"She was referring to previous years when ...rules were different"

Tribunals fire two in APS cheating cases | ajc.com

There's always a reason it isn't really cheating. I didn't know you meant that. I was just clarifying the question. I only told students to recheck their answers. This isn't an unbiased panel. You can't judge me. I did that when I taught second grade: The rules were different. It was just to get them to focus.

The educators being slowly processed through their tribunals are not producing the "smoking gun" testimony I'm looking for. It's an open secret that the SRT directors were telling their principals to raise the test scores by any means necessary or face non-renewal of contracts--a threat passed on to the teachers. It's a mystery to me why this isn't coming out in these hearings.

Can it be that the teachers are still too terrified to name names?

Told you so

Hall a no-show at APS cheating tribunal | ajc.com
The former superintendent [Beverly Hall], who retired as the standardized test cheating scandal consumed her district, was subpoenaed by [Camille] Neely’s attorney to testify at Thursday’s hearing.
The attorney, Michael King, said he wanted Hall to testify about whether she knew his client was accused of changing answers on the 2009 Criterion-Referenced Competency Test when Neely taught third grade at Gideons Elementary School.
Thomas Cox, an attorney representing APS, and Richard Dean, Hall’s personal attorney, noted that Hall, who didn't attend the hearing, received King’s subpoena Wednesday afternoon.
“She got it with such short notice, and she could not rearrange her affairs to be here,” Dean said.

I'm sure her days are packed. Otherwise, she would have been delighted to repeat her often-invoked mantra that she don't know nothin' 'bout changin' no test scores.

In a pig's eye. You know it, I know it, and Neely and her attorney both know that there wasn't a snowball's chance Hall would show. They're laying the groundwork for Hall's absence to justify moving for a mistrial (or whatever one calls the equivalent dismissal of an APS tribunal hearing).

It probably would have worked if Hall were still the superintendent.

"Cheating is a risk that can be anticipated"

Retired Deerwood educators say they had OK to cheat | ajc.com
"She didn't know anything, and no one told her anything about cheating," he [Tabeeka Jordan's attorney, George Lawson] said.

I'm really trying not to pick on individual educators on trial (I'll admit it's the SRT directors and others who oversee principals that I'm eager to see fry), but Tabeeka Jordan's hearing is the second recently in which the principal claimed that she isn't responsible for conduct she didn't know about. (There's a lot of that going around. More than one principal named in the Bowers/Wilson report said "If I don't see it, I don't have to report it.")

And it's the first hearing in which Superintendent Erroll Davis himself appeared, to say what he's said before:

"From a leadership perspective, what I see here is a complete and utter failure to exercise appropriate duty of care," he said. "Cheating is a risk that can be anticipated. It is one that can be managed. In this case, I saw it as being mismanaged."

Yes, Madame Principal, you are responsible. It's your job to know what's going on in your own school. That's the price of that comfy chair. "Knew or should have known." Accomplice or stooge.

Racial integration is a distraction

A nation grows more diverse as many of its schools grow less | Get Schooled
I have written a lot about the resurgence of segregated schools in the South, not by court order, but by housing choices.
Despite the hopes of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, court-ordered school desegregation never led to full community integration.
...When the Harvard Civil Rights Project looked at race and education 10 years ago, it concluded that metro Atlanta’s suburban residential segregation was the cause of its school resegregation.

Suburban residential segregation? Oh, I get it. This is code for "white flight". It's all those white folks who are leaving town and taking their school-age children with them. They're the problem. If they had stayed, no way would APS have let these schools get this bad.

We aren't able to build and administer schools of equal quality in black and white neighborhoods. Clearly integration is the only fix. But we can't have an integrated school system if we still have segregated neighborhoods.

So, what's the answer?

We tried busing students around town, artificially creating the racial mix we wanted regardless of where the children actually live. That worked so poorly and generated such ill will on every side that to this day, in many neighborhoods, "busing" is a four-letter word.

It's not possible to gerrymander a school's attendance zone to achieve that mix: Atlanta is a majority-black city, and has been since the 70s.

And we can't force people to live where there presence will satisfy some misguided notion of racial balance.

And we certainly can't fudge the test figures so that the students in the Schools That Suck appear to be learning just as much as the students in the Schools That Excel. We're seeing where that road leads.

The fix, if there is to be one, lies in refuting the assumption I breezed by without challenge: We aren't able to build and administer schools of equal quality in black and white neighborhoods.

