I saw a tweet with a petition to the judge in the Atlanta cheating case. After reading it, I signed it.
The punishment should fit the crime. No bankers or mortgage lenders were sent to jail for the crimes that nearly destroyed our economy and caused many people to lose their homes and savings.
The Atlanta educators cheated. They lost their professional licenses, five years of compensation, their pensions, and their reputation. Some are facing 20 years in prison. This is wrong.
If you agree, sign the petition. If you don’t,don’t sign it. Think about it.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I signed. The petition is well-written.
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I signed.
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I believe the punishment recommended thus far is sufficient. Let’s move forward. Education is a Civil Right.
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“Sufficient”?? Like people are arguing that it’s insufficient. Please.
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I signed and left a comment too.
How can the United States be the land of the free when it has more people in prison than any country on the planet, even Communist China, a country with more than four times the people? About the only freedom that’s left in the United States is the freedom to get wealthy any way you can without getting caught until you have so much money you own the government.
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http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/The-punishment-should-fit-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Bankers_Cheating_Children_Crime-150412-81.html#comment541062 cross posted at OEN
with this intro:Diane Ravitch says: “I Signed a Petition to Judge Baxter on Behalf of Atlanta Educators .I saw a tweet with a petition to the judge in the Atlanta cheating case. After reading it, I signed it. The punishment should fit the crime. No bankers or mortgage lenders were sent to jail for the crimes that nearly destroyed our economy and caused many people to lose their homes and savings. The Atlanta educators cheated. They lost their professional licenses, five years of compensation, their pensions, and their reputation. Some are facing 20 years in prison. This is wrong.If you agree, sign the petition. If you don’t,don’t sign it. Think about it!”
She is outraged at the media blitz & the punishment of Atlanta teachers who reacted to the pressure of the unfair tests by altering results so their kids did not face failure. This is NOT about teachers or schools. it is about hurting children.
MY COMMENT AT THE END:
I just want to cry for the children and the teachers who are subjected to the shame of these tests and the mandates from above that demand such insanity.
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Dianne,
Thanks ever so much for signing. I just signed and also donated to NY’s “Refuse the Tests Robocall.” May such an action happen in GA.
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Mercy is a sign of strength, not weakness.
I signed the petition.
Thank you to the owner of this blog for this posting.
😎
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I signed. It felt good. My prayers and hopes go to these teachers.
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I signed the petition yesterday. I agree that the punishment does not fit the crime. I like the comparison with the billionaires who got off scot free after crashing the economy. And they were considered “too big to fail,” so they received government bailouts from tax-payer dollars, which they then used to reward themselves hefty bonuses, without any penalties for doing so. AND they have not been prevented, through increased regulations, from doing it all over again, so they are still engaging in predatory practices and gambling with other people’s money in high-risk ventures. Not to mention the tax breaks they are given.
I think it’s the lawmakers and appointed officials responsible for NCLB and RttT, who set up children, teachers and schools to fail, who are the ones that are culpable of racketeering, in order to promote the hostile take-over of public education, to the benefit of crony profiteers, but they have continued to enjoy being treated with impunity as well.
It is so very disturbing to be living in a supposedly free society where our government gives preferential treatment to those who already have the most advantages in life and treats the rest of us as if we are their chattel and too small to succeed.
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Yes, that’s what it’s all about.
http://www.epi.org/publication/education-profiteering-wall-street/
For me, it is beyond disturbing. I am not suffering just from reform, but also have been destroyed by the housing game. I can’t even ever retire from the job that has been turned into another symptom of the country’s sickness, and I don’t know how much more I can take. I don’t know what is going to happen to me, and I ask myself daily what I ever did to deserve this. For me, it’s well beyond just disturbing.
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whoops – name
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Maybe I didn’t articulate my outrage strongly enough. In my mind, “so very” is at least twice beyond disturbing.
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“As members of the Atlanta community trying to rebuild the reputation of our city and our public schools, …”
I would gladly sign except for this clause; I am not a member of the Atlanta community even though I strongly believe the issue concerns us all.
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I signed it, and I clicked the box “other” before submitting. Reading about this a week or so ago, I felt the punishment was too much. No one was murdered; no on was swindled out of their life savings.
The Department of Ed did this, and is responsible for this. Were it not for the oppressive regime from the top down, and the desire to close schools, bust unions, segregate children, and give more profits to the charters and their backers, this would not have happened.
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I clicked “other” as well, and I thought it was readily apparent that they would know I’m not in Atlanta since it was required that I provide my zip code. To me, this is unquestionably the result of federal policies that impact all US communities.
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Okay, I signed it. Losing their licenses, five years of compensation, their pensions, and their reputations is more than enough. The lesson being sent is to be really powerful if you are going to cheat.
