1 When Teachers Cheat: The Atlanta Public Schools cheating scandal of 2009

(Note: one additional participant who did not ask to be listed as an author participated in this project.)

Introduction

Since 2006, Shayla Smith had been teaching fourth-grade at Dobbs Elementary, a poor school in a poor section of Atlanta (Rankin, 2013). By the end of the school year in 2010, a colleague accused her of cheating by giving students the correct exam answers (Bureau of Investigation, 2011). In 2011, a three-volume report was released by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation detailing widespread cheating involving approximately 178 administrators and teachers across 56 Atlanta Public Schools (Coston, 2011). Little did Smith know she would be part of this investigation and would later be terminated in 2012.

No Child Left Behind

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), promoted by the Bush administration, was the federal program of general education for K-12 in the United States from 2002-2015 (Lee, 2019). The main goal of this act was to provide more academic opportunities for students of colour, in poverty, and with exceptionalities. Under this act, standardized tests called Criterion Referenced Competency Tests (CRCT) were administered to all students (Lee, 2019). The testing was an attempt to bring all students including students in special education or any disadvantaged groups to the “proficient” level of education (Lee, 2019). After sharing their results with the state, each school received a “report card” called an Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) which determined the future of not only the schools as a whole, but also the faculty and administrators (Lee, 2019). This act helped to shine light on marginalized students requiring more attention and support, thereby increasing the graduation rate of students with learning disabilities from 57% in 2002 to 86% by 2011 (Lee, 2019). However, it had detrimental effects on the operation of schools that required improvement, like introducing penalties such as firing school staff and even closing schools (Lee, 2019).

Atlanta Public Schools

Atlanta Public Schools were overseen by superintendent Beverly Hall since 1999 (Coston, 2011). Hall ruled with a culture of fear and intimidation, which was exacerbated by the No Child Left Behind policy. If a school met a certain threshold of results under the NCLB Act, educators received roughly an average of $2,600, and as a superintendent, Hall received more than five times as much bonus pay (Niesse, 2013). Under this incentive, Hall mandated annual targets; the failure to meet these would have resulted in termination or threat of termination of employees (Strauss, 2015). Therefore, to satisfy Hall’s annual targets, teachers began to fabricate and alter test results, which ultimately resulted in an inflation of the AYP of a large number of schools in Atlanta (Strauss, 2015). The methods used ranged from giving students exam answers to erasing incorrect responses and altering exams (Coston, 2011). In addition to financial incentive, Hall “protected and rewarded those who achieved targets through cheating” (Strauss, 2015) to maintain the high-test outcomes.

Dobbs Elementary

Hall had influence over Dana Evans, the principal at Dobbs Elementary, where Shayla Smith taught (Bureau of Investigation, 2011). Hall’s consistent demand for high test scores ultimately led Evans to influence Dobbs faculty members by implying that they would all be placed on a professional development plan (PDP) – which could lead to their termination – if their students did not excel, as well as terminating those who reported suspected cheating (Bureau of Investigation, 2011). Principals were told to meet this standard by “any means necessary”, and failure led to the principals’ termination – as evident by the replacement of 90% of APS principals during Hall’s tenure (Coston, 2011).  This toxic power dynamic was seen across many other Atlanta Public Schools under the Hall’s administration. Jacquelyn Parks, a former Venetian Hills elementary school teacher, commented that the cheating environment was “like the mob”, as her fear of non-participation stemmed from the threat of punishments and retaliation by Superintendent Hall and her team (Coston, 2011).

Shayla Smith felt the immense pressure that trickled down from the superintendent. Consequently, during the 2007 CRCT, Smith “felt she had no choice” and began providing her students with answers to the multiple-choice questions as well as altering completed student exams which continued for an additional two years (Rankin, 2013). She was able to do this as she and other Dobbs teachers obtained photocopies of the CRCT exam (Bureau of Investigation, 2011). Following her termination, Smith later admitted to her role in the cheating scandal and apologized to her former students and their parents for what she had done, calling it “one of my biggest mistakes and regrets” (Rankin, 2013).

In February of 2009, the efforts executed by Dobbs’ faculty members as well as many other schools in Atlanta, resulted in Hall’s recognition as the national Superintendent of the Year, crediting her for the rise in test scores and graduation rates among APS (AJC, n.d.). The Atlanta Journal Constitution (AJC), however, viewed these statistics as improbable (AJC, n.d.). In addition to AJC’s suspicions, the Governor’s office of Student Achievement also found “suspicious erasure marks on thousands of students’ answer sheets” (AJC, n.d.). With that, in February of 2010, investigation began for the potential cheating among 191 schools statewide, which included 58 schools in Atlanta (AJC, n.d.).

Conclusion

Following the investigation, 178 teachers, principals and administration were reported from 44 Atlanta schools and 82 of those confessed to cheating. Of those who confessed, 38 were principals (AJC, n.d.). The final court ruling allowed 21 educators to return to their jobs due to inadequate evidence, and about 150 educators either lost their appeals to be reinstated; resigned; or retired (AJC, n.d.). In addition to being terminated, Smith was one of several educators who were also charged with willful neglect and immorality (Contributors, 2012), but she took a plea deal for a single misdemeanour count of obstruction in exchange for testifying against her colleagues (AJC, n.d.).

Beverly Hall herself could have faced upwards of 45 years in prison for racketeering and other offences, and for collecting about $580,000 in bonuses over 10 years, which predominantly came from her supposed achievement for the improvement in the Adequate Yearly Progress reports of Atlanta schools (Niesse, 2013). However, she was not able to attend trial due to her health issues, and she died in 2015 (AJC, n.d.)

Discussion Questions

1. What could have been done to prevent this scandal from happening?
2. How do you think this scandal relates to government involvement in the education system?
3. Why might some teachers feel they needed to alter the exam answers, while others chose to report the cheating?
4. What were the benefits of altering the exam answers? What were the harms? Do you think teachers’ involvement in altering exam answers or otherwise “contaminating” exam results can ever be ethically justifiable? Why or why not?

References

AJC. (n.d.). A timeline of the APS cheating scandal. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Retrieved March 11, 2024, from https://www.ajc.com/news/aps-scandal-timeline/

CONTRIBUTORS. (2012). ATL Teacher Helped Students Cheat Because They’re “Dumb As Hell.” The Black Youth Project. http://blackyouthproject.com/atl-teacher-helped-students-cheat-because-theyre-dumb-as-hell/

Coston, L. (2011). Report Eviscerates Atlanta Schools|for Decade of Systematic Cheating. CourtHouse News Services. https://www.courthousenews.com/report-eviscerates-atlanta-schoolsfor-decade-of-systematic-cheating/

Georgia Bureau of Investigation. (2011). Governor’s office of Student Achievement Report. CourtHouse News Services; Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20190412052936/http://files.courthousenews.com/2011/07/27/APS2.pdf

Lee, A. (2019). What is No Child Left Behind (NCLB)? Understood. https://www.understood.org/en/articles/no-child-left-behind-nclb-what-you-need-to-know

Niesse, M. (2013). Atlanta teacher bonus payments revealed. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. https://www.ajc.com/news/local/atlanta-teacher-bonus-payments-revealed/iFKsav7KNFVf1cDYnpYALI/

Rankin, B. (2013). Two more ex-teachers plead guilty to test tampering. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. https://www.ajc.com/news/local-education/two-more-teachers-plead-guilty-test-tampering/W1ITcltAt8AmU8areLO9FP/

Strauss, V. (2015). How and why convicted Atlanta teachers cheated on standardized tests. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2015/04/01/how-and-why-convicted-atlanta-teachers-cheated-on-standardized-tests/