Atlanta educators convicted of racketeering in test cheating case

An Atlanta jury returned guilty verdicts Wednesday on state racketeering charges against 11 of 12 former Atlanta Public Schools teachers and administrators.

The prosecution introduced evidence showing the defendants systematically falsified student answers on standardized tests in order to improve school performance and collect bonuses. The jury found the 11 defendants guilty of conspiracy to engage in racketeering, which requires proof of an agreement to commit more than one offense as part of a criminal enterprise.

The criminal charges followed a massive investigation by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation of suspicious “wrong-to-right” erasures on student answer sheets in the Criterion-Referenced Competency Test, used throughout Georgia. In 2010, former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue appointed a task force, including former Georgia Attorney General Michael Bowers, to spearhead the investigation. After the verdicts, Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard said the criminal case was the “longest, most complex case we’ve ever tried in Fulton County.”

The case began in March 2013 with indictments against 35 defendants. Many of them pleaded guilty and testified at trial against the remaining defendants. Former Superintendent Beverly Hall was indicted but died of breast cancer before her trial.

Some experts believe the Atlanta Public School cheating scandal is one of the most serious in the history of American education. The state investigation showed Hall demanded ever improving test scores for the system’s 50,000 students, earning for herself and other administrators bonuses, national accolades, and awards. That pressure led some educators to cheat. The investigation found Hall and her aides “created a culture of fear, intimidation and retaliation.” The indictments charged defendants with crimes spread over eight years, from 2005 to 2012.

Other school systems across the nation, also have had suspicious jumps in test scores over multiple years, according to investigative reports in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Judge Jerry Baxter ordered 10 of the 11 defendants taken into custody immediately after the verdicts were read. He made an exception for one pregnant defendant. Sentencing is set for April 13. All face a maximum 20 years in prison and a fine based on the “pecuniary value gained” from the violation. Criminal defense attorney John Lovell, a former assistant district attorney in the same court, suspects the judge’s actions after the verdicts “showed his intentions to sentence the defendants to prison.”

Although the trial focused on the actions of teachers and administrators, Howard emphasized the student victims when he announced charges in 2013. Several students who had their test answers changed had learning difficulties that went unaddressed because of their falsified test scores. Richard Quartarone, a father of two children in an Atlanta school, said he regretted kids “were denied the opportunity to learn.”