Atlanta School Workers Sentenced in Test Score Cheating Case

[bonnie]

Atlanta School Workers Sentenced in Test Score Cheating Case

By RICHARD FAUSSET

APRIL 14, 2015

 

ATLANTA — Rejecting sentencing deals urged by the judge, eight of the 10 educators convicted of racketeering in a huge public school cheating scandal were given stiff prison terms on Tuesday, the latest chapter in a case that has gripped the Atlanta region and has raised questions nationally about the use of standardized testing.

Despite emotional pleas for leniency, Judge Jerry W. Baxter of Fulton County Superior Court imposed sentences ranging from one to seven years, with three high-level administrators getting the longer prison terms. The sentences appeared to be more harsh than educators convicted of similar incidents elsewhere and exceeded what criminals can get for some violent crimes.

“I wish that it had been different,” the district attorney, Paul L. Howard Jr., said Tuesday, adding that he was “frustrated” and “disappointed” that more of the educators had not accepted deals.

Sentencing had been expected on Monday, but after spending most of the day listening to character witnesses — friends and family members — Judge Baxter asked prosecutors and defense lawyers to try and work out agreements.

In the end, only two accepted sentencing deals. One, Donald Bullock, a testing coordinator, was ordered to spend six months of weekends in county jail and five years on probation. He was fined $5,000 and ordered to do 1,500 hours of community service. The other, Pamela Cleveland, received five years’ probation and one year of home confinement in the evenings, as well as a $1,000 fine and 1,000 hours of community service.

Among those declining deals were three higher-level administrators: Sharon Davis-Williams, Michael Pitts and Tamara Cotman, all regional directors. An irate Judge Baxter sentenced each of them to 20 years, with seven to be served in prison and the remainder on probation. Each must pay a $25,000 fine and perform 2,000 hours of community service.

The judge ordered all of the educators freed on bond from county jail, where they had been since their conviction. Several defendants on Tuesday vowed to appeal their convictions, ensuring that Atlanta, a majority-black city, would continue to grapple with two harrowing and interrelated questions: How much mercy should be due to an all-black roster of educators with otherwise spotless records? And what kind of justice is due to the thousands of mostly poor, minority students whose falsely inflated standardized test scores obscured their need for extra help?

“We’ve sent a horrible message about character in education,” Bernice King, the daughter of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said at a news conference called by prosecutors, in which she exhorted residents to pray for the defendants’ families. “The balance between justice and mercy is always weighed in my heart.”

The deals offered to the 10 defendants by the Fulton County District Attorneys’ office, were predicated on their admission of responsibility and the waiver of their right to appeal. Most of the defendants found the terms unacceptable, and lawyers for some clients said they were sure the convictions would eventually be vacated.

 

“The sentence is fair,” said Gerald A. Griggs, who represented a teacher, Angela Williamson, who was ordered to serve two years in prison. “The fact that she only got two years in custody, that’s fair considering what the jury’s decision was, but we still respectfully disagree with it, and we will be successful on appeal.”

The others who declined deals were also given various levels of fines and community service. They included a principal, Dana Evans, who received a five-year sentence — a year in prison and four years of probation; Tabeeka Jordan, an assistant principal who received two years in prison and three years’ probation; Diane Buckner-Webb, a teacher who received one year in prison and four years’ probation; and Theresia Copeland, a testing coordinator, who received one year in prison and four years’ probation.

“We wanted people to stop and pay attention to what went on in the school system,” Mr. Howard said after Tuesday’s hearing. “We never had as a goal putting people in jail. That was not our goal. We never started out with a goal of simply putting educators of any form in jail.”

The atmosphere in the downtown Atlanta courtroom was highly charged Tuesday morning. In one exchange over the status of appellate bonds, Judge Baxter threatened to put a lawyer in jail if he did not quiet down.

The judge grimaced and bellowed throughout the proceedings, apparently piqued that some of the defendants had declined to take deals. Notably, the sentencing arrangements would have forced the educators to acknowledge their guilt. By refusing the deals, they are able appeal their convictions.

“I think there were hundreds, thousands of children who were harmed in this city,” the judge said. “That’s what gets lost. Everybody starts crying about these educators. There were thousands of students who were harmed by this thing. This was not a victimless crime in this city.”

The educators had been convicted of racketeering, a charge more typically associated with traditional organized crime rings. Prosecutors said they had participated in a wide-ranging conspiracy to artificially inflate student standardized test scores and give a false sense that struggling schools were improving. The motive, the prosecutors said, was to protect their jobs, or win bonuses or favor from their superiors.

Prosecutors maintained that some of the most vulnerable students in the struggling system were victims of the scheme, with the false accomplishments ascribed to them obscuring the fact that they actually needed extra help.

The issues came to light more than six years ago as The Atlanta Journal-Constitution began publishing articles that questioned the drastic improvements in scores that some schools were reporting on the Criterion-Referenced Competency Test, a standardized test once given throughout Georgia.

A state investigation completed in 2011 found that nearly 180 school system employees were complicit, in some cases gathering at cheating parties to erase incorrect test answers and fill in the correct ones. A Fulton County grand jury later indicted 35 educators, including the former schools superintendent Beverly L. Hall, who had previously been celebrated for her data-driven management style and the gains she appeared to have made at the school system.Continue reading the main story

 

Twenty-one of the educators reached plea agreements. Dr. Hall maintained her innocence but died before she could stand trial, as did one other defendant.

That left a dozen educators who put their fates in the hands of a Fulton County jury. Each defendant faced up to 20 years in prison for the racketeering charge, and some faced other charges, including making false statements.

They were tried together in an often ungainly trial that dragged on for six months and ended April 1, when the jury returned its verdict. One defendant, Dessa Curb, a former elementary schoolteacher, was acquitted. Another former elementary schoolteacher, Shani Robinson, was found guilty, but she delivered a baby over the weekend, according to news reports, and will be sentenced later.

Locally, the drama set off a wave of changes in the 50,000-student school system, as well as broader soul-searching in a majority-black city where teachers have historically been a linchpin of the middle class.

For some, the images of the educators, dressed as if for an awards assembly, being led out of a Fulton County courtroom in handcuffs after the verdict, were a welcome if bitter end to an embarrassing civic catastrophe. Mayor Kasim Reed spoke of the closing of “one of the darkest periods in the life of our city,” and said that Atlanta could now “move forward with the education and development of our young people.”

[phkrause]

Just heard that on the radio. Probably more of that going around in other State's, but have not yet been caught. Pretty sad.

[bonnie]

Just heard that on the radio. Probably more of that going around in other State's, but have not yet been caught. Pretty sad.

Glad my two youngest are now being homeschooled. They were just tested today to check on their progress for the school year and they scored well above their grade level