I don't believe that for a minute. This attitude cannot be tolerated. We don't have that luxury. The basics of language, mathematics, science and social studies are color blind. Shuffling students around to achieve someone's idea of a pleasing racial mix is not only unpleasant and ineffective, but irrelevant to the school's mission. Forced integration is a distraction.

We can, if we have the determination and courage to do so, create schools that all have the same standards no matter what color the surrounding neighborhood is. But in order to do this, we also have to have parents who expect--demand!-- that their children meet those standards and master the academic content even if the parents haven't. Because that's the biggest difference between the Schools That Suck and the Schools That Excel: The presence, or absence, of a home and neighborhood environment in which scholastic achievement is viewed as a good thing.

It can be done, but the odds don't favor it.

Don't bother

A human side of APS scandal | ajc.com
In the most alarming and troubling moment of the tribunal that day, former Slater teacher Nettie Walker, who has resigned, acknowledged that she cheated. The first-grade teacher said she pointed out answers to students, and she corrected answers on student tests.

The writer (who also happens to be AJC's editor) is apparently more alarmed by this than the fact that Ms Walker, having resigned, faces no further censure from APS while Vanessa Jackson, the testing coordinator whose hearing this is, faces termination, certificate suspension and criminal charges.

This, and pointing out that Vanessa Jackson, her husband, and the three members of APS' tribunal all had lunch at the same Subway, is what they consider "putting a human side" to this story. (If you haven't spent much time at the APS CLL building, you may not know that options are severely limited. Do a Google Maps search for "lunch" near 130 Trinity Avenue.)

Does anybody want to talk to the students with questionable test scores? The ones who went to middle school unprepared for its academic demands?

While we're looking for human faces, who got those financial bonuses that these rigged test scores "earned"?

On top of everything else going on at APS

Alleged illegal immigrants arrested at APS schools | FOX 5
FOX 5 has learned illegal workers cleaning Slater and Adamsville Elementary Schools were arrested and hauled off to jail.
"Our security director was at Slater Elementary investigating something else and she happened to come across three contractual custodial workers there and she inquired into their identification, saw that they were fraudulent and immediately arrested them for having fraudulent documentation being on district property illegally," said APS spokesperson Keith Bromery.
...FOX 5 has learned that four additional illegal workers were handcuffed at district headquarters while trying to become certified to work for APS.
"The people who were doing the processing for us noted that there were suspicions about their documentation, so security was called, came and four individuals were arrested for attempting to use fraudulent documents," said Bromery.

APS has already announced they plan to lay off as many as 100 janitors in favor of outsourcing the work (which will cost less in employee benefits). I'm sure they didn't anticipate having to arrest them, but hey, whatever seems appropriate.

May be easier than you think

APS board approves plan to cut nearly 500 jobs | ajc.com
The school board approved a plan Monday to cut up to 475 jobs, including about 230 teachers, 90 custodians and 14 bus drivers and transportation staffers. Some of the layoffs are a result of a recent school redistricting, others because of declining revenue.
“We’re going to rethink almost everything we do, from the classroom to central offices,” said Chuck Burbridge, APS' chief financial officer.

Look, with salaries and benefits accounting for about 80% of APS' expenses, it's unrealistic to expect or demand no payroll cuts. Just resolving those cheating suspensions will be a big help (assuming the Dirty Quarter-Dozen don't win that stupid lawsuit).

Next year's budget does include some funding for improvements. The district plans to add an assistant principal at every school -- something promised during a massive school rezoning approved last month. Nurses will work five days a week in every school, and a police investigator will also be funded for each APS cluster.

The need for assistant principals, nurses, and on-call police investigators seems obvious.

Talk Up APS Live Blog

LIVE BLOG: Board of Education Meeting – May 14, 2012 | Talk Up APS
Today we will have a 2pm Committee of the Whole meeting, followed by a 6pm Community Meeting and finally a 7pm Legislative Meeting. The Legislative Meeting is available to view on Cable Channel 22 after the meeting concludes.

Somebody wants to move into an empty APS school?

APS Redistricting: Wesley International Academy Wants To Utilize Cook Campus - East Atlanta, GA Patch
A group of parents at Wesley International Academy in Custer/McDonough/Guice have started a petition to convince Atlanta Public Schools officials that the public charter school should be allowed to move in to Cook Elementary School.
Cook, which is a few miles away from Wesley's current home on Custer Avenue SE, is one of seven APS schools that will close at the end of the 2011-12 school year.
...APS is considering using Cook's facilities as additional office space for the district and teacher training site because of its proximity to Georgia State University.
But [Andrea] Knight [the Grant Park parent who started the petition and whose children attend Wesley] said APS has closed schools in Old Fourth Ward that are much closer to GSU than Cook.

