"The Atlanta Public Schools system under [Hall's] guidance was a disaster"

I adore that image to the right, there. It came from The American (see below), and it's just perfect. It reminds me of one of the less obvious problems of standardized testing, one that, er, a particular educator I know told me about. Sometimes, when students have absolutely no clue what to do with the test (they may not even fully grasp the concept of "bubbling-in" the right answers), they'll make designs with the bubble patterns on the answer sheet. The teachers call this "christmas-treeing".

Well, anyway.

Investigators call APS under Hall a 'disaster' [WXIA]
APS investigators call the state of Atlanta schools under Dr. Beverly Hall a "disaster." In their first sit down interview, Mike Bowers and Bob Wilson talk about a "heartbreaking" culture of corruption.
...Wilson says he lost track of days, sitting in a conference room from 7:30 a.m. to 11 p.m., conducting and pouring over the 2,100 interviews they conducted and 800,000 documents they examined.

*sigh* That's poring, not pouring. But they're television reporters, they can't be expected to know how to spell.

Bowers and Wilson have pretty much concluded the Atlanta investigations, so there's nothing new to add here. However, you do get a sense of the scope of the investigations, and the reality of trudging through this tragic, shameful situation. It's important to remember that not everyone named in the report is a villain -- nor are the investigators.

But it was inevitable that, sooner or later, this crap was going to hit the fan.

More Cheating To Come...& Lessons Reformers Can Take from Atlanta [Education Week]
One key lesson from Atlanta is that civic leaders and the business community threw their influence behind Superintendent Hall because, as one local paper reported, she was "fluent in the language of corporate America." In doing so, they compromised their effectiveness and sacrificed their ability to constructively challenge the school system.
A second lesson that Atlanta highlights is the problem with presuming that school systems are being scrupulous with their data or open about their processes and problems.

The culture of secrecy manifested in plenty of ways. For all that APS struggled to hide its inner workings, they were hopelessly incompetent at hiding the fact that they had something to hide. But look how many lives were damaged before someone said "this cannot continue." As I've said, the wonder is not that the AJC caught them, but that it took so long.

The Atlanta Cheating Scandal's Tough Lessons for Business Leaders [The American]
As a seasoned legislative staffer who champions business involvement in education told us, “It makes a difference when a business person …[tells us], ‘I don’t care what your [standardized test] scores or your [reports] say, the kids who come to work for us can’t read.’” This valuable reality check was compromised in Atlanta when the business community threw its influence behind Superintendent Hall regardless of results, just because, as one local paper reported, she was “fluent in the language of corporate America.”

Mn. That phrase "fluent in the language of corporate America" keeps coming up. Because "The American" is a publication of the American Enterprise Institute, they may be looking to blame everything on Beverly Hall using her corporate wiles to delude the innocent businessmen of Atlanta. I'm not so sure. I can't say they're wrong, but I fear that willing co-conspirators may go unexamined.