What can we learn from the Atlanta cheating scandal?  

Although regarded as a singularly corrupt set of actions, the underlying conditions of the Atlanta cheating scandal are all too common in American public education. Lessons from this episode can help educators, policy makers, and ultimately students going forward. 

 

In April 2015, 11 educators were convicted for their roles in the cheating scandal in the Atlanta Public Schools. Widespread media reports on the trial, as well as the report by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) detailed the scheme by teachers, principals, and district administrators to alter student answers on standardized tests. The GBI identified 178 teachers and principals; 82 confessed to cheating of some kind. The main report and subsequent trial used the high number of erasure marks on criterion-referenced competency tests to demonstrate that cheating had occurred.  

Although the Atlanta episode is the largest cheating scandal in U.S. history, it is not unique. Cheating scandals, altering test scores, or other maleficence have occurred in Ohio, Washington, D.C., and Texas. In Columbus, Ohio, schools officials were found guilty of falsifying student attendance and grade records. The Atlanta scandal provides three main lessons that can better prepare teachers and principals to navigate the high-stakes environment in chronically low-performing districts. 

We’ve spent the last year reading through newspaper articles, investigation reports, and court records regarding Atlanta’s cheating scandal. While many have written scathing editorials and opinion pieces about the administrators involved, we hope to shift the conversation from detailing past mistakes to identifying lessons learned from this set of unfortunate actions. While it is easy to portray those involved as fundamentally different than other educators, conditions in the district were similar to many urban, chronically underperforming districts throughout the country. In fact, the Atlanta scandal highlights many areas where we can improve our educational system.  

Lesson #1: 
Systems must identify and address warning signs of potential cheating. 

We were struck at the vitriol in interactions between the Atlanta administration and faculty in years leading up to the cheating scandal. A section of the GBI report entitled “Culture of fear” chronicles how intimidation, fear, and retaliation plagued the Atlanta district for years.  Many teachers interviewed by the GBI said there were direct and indirect threats of firings or poor performance evaluations for individuals who reported suspicious activity. Principals also faced retaliation for voicing concerns. At a meeting of Atlanta principals, one middle school principal raised concerns about how many students were multiple grade levels below grade level but still had high test scores. This principal spoke at the meeting about students’ questionable performance and was reprimanded for his comments. The middle school principal was instructed by the district leader not to bring up such concerns at future meetings because it disturbed other principals. This principal resigned from his position shortly thereafter.  

Intimidation, fear, and retaliation plagued Atlanta Public Schools for years. 

A second early-warning sign was the dramatic year-to-year increases in test scores. The GBI report chronicles some of the more extreme cases spanning from 2004 to 2008. For example, in one year at one elementary school, the percentage of students “exceeding expectations” in English language arts went from 28% to 79%. A number of other schools reported gains of over 20% from one year to the next. Throughout the report, teachers, principals, and other former school officials reported that these dramatic increases raised considerable doubt about the validity of the scores. However, according to the report and court documents, few in leadership questioned these results, and those who did were either relocated or terminated. Before celebrating dramatic increases in district test scores, school officials should make sure that they are validated. 

District leaders must create an environment that allows disagreement and encourages individuals to express concerns over suspicious activity. Some Atlanta teachers reportedly questioned the gap between student knowledge and test scores. If the Atlanta administrators had had the autonomy to respond in an ethical and effective manner, fewer students might have been negatively affected by the alterations to test scores.  

Lesson #2: 
Single measure reward systems are problematic. 

Historically marginalized students — students of color, from low-income homes, or students with disabilities — may have been disproportionately affected by the overemphasis on test scores. Atlanta’s manipulation of data could have reduced the number of students classified with special needs. Test scores are common instruments in identifying students who are below grade level, and their phantom high scores likely kept some of them from getting special services. 

Educational policy makers should create more sophisticated accountability systems that examine multiple measures of school quality. Placing too much emphasis on standardized tests has created perverse incentives for individuals and can put them in compromising situations regarding their continued employment or salaries. Evidence suggests that emphasizing high-stakes tests also has caused teachers to teach to the tests, give higher priority to tested subjects, and use drill-and-kill teaching strategies that do little to improve student achievement.  

Using multiple measures — perhaps including graduation rates, student surveys, administrator observations, and both formative and summative student assessments — would create a more stable system and a system that would be harder to rig. We strongly recommend developing accountability systems based on multiple measures. 

Lesson #3:
Improve teacher and principal preparation. 

When individuals perceive their working conditions as problematic, they are likely to grow frustrated, burn out, and, if they remain in the job, suffer from deteriorating levels of professional commitment and quality (Rosenholtz, 1989; Gersten, Yovanoff, & Harniss, 2001). Teacher and administrator preparation programs must address these factors as high-poverty, high-need school districts across the country face pressures similar to those in Atlanta.  