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I do not feel that these people should be subjected to long jail sentences but I would like to speak up for all the teachers that had to work under these teacher leaders. There were teachers who were fired, transferred, humiliated publicly and left the teaching profession because of the direct actions of these administrators. Yes, the buck should stop further up but to say the consequences have already been punished is to overlook the futures that were curtailed by the teachers who did not ‘go along to get along’. No one speaks up for them- the impact on the school system is one that will be weathered and the impact on the students is immeasurable but the impact these administrators had on teachers had a great ripple effect on the whole entire district. This chilling atmosphere was palpable and for those who could not get out from under these administrators paid a penalty with their truncated careers and blackened reputations.
I absolutely agree with the blinding hypocrisy of having banks too big to fail and hence bankers who get off scot free. No I don’t believe these educators should get 20 yrs but I do believe that an unbelievable amount of community service and minimum security prison- teaching should be entirely suitable. They helped feed the whole rhetoric that testing frenzy was possible and are partially responsible for feeding some students into the prison pipeline by denying them their rightful education when they were young. Heinous and criminal. So, I believe the comparison of bankers to teachers is a apples and oranges in comparing bankers greed and educator hubristic greed.
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Thank you so much for this. I am not going to sign; two wrongs don’t make a right. Jail the bankers.
These people are some of the scum of the earth. It is people like these who allowed the Holocaust to happen. Instead of resisting evil, they join it.
Additionally, they have further besmirched teachers, teaching, and – simply by extension – unions.
I’m just sorry Bev Hall wasn’t around to suffer more. I hope she would have had a longer sentence. If you have worked under someone who is buying into the reform movement; who makes you fear for your job; who slings around the terminology; who pits teachers against one another; who humiliates insults, and threatens, then you and your school are suffering. Such people make me utterly sick. They are the middle-men for wrong.
Put them away, and put the bankers in the cells next to them, for longer.
I will make a concession, though: I imagine some are more guilty and responsible than others, but I am not going to go through the case with a fine-tooth comb to figure out who. Anybody who directly had a threat of firing should not be imprisoned.
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I am appreciative that the petition was posted at this blog and, I signed it.
Rhetorically, what are the odds the Gates’ education journalists will address the
problem that his “charity” fostered. Will they sign the petition.
In comparison to the actions of the teachers in their small community, the crimes of the bankers affected us all. Widespread devastation and no consequence for those responsible-America’s version of a judicial system.
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the use of RICO laws did not fit the crime. (NCLB is the racket………….)
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If NCLB is the racket, enabling for-profit enterprises to siphon money away from schools, who should be prosecuted for racketeering?
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Diane, Do you have any idea how to answer your question, or is this what they really mean when they say, “too big to fail?” –It’s about CYA, like the claim that you “can’t fight city hall.” Large numbers of elites with political and economic clout are immune from prosecution no matter what, including those responsible for miscreant legislation that is likely to result in increased criminal activity amongst those most impacted by it. Justice is trampled in a plutocracy.
This makes me want to scream, “Freedom!”
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I vote for the Gates Foundation!
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To answer your prosecution for racketeering question, Diane, my #1 choice is, w/o a doubt, Pear$on head honchos & whoever is making $$$ off them. Millions of our taxpayer dollar$ meant for real education, being stuffed into the pocket$ of Pear$on. And, no, corporations are most certainly not people–it’s spelled PeAr$on, not person.
And how about adding child abuse to that racketeering charge?
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The RICO statutes were written to allow for criminal prosecution of leaders who order others to commit crimes. That being the case, there should be a wide-ranging investigation, leading to prosecution, of the heads of the so-called education reform nexus, to include the federal DOE ,foundations (Gates, Broad, Walton, Arnold, etc.), testing companies, advocacy groups such as Students First and the The New Teacher Project, enablers such as TFA, and academics-for-hire in places such as the Kennedy School of Government, the Harvard graduate School of education, the University of Washington and University of Arkansas, among many others.
The likelihood of this happening is close to zero, but those seeking to defend public education would do well to try to establish the meme of so-called education reform as a criminal. anti-democratic racket.
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I think we have to determine why the Sandia Report was buried. In my paranoid moments, this seems to be on the scale of Contra-gate and that we need to start with a congressional hearing about this Bubble-Gate. The saddest part is this reform movement is that was created by both parties and both parties seem to continue to endorse its worst components. .
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Generalizing- Kochs’ alma mater, MIT, seems to produce a number of economists, whose work after examined, is described as ideologically driven.
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I signed. Thanks for letting me know about it.
There is something very wrong with the treatment of these teachers. Yes, they did wrong but the stage for cheating was set by the federal government when they based NCLB on the “Texas Miracle.” Remember that? So far as I know, no one was punished for that.
If these teachers retain really good attorneys, a careful investigation will show that test invalidation has been occurring across the United States for some time, that the federal and state governments knew about it, and that nothing was done about it until Atlanta.
Here’s an example from my personal experience: About fifteen years ago I went up to my state representative and complained, “Everyone’s just cheating on these tests.” Without missing a beat, she replied, “Oh, we know that.”
Yes, cheating is wrong but so is targeting a few people for committing a crime that is widespread and mostly ignored and unpunished.
