Business as usual?

Investigation: Students given crossword instead of test | www.wsbtv.com
[WSB-TV] One parent filed a formal complaint against the district after a September 2009 incident at Carver High School of Technology in Southeast Atlanta.
Deirdre Cox told investigators her daughter, who has a learning disability, was "removed for the testing room, placed in an empty classroom and given a crossword puzzle."
Cox goes on to write in the complaint, "I have learned that other students with disabilities like my daughter and 'who could possibly jeopardize Carver's test scores' were not allowed to take the GHSGT test."
Atlanta Public Schools settled the case with the mother, and told Channel 2 Action News that there was no attempt to exclude students from the 11th grade writing test.

The unnamed spokesman says that this test wouldn't have affected Carver's AYP (adequate yearly progress) numbers anyway, so there would be no reason not to allow the student to take the test. Is that the best defense they can manage?

This may well be a case of one parent blowing an isolated incident out of proportion: That explanation actually feels right here. But in light of APS' current reputation, it's worth remembering that in the "widespread" CRCT scandals, most of the district wasn't investigated at all. They found cheating in every school they checked, but they only checked a relative few, the ones where complaints were so outrageous they couldn't be ignored. Not that APS didn't try.