Having lived in Atlanta, I totally get how a school system-wide cheating scandal — involving 178 teachers and 44 principals — can happen there.
Given today’s accent on accountability — and subsequent increased use of standardized testing to quantify results — pressure in general has been ratcheting up on teachers and schools across the country. Whether in the form of a “No Child Left Behind” dictate or regional variations on a theme. But Atlanta is unique.
It is justifiably proud of its significant black middle class. Nothing like it exists in Tampa, for example. It has long billed itself as the city that’s “too busy to hate.” As in too progressive to traffic in such. It would never be confused with Birmingham or Biloxi. It has a history of black mayors, police commissioners, fire chiefs and school superintendents — in eras when other cities could only ponder when that day might — if ever — arrive for them.
All cities like to burnish their image, but few cities have been more notorious about cooking the crime-statistics books than Atlanta. Especially downtown. The data could undermine the convention business. And make a lot of important people of color look really bad.
Now we have a parallel set of cooked books in the school system, one that is demographically skewed African-American and impoverished. State investigators determined that a pattern of “organized and systematic misconduct” — forged test scores — had been going on for a decade. A culture of fear and intimidation became engrained. As a result, students were passed along unqualified and unprepared to the next grade, where they would have to be Ponzi-schemed to be promoted again.
While Atlanta did a house-cleaning, the impact will continue to be felt for years. Remedial tutoring will become routine, but it’s no panacea. Students are the real losers. Worse yet, those kids who legitimately overcame the odds and earned their promotions might find their accomplishments questioned — or stigmatized — by the cheating scandal.
Yes, image is important. And Atlanta has always been Exhibit A for a special brand of Southern civic pride and accomplishment
But now it’s also a cautionary tale for racial hubris. Standardized testing works best when all the variables are standardized. But they never are. And that notably includes the school district of Atlanta, and the city that’s been too enamored of image to be well-schooled in transparency.