I thought Davis wanted to use Cook as a 6th grade academy extension of Inman. Without that, it looks like Inman will lose pretty much all of its soccer field to classroom trailers.

It makes sense that the Cook facility would be the one APS won't have trouble finding a new tenant for. Of all the schools scheduled to close, it's in the best shape. Heck, compared to a lot of schools that are staying open it's in pretty good shape, having been renovated fairly recently. And Wesley International pays $875,000 a year in rent for its current home: The thought of keeping that money "in the family" must be attractive to both Wesley and Davis.

Still think this is just a game?

Racketeering expert aiding APS investigation | ajc.com
Atlanta lawyer John Floyd, who has served as a special prosecutor in a number of high-profile cases, is working with the District Attorney's Office as a grand jury investigates the scandal, lawyers familiar with the probe said.
It is unclear how close [Fulton County District Attorney Paul] Howard is to deciding whether to ask the grand jury to hand up indictments in the APS case. It also remains to be seen whether racketeering charges will be sought and, if so, who would be the possible targets. But bringing Floyd into the case shows the charges must be under consideration.

It's hard not to see this revelation as a direct response to the Dirty Quarter-Dozen's threat to sue over delays in scheduling their APS tribunals. Those delays, APS says, are because the DA's office hasn't released its evidence or decided whether and whom to prosecute to what degree.

Nothing would make me happier than seeing Cotman, Pitts and Williams face racketeering charges... unless it would be seeing them found guilty. That would be appropriate restitution. They should be well convinced by now that an APS tribunal is the least of their problems.

Return of the Dirty Quarter-Dozen

Three accused of cheating sue APS for $6 million | ajc.com
Several educators, including [Tamara] Cotman, [Michael] Pitts and [Sharon] Davis Williams [three of the four ex-SRT Directors], were notified their contracts would not be renewed next school year. When a contract is “nonrenewed” an administrator isn’t entitled to the same job protection rights as one whose contract is terminated while in progress.
But Cotman, Pitts and Davis Williams, who each earn six-figure salaries, want a court to order the hearing promised to them by law.
Attorney Michael King, who is a member of the Clayton County school board and represents one Atlanta teacher named in the investigation, said the executive directors don’t have a case under Georgia fair dismissal law. Administrators generally aren’t entitled to due process rights if their contract is not renewed, he said.
“The nonrenewal will supersede any attempt to terminate a contract,” he said. “Administrators serve at the pleasure of the superintendent.”

Oh, this is really funny. Larry, Moe and Curly here are very familiar with "contract nonrenewal." They used it liberally to terrorize teachers into fudging CRCT scores, among other things. I'm just sorry APS didn't do it last year, when it would have saved them $430,000.

More certificates revoked, more suspensions

10 in cheating scandal to have certificates revoked, 23 to face suspensions | ajc.com
Another 33 educators were disciplined Thursday for their involvement in widespread test-cheating in Atlanta Public Schools, including 10 who will have their teaching certificates permanently revoked by the state.
Sixty-seven more educators still face PSC sanctions, but their cases cannot go forward until Fulton District Attorney releases evidence in his criminal probe of the cheating, said Kelly Henson, the PSC's executive secretary.

No names were released, but then I'm really not interested in further embarrassing teachers coerced or terrorized into cheating. You know who I want to see take their medicine.

Musical Chairs

2012-2013 Administrative and Special Needs Transfer Applications | Talk Up APS

In previous years, APS has made this information extremely difficult to find. I'm pleasantly surprised to find it so prominently placed on their public relations blog, "Talk Up APS".

Still, there is room for improvement: They're not really demonstrating a firm grasp of this newfangled Internet thing. There’s no reason for this announcement to be a PNG graphic instead of text. The beauty of web browsers (the software you're using to read this, whether Microsoft Internet Explorer, Apple Safari, Google Chrome, Firefox, Opera...) is that each end user has the option to set a default text size and style to fit their readability needs and desires. Distributing this information as a graphic unnecessarily limits those options. I'd like to know why APS made this decision.

