Georgia Standardized Testing Fraud

http://www.cnn.com/2015/04/14/us/georgia-atlanta-public-schools-cheating-scandal-verdicts/

          On Monday April 13, several of the educators in the Atlanta school district were sentenced to several years in prison, hefty fines, and countless hours of community service for racketeering and changing answers on students tests or urging them to change answers. This problem stems back to over a decade ago when some Atlanta public schools in 2001 showed a remarkable increase on their standardized testing scores. In 2013 people took notice of that and many Atlanta educators were charged with racketeering and cheating. The judge said that if they plead guilty they would have to issue a public apology and do some community service. Many educators took them up on that offer and over 20 took the deal. Some, however, figured it was a victimless crime and they could get away with it and it wouldn't be proven. Obviously they were quite wrong. This led to many long court sessions of bickering and arguing in the court room which came to a head on Monday when the teachers were found guilty. The teachers, principals, and even superintendents were shown to have had told kids to change answers on standardized testing and even had "cheating parties" where they would get together and change answers on the tests. They did this to receive more money from the United States government for getting high test scores and also to advance their own careers and keep their jobs. Some may have even done it based on pride.
         The claim that this cheating did not victimize anyone is completely and utterly false. First off it harms taxpayers who are paying for these teachers and schools to receive bonuses that they did not earn. More importantly however, this system turns students into victims. Historically these districts have been some of the worst in America. Instead of trying to solve this problem of poorly educated students, those so-called educators took the easy way out and cheated. They made the kids appear average or above average on their tests when n fact many of them were unable to read or could barely do basic math as the judge, Jerry Baxter, pointed out. Judge Baxter also pointed out that many of these students he later had to put in jail and will have to put in jail due to their lack of education and inevitable life on the streets. The ironic thing here is that if the teachers would have spent as much time and effort that they did on cheating, had they used it instead on working with these students to educate them they likely would have done better on the tests as well as in life. These teachers should be ashamed of themselves for cheating, and by doing so harming their own students.