Dear Commons Community,

Eleven former Atlanta public school educators were convicted Wednesday of racketeering for their role in a scheme to inflate students’ scores on standardized exams.   More than two years after dozens of people were indicted over a widespread cheating scandal in the Atlanta public school system, a jury found former teachers and educators guilty yesterday of conspiring to change test scores.

The lengthy trial focused on a scandal that had drawn widespread attention as teachers and principals from elementary and middle schools were charged with racketeering. Many of them later took plea deals to avoid the trial, with some pleading guilty and agreeing to probation, community service as well as vowing to apologize.  Twelve decided to stand trial.   As reported in the New York Times:

“Our entire effort in this case was simply to get our community to stop and take a look at our educational system,” District Attorney Paul L. Howard Jr. said, adding, “I think because of the decision of this jury today that people will stop. I think people will stop, and they will make an assessment of our educational system.”

The dozen educators who stood trial, including five teachers and a principal, were indicted in 2013 after years of questions about how Atlanta students had substantially improved their scores on the Criterion-Referenced Competency Test, a standardized examination given throughout Georgia.

In 2009, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution started publishing a series of articles that sowed suspicion about the veracity of the test scores, and Gov. Sonny Perdue ultimately ordered an investigation.

The inquiry, which was completed in 2011, led to findings that were startling and unsparing: Investigators concluded that cheating had occurred in at least 44 schools and that the district had been troubled by “organized and systemic misconduct.” Nearly 180 employees, including 38 principals, were accused of wrongdoing as part of an effort to inflate test scores and misrepresent the achievement of Atlanta’s students and schools.

The investigators wrote that cheating was particularly ingrained in individual schools — at one, for instance, a principal wore gloves while she altered answer sheets — but they also said that the district’s top officials, including Superintendent Beverly L. Hall, bore some responsibility.

Investigators wrote in the report that Dr. Hall and her aides had “created a culture of fear, intimidation and retaliation” that had permitted “cheating — at all levels — to go unchecked for years.”

Officials said the cheating allowed employees to collect bonuses and helped improve the reputations of both Dr. Hall and the perpetually troubled school district she had led since 1999.  Dr. Hall died earlier this year on March 2^nd.”

This whole episode is an indictment of an education system that became obsessed with test sores and student assessments.  This scandal has become another factor in an increasing debate over testing and its role in education.

“People know that the test scores are flawed for a variety of reasons and that they cannot be relied on as the sole or primary factor to make high-stakes decisions,” said Robert A. Schaeffer, the public education director of the National Center for Fair & Open Testing.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Calling themselves the “Corinthian 100” – named for the troubled Corinthian Colleges, Inc., which operated Everest College, Heald College and WyoTech before agreeing last summer to sell or close its 100-plus campuses – about 100 current and former students are refusing to pay back their loans. They’re met yesterday with officials from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an independent government agency that already has asked the courts to grant relief to Corinthian students who collectively have taken out more than $500 million in private student loans.The United States Education Department is the group’s primary target, because they want the department to discharge their loans.  As reported in the Associated Press:

“Denise Horn, an Education Department spokeswoman, said the department has taken steps to help Corinthian students, but is urging them to make payments to avoid default. The department has income-based repayment options.

By not paying back their loans, the former Corinthian students potentially face a host of financial problems, such as poor credit ratings and greater debt because of interest accrued.

The former students argue that the department should have done a better job regulating the schools and informing students that they were under investigation.

“I would like to see them have to answer for why they allowed these schools to continue to take federal loans out when they were under investigation for the fraudulent activity they were doing,” said Dieffenbacher, 37.

Dieffenbacher said she received an associate’s degree in paralegal studies from Everest College in Ontario, California, and later went back for a bachelor’s in criminal justice before later dropping out. She said she left school with about $80,000 in federal loans and $30,000 in private loans, but when she went to apply for jobs at law firms she was told her studies didn’t count for anything.

Dieffenbacher, who works in collections for a property management company, said she was allowed at first to defer her loan payments, but now should be paying about $1,500 a month that she can’t afford.

Makenzie Vasquez, of Santa Cruz, California, said she left an eight-month program to become a medical assistant at Everest College in San Jose after six months because she couldn’t afford the monthly fees. She said she owes about $31,000 and went into default in November because she hasn’t started repayment.

“I just turned 22 and I have this much debt and I have nothing to show for it,” said Vasquez, a server at an Italian restaurant.

Many of Corinthian’s troubles came to light last year after it was placed by the Education Department on heightened cash monitoring with a 21-day waiting period for federal funds. That was after the department said it failed to provide adequate paperwork and comply with requests to address concerns about the company’s practices, which included allegations of falsifying job placement data used in marketing claims and of altered grades and attendance records.

On Tuesday, the Education Department released a list of 560 institutions – including for-profit, private and public colleges – that had been placed on heightened cash monitoring, meaning the department’s Federal Student Aid Office is providing additional oversight of the schools for financial or compliance issues. The department said the effort was done to “increase transparency and accountability.”

The administration has taken other steps to crack down on the for-profit college industry, such as announcing a new rule last year that would require career training programs to show that students can earn enough money after graduation to pay off their loans. The rule has been challenged in court by the for-profit education sector.”

These students deserve to get some relieved from their debt.  The U.S. Department of Education has terribly mismanaged the college student loan program and has allowed unscrupulous colleges (mostly for-profits) to defraud students and the federal government.

Tony