Back in July, when a 400-page state report on the Atlanta Public Schools’ cheating scandal was made public, we put the full text on the ajc.com website. The report was riveting and drew extraordinary online traffic.
It’s impossible to know what readers found most interesting in the report, which was prompted by years of reporting by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. But I’d bet that one of the better-read parts was the “school summaries” section, which included shocking details and names of individual schools and teachers.
Given the specificity of that report, some readers were surprised this week when we did not name 11 educators initially sanctioned by the Georgia Professional Standards Commission. The education licensing agency revoked the teaching certificates of three administrators and imposed two-year suspensions on eight teachers. However, it did not identify those educators by name.
That’s because the sanctions are not final — educators can request a hearing and appeal at several levels — and so results could be changed or penalties reduced. The Georgia Professional Standards Commission’s policy of keeping details of a case confidential until action is final is set by state law and is the same for all cases, not just those related to the APS scandal.
“We are trying to protect the educator up until the due process and the commission’s action is final,” said John Grant, chief investigator for the Professional Standards Commission. He noted that anyone can file a complaint against an educator, and sometimes the commission finds no probable cause to proceed or clears the accused educator. In such cases, details of the accusation are not released because they could unfairly damage an educator’s reputation.
We understand the PSC’s position. But of course, our mission is different: It’s our job to inform the public in as much detail as possible about news. Given that 178 educators had already been identified in the state report, we want to name those who are sanctioned, or cleared, as quickly as possible.
Jaime Sarrio, our reporter covering the PSC process, said the confidentiality requirement makes the hearings a bit awkward to cover. Educators are identified only by case number, while details such as school and district are not made public.
Sarrio said the PSC staff is helpful and provides as much information as policy allows. While Sarrio understands the constraints on the PSC, she’s not sure the public is well-served by the confidentiality.
“As one parent told me, not having the names makes it hard to tell if the punishment fits the crime,” Sarrio said. “I think people are invested in this story. They are upset about what happened, and they want to know when justice is done, whether it be in a criminal court or a board room.”
Sarrio notes that the state report had impact because it named names and gave concrete details. “This transparency triggered a tremendous amount of outrage and made it harder for the district, city or state to treat it lightly, as has happened in other states,” she said.
However, when it comes to the teacher disciplinary process, Sarrio is aware of other states that have been more open than Georgia. “The goal isn’t to embarrass people, or to destroy reputations,” the veteran education reporter said. “But it is to keep people informed and provide an added layer of accountability for people who do this very important work.”
The AJC understands the tension between privacy and public interest; it’s a balance our journalists wrestle with routinely. We know that some readers believe educators should not be named at all until all appeals and all probes are concluded. But that could be years. The state report released in July was “final” as far as that phase went, and so state law required that report be made public in its entirety.
In the case of ongoing PSC hearings, since names of educators suspected of cheating are already public, Sarrio and other reporters on the story will work hard to establish the identities of educators sanctioned or cleared, even before the PSC makes details public.
Sarrio and her colleagues at Channel 2 Action News already have established from independent sources that some of the educators sanctioned this week were from Parks Middle School, where cheating was egregious. They will continue to bring you as many details as they can confirm of this important story.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution wants to explain openly to readers what we do and why. Public editor Shawn McIntosh will write a column every other week to provide insight into newsroom operations, the newspaper’s role in the community and the industry. Write McIntosh at insideajc@ajc.com or join the conversation on editor Kevin Riley’s Facebook page,
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