Beverly Hall and Atlanta School Cheating

Beverly Hall is the former superintendent of the Atlanta, Georgia public schools.  She is also a mob boss that sent out at least 35 lieutenants to falsify and corrupt the tests scores of Atlanta’s students.  She did this for money and power.  All of these people are now indicted and facing jail.  I hope they are thrown into general population with some of the students who are there, in part, because they were cheated by the schools that these ersatz educators short changed.  Hall and her thirty-five stooges are accused of cheating, conspiring to cheat, or retaliating against whistle blowers who exposed the cheating. 

            From 2005-2009 student scores were changed or fabricated to create an illusion of academic success.  Superintendent Hall apparently encouraged the cheating and fired principals who didn’t come on board.  The Georgia Federation of Teachers, in typical teachers’ union fashion tries to blame the, “…unintended consequences of our test-crazed policies.”  In other words, the unions join the administration in saying, “If you are going to hold us accountable for student achievement, then we will have to cheat because we obviously can’t teach.” 

Hall, her mob and these complicit unions make my teeth itch!  Their conduct also shadows the 95% of teachers who work hard, play by the rules and actually do what they are paid to do: teach! 

Frankly, if you are worried, frustrated, angry or confused about education in America, you have come to the right place.  I have spent 30 years in the classroom, 5 in administration, taught nights at college and several years as a professional developer, improving the content knowledge and teaching skills of elementary teachers in math and science.  I have loved it all.   After a life-time of working as a trench-soldier in the war against ignorance I feel that I know the battle field.

As a principal, the students I worked with were frequently described as, “at risk.”  They were urban students, mostly African-American, mostly poor, mostly from single-parent homes.  They scored, on average, below the 30^th percentile on standardized tests. 

Their instruction had been slowed down, watered down, and stripped bare of anything that didn’t sound like survival skills—all with disastrous results.  Test scores, discipline and morale were at an all time low.  My students had been short-changed, let-by, excused from top performance, and, worst of all, given sympathy instead of rigorous education.  As teachers we had been told to worry about their self-esteem, when we should have been worrying about their success. 

The result of this kind of softhearted, condescending, “feel good” nonsense has been to create a generation of young people who were fit to only be victims, dependent on the dole.  It is as if the social engineers set out to create a race of Eloi. 

The hardest job I have had in education has been to continuously raise the bar of academic success.  This is the success our students deserve.  It is also the success which they can ultimately achieve, if the adults around them recognize four things:

 

1.       The only thing our students are, “at risk” of is being underestimated.

2.      Our students don’t need, “less,” “slower,” or, “remedial.”  They need, “more,” “faster,” and, “enrichment” because they have more ground to make up. 

3.      You don’t make students more competitive in a free market economy by teaching them survival skills.  You make them more competitive by teaching them superlative skills so they have something unique to offer in the market place.

4.      Finally, you hit what you aim for!

 

Support serious teachers and keep the faith.