One defendant has yet to be sentenced in the Atlanta Public Schools cheating trial. Shani Robinson was not sentenced in mid-April with the other 10 APS educators charged with cheating by changing student answers on the 2009 Criterion Referenced Competency Test; she delivered her first child two days earlier, so her sentencing was delayed until August.
It is clear the judge in the criminal case did a great deal of soul-searching to determine the appropriate sentences for the educators, even taking the extraordinary step of reducing the sentences of three defendants.
I hope he will also carefully contemplate what’s fair for Shani, because her case is unique. I don’t know Shani. But I do know enough about her to defend her against the charge of racketeering conspiracy and the crime of making false statements and writings, which could land her a sentence of up to 20 years in prison.
Like Shani, I am a new mom, an alumni of Teach for America (the teaching program that Shani was a part of, when convicted) and a former APS teacher. I connect deeply with Shani and her case, and I feel for her. I believe her situation should be reconsidered with a new perspective.
At the time of her convicted crime, Shani was a brand-new teacher in the middle of her second year of teaching at Dunbar Elementary School in Southwest Atlanta. She was an idealist, a 2008 corps member with Teach for America, an organization with the mission of eliminating educational inequity in our nation’s most challenging schools.
In an article in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Shani’s mother told a reporter, “Shani wanted to be a teacher to make a difference in the world.”
Shani was just starting out in her career; she had recently graduated from Tennessee State University with degrees in psychology and African studies. Outside school, she was an assistant Girl Scout troop leader, and she prepared food for her students to take home on the weekends, as she knew many of them did not have meals to eat.
According to statements made during the APS trial, Shani was instructed to erase stray marks on the answer page of the 2009 CRCT. She was also told the scores of her first-grade students did not count in the testing process. Shani pleaded not guilty to the charges of changing students’ answers and refused to accept the plea bargain that would greatly shorten her sentencing.
This is not a case of a teacher who conspired to cheat. This is the case of a brand-new teacher in a poor public school that lacked proper leadership. This is the case of a young person following the instructions of a supervisor. How often are young people misguided by an administration? All the time, every day. This could have been any one of us.
Shani may have made a mistake in following her supervisor’s instructions; but if that is the case, her mistake does not warrant years in prison, separated from her family and baby son. There are other consequences for a situation like this one.
If Shani is guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt, remove her teaching license. Mandate community service in the very community where she once taught. But by all means, see this young woman for who she is: a novice in the field of education, someone who should have been guided by leaders with integrity. Allow this young woman to live her life, be a mother and begin again.
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