Another, more important consequence is that the address they give for APS' General Administrative Transfer information page is not a clickable link even though it looks like one. I don't think I'm guilty of overstatement to say this is inexcusable.

(UPDATE: Okay, maybe I'm wrong on this one. It didn't work from the RSS feed, but it did work from a different computer when I went there from APS home page.)

To say nothing of the possibility that the parents who need this information the most probably don’t own a computer. Indeed, they may not even read English. Is there a version of this in Spanish? Are flyers containing this information being distributed at the schools? (I ask only for my own amusement. I already know the answer. No principal will want to tell parents that they can transfer out, especially not when they just closed 7 schools for being under capacity.)

While I'm in the mood to complain, I'm not seeing any mention of this on APS' main site. Clicking on the "Talk Up APS" banner at the top of the page would take you there, but nothing says so.

I'm also not a big fan of making parents come down to the Taj Mahal, er, I mean, 130 Trinity, to apply for this. It was bad enough in previous years, when parents camped out ringing the old Howard High School building on John Wesley Dobbs Ave. as if they were waiting for Black Friday specials or concert tickets. Year after year hundreds of parents spend the night on the sidewalk, and year after year it takes APS by surprise--or they pretend it does. I guess the law requires them to make the transfer available, but it doesn't require them to make it easy.

But now, parents who drive their own cars have to pay to park for the privilege of camping out on the sidewalk. In the heart of downtown Atlanta, across the street from City Hall and the State Capitol.

C'mon, admit it, Transfer Administrators, you really like seeing all these people grovel for your attention, don't you?

PARENTS, here are some important tips:

If you're not on APS' doorstep when the office opens on the very first day they accept applications for administrative transfers, you're too late. There aren't nearly as many openings as there are students whose parents want them, especially not this year with so many schools closing.

Resign yourself to the likelihood that APS will not make the final decisions on these applications until after the fall semester starts. They're in no hurry; it's nothing to them. They want to see how many children actually show up for class before they determine the number of empty seats available.* Your child will probably have to spend a couple of weeks, perhaps a month, in the school you're fighting so hard to get him out of. 

Now, if every school were covering the same subjects in each grade, in the same order (which they're supposed to be doing), at the same rate, this might not be an issue. But since they're not, and since the school you're trying to transfer into is doing better than the school you're trying to escape from, your child could enter his new school anywhere from several days to a couple of weeks behind.

Good luck.

* This means that the parents who lie about their mailing addresses, and the ones who have their children "stay with their Aunt" in order to be "zoned" into their desired school, might effectively jump into line ahead of you, because they're gaming the system and you're trying to play by the rules.

These ARE the droids we're looking for

APS administrators sue district for millions in hearing dispute | www.wsbtv.com
The lawyer for three Atlanta Public Schools administrators says his clients are suing the district and its superintendent for millions because they didn't get the hearings they were promised.
Attorney George Lawson said he’s been fighting to save the reputation of those administrators for the past ten months. Letters from APS Superintendent Erroll Davis charge Tamara Cotman, Michael Pitts and Sharon Davis Williams with incompetency, insubordination and willful neglect of duties in the 2009 CRCT cheating test scandal.
The letter scheduled a hearing for them and their attorney last year, but the district requested delays twice.
...Now, those administrators have been notified their employment ends June 30.

They're suing APS? They haven't bled enough cash out of the system over the last decade? Big brass ones, that takes.

It's a little late to save their reputations. Everyone who's ever worked at APS knows who they are and how they work. These are three of the four regional assistant superintendents -- School Reform Team Directors, or SRT Directors -- at the heart of the Hall administration's "culture of fear and intimidation." Their guilt is unquestionable. But because they had the sense not to issue threats in writing, and because those who could testify against them have so far remained intimidated into silence, they may yet walk.

Please, Mr Davis, Professional Standards Commission, Mr District Attorney...don't let this happen. We're counting on you.

In case you've forgotten, here's the Bowers/Wilson "Special Investigation into CRCT Cheating at APS" in three parts, as archived by the AJC. Cotman, Pitts and Williams are all dealt with in Volume 3.

Volume 1: Overview, Interviews, School summaries
Volume 2: School summaries, cont.
Volume 3: Conclusions: Why cheating occurred and cover-up allegations

Guilty, guilty, guilty!

LATER: I've just learned that the delay arises from APS waiting for the DA to release evidence before seating these three before a tribunal. I hope they haven't waited too late.

