They are already out on bond, pending appeal. http://www.wsbtv.com/news/news/local/sentencing-resumes-tuesday-convicted-aps-educators/nksym/
I had a one-sided view of this from reading the newspapers, until I read the article in the New Yorker with a link that I posted earlier:
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/07/21/wrong-answer?currentPage=all
It’s well worth looking at. It is primarily a profile of Damany Lewis, a middle-school math teacher who was a participant in changing students’ answers, and helping other teachers gain access to cheat. Yet he does not come across as a “bad guy.” He comes across as a teacher who was working very hard to help his students. The article also shows the pressures that led him to cheat, and how he might have justified it to himself.
As far as working to change the law, that’s much easier said than done. For one thing, I have the impression that Lewis dedicated himself to teaching, coaching, and helping his students, and that did not leave a lot of extra time for political activism.
If none of the teachers in Atlanta had changed students’ answers, and the students performed miserably, it might have served as a catalyst for the unrealistic law to be changed. That would have been an excellent outcome. But I doubt that it would have been the outcome, really. I think most likely the teachers and principals would have been booted out of the system, and replaced by people who were no more effective–because the challenges are tough. The root issues are socio-economic.
Some of the people who have been ballyhoo-ed as the “get-tough-and-get-it-done” problem solvers actually were not. Michelle Rhee, anyone?
There is not a valid comparison with students who live in academically focused areas. If at least 50% of the students in the incoming kindergarten class are already reading at 2nd grade level or above, how hard is it to get a high fraction of the group to read at 3rd grade level by 3rd grade?
I have only been in Atlanta while driving through en route to Disneyworld. I don’t know anyone who teaches in Atlanta. All of my relatives who were teachers (there were a few) retired before NCLB started. I don’t condone changing student answers. I sincerely believe that all students can learn to a high level. But I think that people need to appreciate the challenges realistically, and not just rely on passing a law (NCLB) to “solve the problem.”
I suspect that Jym is right about Beverly Hall. People have testified that she was at the very least, indifferent to subordinates’ reports of cheating. I recall Ms. Hall’s days in New York and New Jersey and she had little verifiable and sustained accomplishments. In that sense, she was no different that other modern day executive school leaders; people who move from city to city in search of the next lucrative salary, perks and praise.
Humm, may I suggest that you look up the current use of the RICO laws? It does not matter that some conflate racketeering laws with only chasing the new Al Capone. And it does not matter what the laws were in their baby steps. Fwiw, the language about mobsters and gangsters were mostly uttered by the people who tried to muster support for leniency or dismissal of the charges.
The current laws clearly are meant to address the malevolence of the people who were indicted, found guilty by a jury, and sentenced by a judge.
I am afraid that people who perceive that the justice was not served and that the sentences are over the top either did not pay attention to the acts committed or understand the nature of the charges. That or simply based their reactions on the misgiven belief that those were good people caught or forced in a web of deceit.
As far as the judge, he went above and beyond his duty to let the convicted make a deal. He suspended the sentences for a day to allow a last minute deal that would avoid jail time. In the end those people simply did not believe they did wrong --in spite of the evidence of a lengthy stream of organized corruption-- and thought they’d get away with it.
The only remorse they muster to show was about being caught. Just as many more who are doing the same exact thing.
xiggi, did you read the New Yorker article, linked in #61. If so, what did you make of it?
I just read the New Yorker article. Very enlightening. Still does not make what the “educators” did okay. Yes the mentality that test scores are everything is not good…but neither is the one that cheating to achieve status or even keep your job (at the expense of getting to the true heart of the problem) is okay.
Cheating and the wrongheaded NCLB tests are two different things.
The article does not change much about my thinking because I have heard similar refrains before. As I have often written, teachers are victims of the system and the culture of cheating and abuses that is deeply rooted. While it is easy to understand the agony well-meaning teachers have to go through when making choices between what is right and what is perceived as justified when viewed through a distorted lens, it remains that steps have to made to stop the descent into abysmal mediocrity that exists in our schools.
