deal with us in a reasonable fashion,” Goldstein said.

In all, a 2011 state investigation said 178 educators were involved in widespread sheeting to artificially inflate standardized test scores.

That investigation was the key evidence in the Atlanta school district’s dismissal hearings and the PSC’s certification recommendations, but their conclusions about Florence clashed.

The school district last summer determined there was insufficient evidence against her, according to a letter from Superintendent Erroll Davis. She previously taught at Finch Elementary and transferred to Dunbar Elementary after her reinstatement.

When Florence returned to teaching last fall after spending a year on administrative leave with pay, she said she was welcomed by the staff at Dunbar.

But the PSC cited high numbers of wrong-to-right erasures when it sought Florence’s license suspension, according to its June 21 order provided by her attorney.

“We might have different evidence than a school district might have had, we might have different witnesses, and the judges might be different,” said Kelly Henson, executive secretary for the PSC. “The cases are completely separate and really have no bearing on each other.”

Florence’s attorney, Quinton Washington, said Florence followed protocols when erasing stray marks in students’ answer booklets. She didn’t change answers or have access to an answer key, he said.

Washington said the state’s lawyers should drop Florence’s case because the Atlanta school district renewed her teaching contract.

“It’s our hope that the PSC would use that as proof positive that they want her to teach in Atlanta Public Schools and dismiss her certificate action,” Washington said.

Florence, who has been a teacher for 11 years, denied that she changed students’ test answers or saw other teachers change answers on the 2009 Criterion-Referenced Competency Test.

State investigators said in their report on cheating that Florence became emotional when told the evidence suggested test answers had been changed. The investigation said the statistical improbability of having so many erasures and inconsistent testimony led them to conclude that Florence and eight other educators at Finch Elementary participated in cheating.

“It’s very unfair,” said Florence, who takes care of her 6-year-old son and mother. “I feel like if I was cleared, if everything was reinstated, then all parties should be on the same page. I should not have to go through with fighting for my license. That’s my livelihood.”