"I can be in the fight for the children AND still expect reasonable pay"

“Fighting for the children while the shrapnel seems only to be killing teacher after teacher.” | Get Schooled [AJC]
Until I can pay for groceries or my light bill with my students’ appreciation or their test scores, school districts across the country must be willing to pay teachers for their services.

Here's where I lose every friend I have who's a teacher. I'm not convinced your pay is all that pitiful.

Don't give me that look. I know what you make. I do a teacher's income taxes every year.

Your financial situation sucks, that's true, but the biggest reason for that is all the school and office supplies you have to buy out of your own paycheck. I've seen too many schools where paper is as precious as money, where teachers who intend to give their students customized photocopied worksheets are expected to pay for the paper out of their own pockets. This is disgraceful.

True, you do take your uninterrupted two month vacation every summer (a luxury no other industry has) without receiving paychecks throughout. But the paychecks you do receive are a bit larger than equivalent level private sector employees, and with a bit of basic budgeting (the math you're supposed to be teaching my kids) you can get by. Or you can take a job teaching summer school.

But you do get paid a full year's salary for ten months work. (And you earn every dollar!) If any of you had spent any time in the private sector, you would know that. Every educator I know who has worked in both environments makes more in teaching than they make in the private sector. And when they work up the nerve to say so, the teachers around them close ranks and reply, "Wow, you must have had real $#!+ jobs."

No. Just normal. You have no idea how your teacher salary compares to normal. You've spent your entire life in the education industry and have nothing to compare it to. Some days, you seem aware of this, when you threaten to leave teaching because "you can't afford to stay". And then you get a look at what real jobs pay and you scurry back to school. But the lesson doesn't stick.

But your money is leeched away by the system for which you work. Middle-managers in other fields don't have to pay for their own paper in order to send interoffice memos. (I've worked for companies where I wished they did, just to motivate them to send fewer of them.) Education is structured in such a way that the daily work cannot be completed on the clock. The industry depends on unpaid volunteers or, worse, people who pay to volunteer for the privilege of helping you out. (You call them PTAs or PTSAs.) Or, if you can't get volunteers, you work long into the night without pay -- the true shame of the education industry.

I'd also ask you if you think you're getting a fair return on your investment from the unions you're required (or peer-pressured) to join.

There's plenty here that needs to be fixed. Your base salary isn't one of them. But the peripheral supplies and services you're forced to spend it on? That's something the school system should be providing at no expense to you. I get billed for the paint on your "teacher of the year" parking space. I'd much rather pay for your copy paper.

"I'm not responsible for the teacher"

Principal tells APS tribunal she isn't ‘responsible' for teachers | ajc.com
Principal Selena Dukes Walton testified Monday that she remains "very qualified" to oversee her elementary school because she had been unaware of the massive cheating by teachers on a test to determine how well they were educating students.
..."I am not responsible for something I did not know about," she said. "I'm not responsible for the teacher."

Wait. She should keep her job because she didn't know what was going on? That, I have to say, is new. Even Beverly Hall didn't go that far, preferring to stick to her assertion that it hasn't been proven cheating even happened.

Two other tribunals were scheduled for Tuesday but have been canceled. Lera Middlebrooks, a proctor at Perkerson Elementary School, was accused of cheating by a teacher there. Middlebrooks resigned, school district spokesman Keith Bromery said.

Well, then, somebody got his notes scrambled. According to that infamous Bowers-Wilson report to the governor, Middlebrooks was a Testing Coordinator (not merely a proctor, but a person to whom proctors would have reported) at Dunbar, not Perkerson. I suppose it doesn't matter so long as the APS tribunal keeps their notes straight. It's documented here, which is why it stuck in my mind. (Look for Middlebrooks' name in the Dunbar section, and prepare to be appalled.)

And oh, goody, this article features a scorecard-like update. Keep those coming!

UPDATE: See also Are principals accountable for the cheating on their watch? Should they be fired? | Get Schooled [AJC]

I'm back to my first response to the Hall / Bart Simpson defense of "I didn't do it, nobody saw me, you can't prove anything", which the addition of "I'm not responsible for knowing about it" just intensifies: You're either guilty or incompetent. "Knew, or should have known." Either way, you don't belong in that very cushy principal's chair.

