Atlanta Schools Cheating for A Decade (store, stats, charges)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I agree with your post overall but why don't you think they should go to jail? They lied to investigators which is never treated lightly by law enforcement. Even if you take away the charges of taking on false pretense most of them face charges for lying and covering up the truth.
Quote:
Originally Posted by arjay57
I don't think Beverly Hall or these other teachers and principals should go to jail.
However, why the sudden rush to justify and excuse their behavior and blame the whole thing on somebody else?
Arjay,
I'm totally sick when I hear that she made 450K and had a PERSONAL CHAUFFEEUR. This lady was a superintendent, not the queen of England. Why the heck couldn't she drive her own car? Who approved the freaking chauffeur? What?? A chauffeur and a half a mil salary. When teachers are barely making 30-50. I'm stunned.
If she could have legitimately achieved, what APS faked, she would have been worth ten times that. Sad.
Why do black folks want to screw over other black folks? Blacks are already under educated in the nation. Why cheat and not try to teach the kids the proper way so that they can get the high scores and you wouldn't have to worry about getting caught? I just find it hilarious. To some people, money just means everything. They have no humility...none...whatsoever. All cheating does is not only hide the fact that the kids are undereducated, but the possibility of you getting caught and then this happens. Why is all of the scandals only happening in the majority-black areas in the city? I just don't get it. Blacks should be trying their hardest to advance, but remain stagnant. This sort of stuff just holds back the blacks in this country. To me, I just find it despicable and pathetic. Selfish people....just selfish.
I agree with your post overall but why don't you think they should go to jail? They lied to investigators which is never treated lightly by law enforcement. Even if you take away the charges of taking on false pretense most of them face charges for lying and covering up the truth.
Basically because nobody on Wall Street got sent to jail for participating in the financial meltdown.
In terms of "badness" I would put the school cheaters in the same category. It's not fair to send one group to jail and not the other.
I don't think Beverly Hall or these other teachers and principals should go to jail.
However, why the sudden rush to justify and excuse their behavior and blame the whole thing on somebody else?
For Pete's sake, nobody forced these people to throw their students under the bus and engage in sustained, systemic cheating. They were protecting their own paychecks for their own personal benefit. In Hall's case, those paychecks were very lavish indeed -- $450,000 a year in taxpayer dollars. Plus extremely generous benefits, including a personal chauffeur who was paid another $100,000 a year. It's pretty hard to portray someone with a Ph.D. and a salary of $40,000 a month as some poor soul who had no alternative but to obey her secret government and corporate overlords.
Shouldn't we be more upset about the thousands of students who were undermined by this scandalous behaviour? Why are the people leaping to Beverly Hall's defense saying nothing about the damage she wreaked upon the city's most vulnerable children?
Basically because nobody on Wall Street got sent to jail for participating in the financial meltdown.
In terms of "badness" I would put the school cheaters in the same category. It's not fair to send one group to jail and not the other.
I am not a financial person, but I think...
The reason that almost nobody went to jail for participating in the financial meltdown was because much (if not all) of the financial meltdown was caused by changes in laws and policies that made most the worst actions legal and in some cases legally required. Sure, more folks should have gone to jail, but when you make poorly crafted (but well intentioned) laws that push home-ownership on folks that should not be buying homes, start throwing easy money everywhere, and obliterate the laws that separate banks from investment companies, this is going to happen. Politicians on both sides were way too deep in responsibility for this mess, so while they may start yelling about "Wall Street Bankers", they know they were the ones that really screwed the pooch in this mess.
As far as Beverly Hall goes (assuming that what is reported is true), her financial equivalent did go to jail: Bernie Madoff. He faked great returns for years, but really was just taking peoples money. "Cheating" of some sort goes on everywhere, but Dr. Hall was the Bernie Madoff of cheaters.
Last edited by jeoff; 04-04-2013 at 07:49 AM..
Reason: grammar
Alfie Kohn on APS cheating scandal: ‘What if we gave a test and nobody came?’
From Alfie Kohn:
The real cheating scandal that has been going on for years is that kids are being cheated out of meaningful learning by focusing on test scores. Standardized tests like the CRCT measure what matters least. The more you know about education, the less likely you would ever be to measure teachers, schools or kids based on test scores.
Standardized tests are lousy measures of thinking. They assess some combination of (a) family wealth and (b) how much time has been diverted from real learning in order to make kids better at taking tests. Many smart kids, terrific teachers, and exciting schools have lousy test scores. Many not-so-smart kids, mediocre teachers, and awful schools have impressive test scores. The two key take-aways from this latest scandal are: (1) the problem here wasn’t just the illegal and immoral behavior of a few individuals, but an absurd system of top-down, heavy-handed, test-based “accountability” — which is why cheating scandals have been popping up all over the country for as long as we’ve had high-stakes testing; and (2) even if the Hall administration had raised the scores without cheating, Atlanta schoolchildren were still cheated out of a real education because the schools were turned into glorified test-prep centers. Rising test scores are usually bad news. The people who understand the most about how kids learn know that. Politicians and corporate executives typically don’t. That’s why they persist with policies that make no sense, such as basing evaluations of teachers on these same bad tests. Parents who have had enough should not be satisfied with seeing Beverly Hall carted off to jail. They should think hard about whether they want to continue supporting the whole misguided testing mania by allowing their children to take the tests. Across the country, parents are “opting out.” If enough people do that, officials may one day gulp, “What if we gave a test and nobody came?”
