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In one of the biggest cheating scandals of its kind in the U.S., 11 former Atlanta public school educators were convicted Wednesday of racketeering for their role in a scheme to inflate students' scores on standardized exams.
The defendants - including teachers, a principal and other administrators - were accused of falsifying test results to collect bonuses or keep their jobs in the 50,000-student Atlanta school system.
The educators fed answers to students or erased and changed the answers on tests after they were turned in to secure promotions or up to $5,000 each in bonuses, the court was told.
This criminal action was exposed by the fine investigative work that the Atlanta Journal-Constitution did - too bad we see so little from the press on the many scandals in our Federal Government. The Atlanta School District did their own "Blue Ribbon Investigation" internally -- no surprise that they found very little corruption. This is exactly what the US Veterans Affairs, the IRS, the State Department did with their own corruption. Kudos to the Governor of Georgia for doing a State Investigation and to the Prosecutors for charging them under RICO laws. I hope each and every one that didn't take the "get out of jail free & keep your pension" card serves some hard time in prison. Those that took the plea deal (out of 138 involved) will pay fines, do community service, keep pensions and walk away with clean records. It's not enough.
This is exactly the same type of prosecution that should be applied to VA employees who conspired to keep secret lists of patients/veterans awaiting appointments, lists which also had the effect of qualifying these same employees for bonuses paid to them and put into their pockets? No one wants to mention that not only were these greedy pigs hurting veterans, they were stealing from the American taxpayers.
Up to 20 years in prison? Christ, the average rapist goes to jail for 8 years. What the hell is happening to our justice system. Yeah, they should be punished, but 20 years in prison for this?
Not defending those cheaters at all, but the silliness of Merit Pay in education (anyone who actually works in a school knows how complicated it would be) will bring about this type of behavior.
Up to 20 years in prison? Christ, the average rapist goes to jail for 8 years. What the hell is happening to our justice system. Yeah, they should be punished, but 20 years in prison for this?
Well, I can agree with that. I believe that the persons involved in that corruption scandal should go to prison. However, rape is even worse than what they did.
Not defending those cheaters at all, but the silliness of Merit Pay in education (anyone who actually works in a school knows how complicated it would be) will bring about this type of behavior.
It is something to say that the foundation of our education system is unable to figure out how to pay or evaluate teachers other than time on the job.
I'd sweep our edu sytem clean of teachers' unions and dept of education to do students, teachers and society a favor.
Look at corporations to see how management not involved in production or manufacture is evaluted.
Tenure is incompatible with performance evaluations and unions will never give up tenure. Tenure is to provide protection from other teachers that now perform administrative duties. Tenure devalues teachers to reduce them to the level of replacable light bulbs.
It is something to say that the foundation of our education system is unable to figure out how to pay or evaluate teachers other than time on the job.
I'd sweep our edu sytem clean of teachers' unions and dept of education to do students, teachers and society a favor.
Look at corporations to see how management not involved in production or manufacture is evaluted.
Tenure is incompatible with performance evaluations and unions will never give up tenure. Tenure is to provide protection from other teachers that now perform administrative duties. Tenure devalues teachers to reduce them to the level of replacable light bulbs.
Union influence can certainly be tightened, but tenure is a necessary evil. My husband is a veteran physics teacher who would be fired by the local BOE just to save money. Tenure also keeps him from being fired because of vindictive parents, politicians and administrators. It is very possible to fire bad teachers - you simply need an administrator to confront, document and work through the situation. That is lacking in today's administrators and I wouldn't look to corporations either because I think the country as a whole has a lost art of management problem. If you look back to the industrial era, things were good when supervisors were people who actually had done the job they were eventually put in charge of and worked their way up. But sometime in the 80s, people decided a 23 year old with a business degree would be a better manager.
As for evaluating teachers, Hello! That's the job of a good administrator. Paying teachers the way you think isn't so easy. Aside from the possibility of favoritism and that good teachers tend to get the worst kids, think about this: Who gets more? The AP chem teacher whose classes consist of intelligent, driven and well behaved kids or the gym teacher who see EVERY kid in the school, puts up with every excuse from having their period to "Mom says I can sit down", and likely has to deal with mouthier kids at least six times a day?
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