You can't judge me

Teacher questions entire APS tribunal process in hearing - CBS Atlanta 46
Camille Neely was a teacher at Gideons Elementary School accused of getting a hold of secure test documents when she wasn't supposed to and of changing students' answers from wrong to right.
But her attorney, Michael King, said that the fact that the APS tribunal, made up of former educators who will decide whether or not she can keep her job, is selected and paid for by APS means they can't be unbiased.

"Forget this 'jury of my peers' charade! I get to say who my peers are, not you!"

King also argued that APS was blocking his ability to subpoena former APS Superintendent Beverly Hall, and that prosecution barely allowed him time to look at evidence against his client.

"You hear me? Beverly 'knew or should have known' Hall is my peer! Tamara 'tell the GBI to go to hell' Cotman is my peer! You have no right to judge me!"

Yeah, let's see how that works out for you.

It should be entertaining to see just how much time they can waste trying to force APS to find Hall and serve her with a subpoena. Perhaps Hall is eager for the opportunity to abandon her seclusion and put herself under oath to defend Neely, what with her own reputation blowing in the wind. That seems perfectly reasonable, doesn't it?

“We never met an initiative we didn’t like”

A long chat with Erroll Davis about APS and the cheating mess: “Only so many ways to perfume a pig.” | Get Schooled [ajc]
He said that he and his team have found 211 ongoing initiatives under way in APS with no one taking any account of whether the initiatives were doing any good.
APS partnered with all sorts of folks who announced that they had a $2 million grant ready to go if only the district kicked in $500,000 to make it happen, he said.
“We never met an initiative we didn’t like,” he said. APS opened its doors to everyone who claimed, “I am here and I want to help. We had 1,000 points of light, and no outcomes.”

So many commenters seem to think that Davis sounds just like Hall before him. I disagree. Hall claimed everything was going just fine, everything's looking up, the future's so bright etc. Davis has made no secret of the fact that the system was broken when he got it, and he's trying to fix it.

I'm sure there was at least one person at APS "taking account" of each initiative: The one whose wallet was benefitting by it. I'm equally sure that no one was verifying whether the initiatives were doing the children any good. Usually, people who spend that kind of money want to know what they bought: The apparent lack of outrage from these outside agencies says to me that they know what they bought. Many, if not most, of these "initiatives" were little better than money-laundering adventures.

Hall, her deputies and the SRT directors "knew or should have known"! That's where the real story is going to be here.

Now that really hurts

APS lets parents keep kids out of DH Stanton ES | 11alive.com
Monday night the board agreed to adjust the attendance zones in order to transfer the Cook students to a better performing school, Parkside Elementary School in nearby Grant Park, instead of to where the students were going to be transferred, D.H. Stanton ES -- which is a lower-performing school -- in the nearby Peoplestown neighborhood.

Well, gosh, how bad does a school have to be if even Cook parents don't want their children to go there? How insulting can you get?

Parkside is already running close to capacity without the extra Cook students. And the D.H. Stanton parents just won a major victory by mobilizing loudly enough to convince the board to let the school stay open despite Superintendent Davis' recommendation that they close it. If the parents whose children are getting zoned into it are going to say "no, thanks", you can bet D.H. Stanton will be right back on the "recommended to close" list next year -- and next time there will be no last-minute reprieve.

"It wasn't like I was trying to make them change their answers"

Tribunal dismisses teacher who gave students ‘look' when they erred on tests | ajc.com
Throughout teacher Sabrina Luckie’s tribunal hearing Monday, everyone kept talking about the "look."
Luckie, 28, admitted giving her students a look that expressed disappointment when they blackened the wrong ovals on a statewide test. She maintained, though, that she wasn't trying to get her first-graders at Fain Elementary School in Atlanta to change their answers.
...Following the tribunal's ruling, Luckie saw herself as a victim of a redistricting plan that includes closing a number of APS' low-income schools. "I just think they had an agenda of getting rid of the teachers without considering what really happened," she said.
...She said she knew that then-principal Marcus Stallworth had urged teachers to help students find the correct answers using "voice inflections" but that she declined to cheat.

What have I been saying all along? They don't think they've done anything wrong.

I don't want to single out Ms Luckie when there are dozens of teachers at APS who feel the same way. Not all of them were caught in the investigation, because many schools weren't investigated at all: Only the ones with truly outrageous levels of unlikely test score improvement. I wonder how many modest liars are going undetected.

..."It wasn't like I was looking at the children or trying to get their attention to make them change their answers," Luckie said.

Well, then, what is the point of sighing or eye-rolling or "the look" if you don't expect them to change their answers?