After four grinding months of testimony, the Atlanta schools test-cheating trial has arrived at a major milestone, with prosecutors finally resting their case Tuesday.
More than 130 witnesses established that school employees were participating in and condoning behavior that harmed children. Many were former educators, who testified after admitting to cheating and then pleading guilty to lesser charges in deals with the prosecution.
Despite the scale of the alleged wrongdoing — an investigation ordered by then-Gov. Sonny Perdue concluded that 185 teachers and administrators in 44 schools participated in cheating on the 2009 Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests — the severity of the charges against the 12 defendants on trial has stoked controversy.
Mere teachers were charged like mobsters under Georgia’s Racketeer and Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act. Convictions could deliver two decades in prison for the men and women whose major crime is said to be erasing test answer sheets and filling in different bubbles.
Defense attorneys maintain the charges are overkill.
Kevin Franks, who represents Diane Buckner-Webb, a former teacher at Dunbar Elementary School, said Tuesday his client did not engage in a coordinated scheme to cheat on Georgia’s high-stakes tests. Low scores under the regime of former Superintendent Beverly Hall often meant transfers or job loss.
“The state has not proved a conspiracy,” Franks told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He said the many witnesses who got immunity agreements and testified committed “far more grievous acts than these defendants.”
“There are so many political considerations that went into this,” he said.
The highest-ranking defendant, Hall, is not on trial because of her advanced cancer, but some of the testimony, including from an investigator and from a former human resources director, appeared aimed at Hall.
“It’s been incredibly costly in time, money and family costs to these defendants and also costly for the attorneys,” Franks said, adding that the conspiracy charge vastly compounded the complexity of the case. In addition to racketeering, Buckner-Webb is charged with two counts of false statements and writings, which might have taken mere days to try alone, he said.
But others say the severe charges were merited by both the pervasiveness of cheating and the damage inflicted upon a generation or more of children whose failure went unaddressed when cloaked by false scores.
“This was about the alleged abuse of little children in terms of depriving them of their education,” said Mike Bowers, the former Georgia attorney general who was hired by former Gov. Sonny Perdue to investigate after the AJC reported highly unlikely test score jumps in Atlanta classrooms.
“Is that worth erring in bringing to light,” he asked. “Hell yes!”
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