Fifty years of excuses have brought us where we are, and it is only due to the gross lack of interest and attention by the public at large that most do NOT know how bad the system of education is. Simply stated, people want to believe their school choices are right and they want to hear that their schools are performing well, and that the ladies who greet the kids or the parents are dedicated and virtuous professionals. Again, that typical US affection for a high self-esteem.
Undeniably, the victims of the current system will also yield a number of casualties. We can both feel bad for the “hero” in the New York piece, and leave with the conclusion that more similar stories are needed. A lot more with plenty of shattered dreams and descent in poverty. Yes, it is harsh, but not as harsh as the results of this generations of cheating and delivery of subpar education to millions who … can’t make the choices between right and wrong. Those students who are cheated of a decent education are the victims I care about not. And only much later, a bit about the people who got caught in a web they could not escape from.
In the end, our problem is not that the children can’t pass the tests. The basic problem remains that we can’t find a way and people who can ensure that kids receive an adequate education to make the tests (any tests) trivial. This story starts with an account of the unfairness of having questions buried in the form of words. I understand the argument but I reject it. We just need to find a way to make students understand the differences and teach them adequate ways to understand it.
And to get there, we need to replace the ones who can’t teach --because they were told it is OK not to know this or that-- and move on. Again, all the people who got caught in this latest scandal have NO place in a system of education that performs and serves the children adequately. And they came out on the cheap.
Based on the New Yorker article, I think the students would have been better off with Damany Lewis still there teaching, and some of the people above him replaced.
I don’t condone cheating. It is clearly wrong. However, I think that if the teacher in the New Yorker article had just refused to change students’ answers, despite clear directions from the people higher up to do that, the overall outcome would have been the same for him. He would have been dismissed as a teacher who couldn’t teach. That would have been better than being dismissed as a teacher who cheated, but not for the students.
In my area, I believe that quite a lot of the teaching is done by parents. As I mentioned, a very high fraction of the students enter kindergarten reading quite well already. This is different from the situation in schools a few miles away. The turnover among the students is very low at the local school, and very high just a few miles away.
Just wanted to add–technically, the students would also have been better off to lose Mr. Lewis for “incompetence” rather than for cheating. However, he would be gone either way.
One of the advances that has been made recently with NCLB is the idea of tracking individual growth on a year-to-year basis. That would solve part of the problem for teachers whose incoming class is performing far below grade level, and who cannot bring them up to grade level within the time available. Of course, it would not solve the problem vis a vis students whose earlier performance was grossly overstated, due to prior cheating by teachers (viz., the illiterate middle-schooler who had apparently done well on the previous year’s test because he just “tested well” according to the principal.)
I do not entirely disagree, but he decided that his path included a special trip to the hardware store to buy a blade.
This is the same behavior that has caused the entire rampant cheating in The College Board exams in Asia. People abusing a system that is deliberately oblivious to the shenanigans of the people trusted to maintain integrity.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
I do, however, find his dismissal by the same people who were the moving forces behind this web of deceit to a sign of how far the masterminds are prepared to go. The little guys get it worse. Although it seems that the guys who were sentenced this week are hardly little guys.
PS I agree that many parts of the NCLB testing and appraisal have been poor.
Right, there is no doubt that Mr. Lewis’s actions were reprehensible, with regard to the tests. The New Yorker starts out with a description of those actions, reinforcing the impression that people have gained through the news media. Then it transitions until I have some sympathy for Lewis, and the wish that the new principal had not been brought in–he seems to have been one source of the pressure on Lewis. Obviously, some sort of sanctions against Lewis were appropriate. I am sorry that he will apparently never teach again, though
People who believe in one-year fixes of the problems of middle-schoolers are just wrong, in my opinion.
“I have no empathy for them and some I still think got off too light,” said one poster above with regard to the convicted educators.
Judge Baxter, upon reflection, apparently felt that some of his sentences were too harsh. Today he reduced the harshest three sentences from 7 years in prison to 3. CNN quoted him as saying, “I’m going to put myself out to pasture in the not-too-distant future and I want to be out in the pasture without any regrets.”