The only thing worse than standardized tests like the CRCT, are no standardized tests like the CRCT. No, testing is not perfect, but at least it is a partial way to measure what has been taught and what has been learned, and determine if there is improvement. Even if APS schools were "successfully" turned into "glorified test-prep centers" there would be evidence that children were learning and improving. You must be able to read to do well on the test; you must be able to do basic math to do well on the test.
Do you really think that a more "nuanced" system would have gotten better results with Dr. Hall at the helm? Of course not! What you would have gotten, would have been even more years of hand-waving and touchy-feely talk instead of any actual results.
Quote:
Originally Posted by aries4118
Alfie Kohn on APS cheating scandal: ‘What if we gave a test and nobody came?’
From Alfie Kohn:
The real cheating scandal that has been going on for years is that kids are being cheated out of meaningful learning by focusing on test scores. Standardized tests like the CRCT measure what matters least. The more you know about education, the less likely you would ever be to measure teachers, schools or kids based on test scores.
Standardized tests are lousy measures of thinking. They assess some combination of (a) family wealth and (b) how much time has been diverted from real learning in order to make kids better at taking tests. Many smart kids, terrific teachers, and exciting schools have lousy test scores. Many not-so-smart kids, mediocre teachers, and awful schools have impressive test scores. The two key take-aways from this latest scandal are: (1) the problem here wasn’t just the illegal and immoral behavior of a few individuals, but an absurd system of top-down, heavy-handed, test-based “accountability” — which is why cheating scandals have been popping up all over the country for as long as we’ve had high-stakes testing; and (2) even if the Hall administration had raised the scores without cheating, Atlanta schoolchildren were still cheated out of a real education because the schools were turned into glorified test-prep centers. Rising test scores are usually bad news. The people who understand the most about how kids learn know that. Politicians and corporate executives typically don’t. That’s why they persist with policies that make no sense, such as basing evaluations of teachers on these same bad tests. Parents who have had enough should not be satisfied with seeing Beverly Hall carted off to jail. They should think hard about whether they want to continue supporting the whole misguided testing mania by allowing their children to take the tests. Across the country, parents are “opting out.” If enough people do that, officials may one day gulp, “What if we gave a test and nobody came?”
Um, did standardized tests just come to Georgia? I'm almost 40 and took standardized tests in Illinois back in the 80s.... The author speaks as if this is a new thing. Is it - in Georgia?
Quote:
Originally Posted by aries4118
Alfie Kohn on APS cheating scandal: ‘What if we gave a test and nobody came?’
From Alfie Kohn:
The real cheating scandal that has been going on for years is that kids are being cheated out of meaningful learning by focusing on test scores. Standardized tests like the CRCT measure what matters least. The more you know about education, the less likely you would ever be to measure teachers, schools or kids based on test scores.
Standardized tests are lousy measures of thinking. They assess some combination of (a) family wealth and (b) how much time has been diverted from real learning in order to make kids better at taking tests. Many smart kids, terrific teachers, and exciting schools have lousy test scores. Many not-so-smart kids, mediocre teachers, and awful schools have impressive test scores. The two key take-aways from this latest scandal are: (1) the problem here wasn’t just the illegal and immoral behavior of a few individuals, but an absurd system of top-down, heavy-handed, test-based “accountability” — which is why cheating scandals have been popping up all over the country for as long as we’ve had high-stakes testing; and (2) even if the Hall administration had raised the scores without cheating, Atlanta schoolchildren were still cheated out of a real education because the schools were turned into glorified test-prep centers. Rising test scores are usually bad news. The people who understand the most about how kids learn know that. Politicians and corporate executives typically don’t. That’s why they persist with policies that make no sense, such as basing evaluations of teachers on these same bad tests. Parents who have had enough should not be satisfied with seeing Beverly Hall carted off to jail. They should think hard about whether they want to continue supporting the whole misguided testing mania by allowing their children to take the tests. Across the country, parents are “opting out.” If enough people do that, officials may one day gulp, “What if we gave a test and nobody came?”
Why is all of the scandals only happening in the majority-black areas in the city? I just don't get it. Blacks should be trying their hardest to advance, but remain stagnant. This sort of stuff just holds back the blacks in this country. To me, I just find it despicable and pathetic. Selfish people....just selfish.
I don't know if the scandals are just with majority black areas. But one issue that I've thought about is that I think too many blacks were naive about "black power" in general in America. The idea coming out of the civil rights movement was that if we could get more black faces in there then things would be better for blacks generally speaking. Well the reality is that having more black faces isn't enough if those black faces aren't going to try to do their jobs by the book. We've had too many of our share of crooked black politicians around the country since the 70's. Hopefully more black voters will start holding these black faces more accountable.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
