The judge who sentenced educators to jail for as long as seven years changed his mind.
“Before sentencing on April 14, Baxter had urged the convicted educators to accept an offer from prosecutors that would have allowed them to avoid extensive time behind bars in exchange for taking responsibility, apologizing and waiving their right to appeal. Only two accepted.
“Clearly rankled that the majority refused to accept the last-minute deal, Baxter sentenced the remaining eight educators to prison, reserving his harshest punishment for the highest-ranking educators. Sharon Davis-Williams, Michael Pitts and Tamara Cotman, all regional supervisors with Atlanta Public Schools, each received seven years in prison, 13 years of probation and a $25,000 fine.
“But a few days later, Baxter had second thoughts and notified the trio of senior administrators that he had scheduled another hearing. On Thursday, he reduced the administrators’ sentences to three years in prison and seven years of probation, with a $10,000 fine and 2,000 hours of community service.
“I’m going to put myself out to pasture in the not-too-distant future, and I don’t want to be out in the pasture with any regrets,” the judge said.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
FREE THEM! The government doling out these tests should be held responsible.
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I know a former police officer who was on his day off, went partying, drove home drunk, killed someone, left the scene of the accident, went home to sleep and reported his car stolen in order to cover his tracks. He was later convicted and served only five years. He just got out of jail. This is an injustice and a ridiculous abuse of the power of the law. Kill someone and attempt to it cover up and get only five years. Erase some bubbles and change answers on a baseless test and get seven years in prison. Incredible!
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Funny how these “evil” educators are going to jail, but the highest ranking general in the country convicted treason got two years probation and $100,000 fine…Crazy system
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Or about every Wall Street con man got bonuses for wrecking America.
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You are mistaken, John, if you are referring to Gen Petraus. He mishandled classified materials by giving documents to another person who had a security clearance. He did not destroy documents or lie about it. He was not guilty of treason. He did not profit from or intentionally place his country in danger. He is a respected military officer and warrior. I only wish I could say the same about several politicians.
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John, whoever it is, MUST cough up the name of the general and links to the facts to support John’s allegations. If John, doesn’t, then I label John a certified TROLL.
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Phew!
And I thought those poor Wall Street thugs, who have to toil 15 hours a day working to pillage and plunder the working class and to make upwards of $300,000 per year, were going to have to go to jail.
Thank goodness.
WIth the cost of jail at about a national average of $28,000 per inmate, I guess the overclass figures it is more cost effective not to fill the jails up, and limit the number of people who can be imprisoned. No wonder these several educators from Atlanta got jailed, as opposed to the thousands of hedge fund managers, stock brokers, and bankers out there who crashed our economy back in 2008.
Justice has been served.
Just not for ordinary folks . . . . .
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No prison time for any teacher or administrator who were pressured into high test scores for their schools. All theE educators need to appeal this bad decision by an obviously biased judge. What politicians is he beholden to? I hate this blaming of educators.
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Of course they wouldn’t fall on their knees and admit their sins! Not because they didn’t feel any responsibility for their actions but because he wanted them to waive their right to appeal. The former governor of Illinois has the right to appeal. I probably should say the former governors had the right to appeal. I don’t know how I feel about the punishment meted out to them. I’m glad I didn’t have to make the decision. There is a sense of justice given the number of teachers who were punished for refusing to participate. It’s not fair that the only people punished were the banksters’ victims in the financial meltdown, but how far do we carry the comparison? In the scheme of things, most of us will never even have the chance to screw millions of people financially much less get away with it. Does that mean that because the system is rigged for those wielding immense power that lesser crimes should be dismissed? As I said it is beyond me to figure out just consequences.
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The sentences should not have been more than token, such as three days, at most. I understand how they were pressured and may have even lost their jobs if they didn’t go along, but I don’t think it was excusable. I can’t even say I wouldn’t have done the same thing (I just don;t know) But maybe with this others will have a very compelling reason to not go along with the crazies who seem to be taking things over. Our public schools are being grotesquely perverted. I think those who say that “they” are out to destroy public education altogether have a lot of credibility. These educators going to jail will hopefully be seen down the road as martyrs. The only people with power to do something is parents. Oh yes, and the voters.
