GBI agents begin interviewing Atlanta teachers in cheating investigation

Georgia Bureau of Investigation agents began questioning Atlanta public school teachers Monday afternoon, part of an ongoing investigation into possible test tampering.

GBI spokesman John Bankhead declined to say how many schools the agents were targeting, but school system spokesman  Keith Bromery said agents had arrived at at least "three so far" Monday afternoon.

Bankhead stressed that teachers are not targets for criminal charges as long as they are truthful with agents. It is a felony to lie to a law enforcement officer.

Less than a week after Gov. Sonny Perdue signed an executive order directing the GBI to join the probe, 50 agents gathered at a hotel south of Atlanta for a briefing and their assignments. Those agents, pulled from all over the state, account for over one-fifth of the GBI's investigators.

Former Attorney General Michael Bowers and former DeKalb County District Attorney Bob Wilson led the briefing, laying out for agents what they had learned since Perdue assigned them to look into possible test tampering at the Atlanta and Dougherty County public schools systems.

The GBI is only focusing on Atlanta schools for now, Bankhead said.

The executive order, signed last Wednesday, is the latest step in a criminal investigation of Atlanta Public Schools' handling of Criterion-Referenced Competency Test results last year.

Bert Brantley, a spokesman for Perdue, declined to discuss what GBI agents will be doing or which schools are the targets of the probe.

Bankhead said initially the investigation would involve only interviews.

"We want as little disruption in the schools as possible," Brantley said. "I don't know what investigations hand out play-by-play strategies. We just want to let these folks do their job and get to the bottom of what happened."

Brantley said that it was assumed the GBI would be lending some assistance. GBI Director Vernon Keenan was at the initial meeting with Perdue, Bowers and Wilson, and offered the GBI's assistance, Brantley said.

"This has been the expected course from the very beginning," he added. "This is the next step of the process."

In August , Perdue picked Bowers and Wilson to head the special investigation into testing irregularities in the Atlanta and Dougherty County districts. In that Aug. 26 executive order, the governor wrote internal investigations of the 2009 CRCT were incomplete and warranted further action.

In his order signed last week, Perdue wrote that the ”scope and depth of the [Bowers-Wilson] investigation creates an unusual circumstance under [Georgia law] such that it is necessary that Bowers and Wilson have additional assistance from the state to conduct their independent investigation. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation’s involvement is necessary for the prevention and detection of whether any laws of the state were violated.”

The GBI’s assignment is “detecting possible criminal violations of this state relating to the alleged test tampering and any related issues in Atlanta Public Schools and Dougherty County Public Schools,” according to the order.

The ongoing state investigation is being conducted along with a parallel federal investigation of possible tampering with CRCT results as well.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported last month that federal authorities were investigating whether Atlanta Public Schools committed fraud by illicitly boosting scores on standardized tests.