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Show trial???
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Could someone please explain this to me? If the standardized tests could not be used for diagnostic purposes because teachers have not been able to receive information about student test scores until the summer, after students have left their classes, nor could they access info about the specific items students got wrong on the tests, then how could the actions of these teachers be construed as preventing children from learning?
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Teacher Ed,
Don’t you know that it is impolite to ask logical questions. Be civil!
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That’s an excellent point.
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“. . . those seeking to defend public education would do well to try to establish the meme of so-called education reform as a criminal. anti-democratic racket.”
I am not so sure if it is criminal as the edudeformer crowd makes sure their dogma and pseudo-reform beliefs (the main one of which is having the ability to make unlimited money off the backs of the most innocent of society-the children and their education) are legal-legalized theft as it is. But it is definitely anti-democratic and more importantly COMPLETELY UNETHICAL in more ways than one and in some ways IMMORAL.
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I disagree. Here’s why. Fifteen years ago, I was fired by Chicago’s public schools (and subsequently blacklisted from teaching in the entire region) for publishing, in a newspaper I edited on my own time outside of school, the odious CASE (Chicago Academic Standards Examinations) tests. During the trials (I was sued for a million dollars in federal court by the Chicago Board of Education, charged with “copyright infringement”; the Board of Education also brought me up on administrative charges) we had some support from teachers, and some national backing from educators who even in 1999 and 2000 could testify to the odious reign of high stakes testing. Jerry Bracey and Monty Neill were my expert witnesses at the “trial.” Even though there was a major First Amendment issue, the reactionaries on the Courts (Richard Posner on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals) ignored my rights and let the Board of Education fire me.
Meanwhile, across the USA during those years, the Atlanta, D.C. and other places cheaters got promotions and praise (Atlanta’s cheating Supt. won “Supt of the Year,” for example). And it also took a great deal of time for some high officials (including Diane Ravitch) to realize that we were right all the time — and the cheaters were wrong.
Sorry. They knew what they were doing, as I did.
The difference was that I published the truth and the facts freely and openly and in public and fought for that right while others were still in the camp of what I was calling “The Testocracy” and Susan Ohanian was calling the “Standardistos.”
This August will be the 15th anniversary of the Chicago Board of Education meeting at which the members of the school board here voted unanimously to fire me and effectively end my teaching career for telling the truth and defying their “test secrecy” nonsense.
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Thank you for reminding us about the important people who made sacrifices, in the beginning. Those, who had prescience and the fortitude to stand against powerful people, did not do so in vain.
A professional who is a model of courage and civic responsibility is heroic. He should be honored.
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I signed it. Thanks, Diane.
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I thank chasingtheirtails for adding one comment other than just support.
I am not going to sign; two wrongs don’t make a right. Jail the bankers.
These people are some of the scum of the earth. It is people like these who allowed the Holocaust to happen. Instead of resisting evil, they join it.
Additionally, they have further besmirched teachers, teaching, and – simply by extension – unions.
I’m just sorry Bev Hall wasn’t around to suffer more. I hope she would have had a longer sentence. If you have worked under someone who is buying into the reform movement; who makes you fear for your job; who slings around the terminology; who pits teachers against one another; who humiliates insults, and threatens, then you and your school are suffering. Such people make me utterly sick. They are the middle-men for wrong. Those who suck up and do the bidding of their masters make the toxic environment that the rest of us have to work in. Teachers and administrators who stick together for right are good people who help make the suffering bearable, while those like the cheaters are feeding those who are killing us, who are driving us out, who are degrading and demoralizing us. They are, in short, part of the problem.
Put them away, and put the bankers in the cells next to them, for longer.
I will make a concession, though: I imagine some are more guilty and responsible than others, but I am not going to go through the case with a fine-tooth comb to figure out who. Anybody who directly had a threat of firing should not be imprisoned.
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Incidentally, we can surmise that they will not be in prison for 20 years, and, in my opinion, they should be serving some time.
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I signed. The punishment should fit the crime, and I understand the pressure for the school to perform. Those of you won’t sign and say jail the bankers, you know that’s not going to happen. Educators are easy pickin’ fruit. Sending those educators to jail puts a mark on you too.
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No, it’s not going to happen, but, as I said, two wrongs don’t make a right. Speak out and point out the hypocrisy, yes, but don’t let them get away. I think I made my reasons clear.
Put a mark on me, too? In what way? What do you mean?
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As educators, we are held to a higher standard because we are models for children, as well as the community. This is why I have long had serious concerns whenever teachers in my college courses have plagiarized. I think something is very wrong when nothing goes off in the brain of a teacher reminding them they are doing something that they would find to be unacceptable behavior in their own students.
Violating intellectual property rights is copyright infringement, aka stealing, which could result in prosecution and negative outcomes. I don’t, however, think such students should go to court or jail for that. I think they should not be teachers. The educators in Atlanta have already gotten that consequence. I signed the petition.
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I signed it, too.
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