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“. . . such as three days, at most.”
and returning any bonuses they may have received that resulted from their actions.
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The average teacher bonus (Atlanta Journal), was less than $3,000.
90% of the principals, whose schools didn’t achieve the designated pattern of shaded test circles, were fired by the superintendent, whose bonus over 10 years, was $345,000. (British newspaper, The Guardian)
Few mid-career people, particularly those who thought they were making a positive difference, would have abandoned their profession over graphite and bubbles.
To rob teachers of power and autonomy and then expect professional standards from them, is unconscionable.
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When will Michelle Rhee get her day in court with a similar prison sentence?
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Agreed!!!
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Thanks, Jon Stewart.
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Jon Stewart’s little excerpt was HILARIOUS as well as SPOT ON! Hope everyone has watched it!
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All the doublespeak is wearing me down. We teachers have suffered more than enough DOUBLESPEAK at every turn. So much doublespeak our professional lives resemble a childhood game often played on family car trips or in school yards… where “everything you say is the opposite”… So differentiation means pushing a one-size-fits-all rubric centric system on all teachers. Where accountability means creating impossible standards to meet for those who you want to wear down to the point of firing, leaving the profession or early retirement, where data means a bunch of thrown together statistically invalid numbers in accountability pretend land! Accountability has been a favorite “corporate ed reform” mantra. So when push comes to shove, those at the very top of the food chain who hold complete power and have used it and abuses it in the most heinous ways should be held accountable. Are all these teachers in Atlanta who now have police records and loss of their profession victims? When circumstances are dire it can lead good people to make very bad decisions. Who at the top echelons will be held accountable for their VERY BAD DECISIONS that effected an entire nation of public school children and the professionals working in the public school system? Who? This judge should have seen this when making his decision. He did not. Which politician will be willing to step up to the plate on this one?
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“When circumstances are dire it can lead good people to make very bad decisions.”
Arendt’s banality of evil comes to mind. And yes much of current educational malpractice comes under the banner of “evil”.
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“Arendt’s banality of evil”.
The Arendt Center at Bard College, in 2012, repeated the right-wing alarm about a widespread pension crisis and followed-up with a defense, quoting Frank Keegan. In the defense, State Budget Solutions (at one time, SBS’s website identified itself as a partnership with ALEC and the Franklin Center) was mentioned. I didn’t see the link made, between the organization and the Koch’s nor, to Keegan, in the content of the article.
In the conversation threads, the addition of a refocus on battling claims about the Center being left-wing and right-wing, seemed to me, to be a familiar, tired construct of the right wing. If like so many other organizations, the Center just initially picked up on a popular theme and didn’t know what to do when challenged, it’s unfortunate.
If you have time, I’m curious what your perspective is.
I would like to think well of Arendt and Bard.
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The more I read and the more I think about the treatment of educators it is starting to parallel the expectations in the Old Testament.
There were impossible standards established. When the people could not meet those standards they were punished severely, frequently by death.
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Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Texas Education.
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These educators were found guilty before a trial. The resulting court show was a formality for a little judge to do some big grandstanding.
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I don’t know why this even went to the courts. This is an internal matter and should have been dealt with at the local or state ed level with at most a loss of teaching certificate.
These teachers were victims of coercion. And their actions are not unique – I’ve seen and/or suspected similar activities in other schools.
Whenever standardized test scores rise dramatically, there better be a specific reason you can point to, otherwise look at those bubble sheets.
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Meanwhile, war criminals George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and all their war criminal cronies walk free, and David Petraeus, who gave classified national security information to his mistress/biographer, gets a fine and probation. Did the Atlanta teachers do more harm than these “patriots”?
The criminal justice system is truly “criminal”, and yet another example of the inequality in the U.S.
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