Teacher and administrator preparation programs must address issues that are common in high-poverty, high-need school districts across the country. 

Teachers and principals were unprepared for the adverse working conditions in Atlanta Public Schools. District officials were pushing for fast improvement, regardless of costs, lack of infrastructure changes, or the staff’s knowledge and experience about evidence-based practices necessary to guide academic growth. Educators are tempted to make improper decisions when there is a heavy emphasis on standardized tests and often struggle with the dilemma of having to cheat to help a struggling student, often finding ways to justify these actions (Nichols & Berliner, 2007). Teachers and principals reportedly did not know how to respond to the culture of fear and intimidation in Atlanta. Examining such scenarios and providing teachers and administrators a space to analyze accountability conditions can support them in navigating how they might handle future situations. 

Teacher preparation 

When teachers enter classrooms feeling underprepared, they are more likely to develop a diminished sense of self-efficacy, leading to a perception that their actions at work are unlikely to yield success  (Cook, 2007). The risk for emotional stress and a sense of failure is high when working in a high-pressure environment without the right supports (Chang, 2009).  

When teachers don’t feel capable of success, they face the risk of a “burnout cascade” (Osher et al., 2007). As teachers react to the perception of failure, their negative behavior increases. Students respond accordingly, leading to a cycle of increasingly deteriorating behavior that ultimately affects students and teachers. Under such conditions, teachers may burn out and leave their jobs. If they stay, their increasingly negative behavior yields negative results for students, especially those with the most significant academic and behavioral needs (Jennings & Greenberg, 2009).   

The burnout cascade is a particularly important phenomenon to acknowledge when thinking about high-poverty urban school districts. These historically marginalized children are affected most by the degree of academic and emotional support offered by teachers (Hamre & Pianta, 2007). When these students are in classrooms characterized by less support, they experience poorer academic achievement and increased conflict in the classroom. For example, students with disabilities represent a significant portion of the total student population in U.S. public classrooms. However, research indicates that many teachers and principals may be underprepared to effectively meet their needs (King-Sears & Baker, 2014; DiPaola & Walther-Thomas, 2003; Villani, 2006). Conversely, when students are in classrooms with strong instructional and emotional support, they can attain academic achievement on par with their classmates (Hamre & Pianta, 2005).    

Teacher preparation programs must help prepare teachers to be competent and confident in carrying out evidence-based practices that support all students in classroom instruction and testing season, and they must understand the laws that drive these practices (King-Sears & Baker, 2014).  While general and special education teacher preparation programs historically have been prepared in separate pathways, we recommend that all teaching candidates be given course and field-based opportunities to foster knowledge about evidence-based practices and an understanding of school law and current educational policies for all students (Pugach & Blanton, 2009).  

When educators know about education policy and practices that align with the law, compliance should improve (Gagnon et al., 2013). However, teachers may still face ethical dilemmas at work and should be prepared for how to respond to intimidation, fear, or threats from school officials. Although whistle-blower legislation may provide cover for teachers to report illegal activities, few if any teacher preparation programs train teachers to identify and implement solutions such as collaborative consultation, mediation, or submission of reports. Furthermore, teachers’ unions and school districts would be well-served to incorporate professional learning opportunities that foster knowledge about how to react to inappropriate environments and test facilitation. 

Administrator preparation 

Administrator preparation programs also should incorporate these lessons. Future administrators need course and field-based experience pertaining to policy and evidence-based practices aligned with the law in order to gain knowledge, and an understanding of the tools and infrastructure necessary to effectively lead systemic change. For any change to occur in a school community, an effective administrative team is necessary. Administrative teams direct the trajectory of school practices based on the working conditions they build. Those working conditions help determine the degree to which personnel are motivated and the effectiveness of their practices (Boyd et al., 2011).  

Preparation programs also should help candidates for administrator leadership roles prepare for school boards and district officials setting high expectations for turning schools around quickly. Finally, we recommend that principal preparation programs incorporate information about whistle-blowing and other confidential ways of reporting suspicious activities. While these protections exist in most states, very few preparation programs currently incorporate this information into their programs. Principal and superintendent associations also should expand professional learning opportunities to foster awareness and equip school leaders with strategies to build fair climates for instructional and testing environments.  

Conclusion 

Controversies involving the manipulation of student data have occurred recently in Washington, D.C., Ohio, and Texas. These scandals hurt the reputation of public schools, and ultimately they hurt students the most by damaging the morale of teachers and leaders and wasting taxpayer resources.  

As schools across the country navigate high-stakes, accountability-driven pressure, preparation programs and districts alike should consider how to incorporate lessons learned from the Atlanta scandal into their practices. Teacher and principal preservice and ongoing professional learning opportunities should include: 

• Course and field-based training that fosters knowledge about policy and evidence-based practices aligned with the law and
• Methods of identifying and reporting suspicious behavior related to data manipulation. Further, policy makers should look to expand the accountability system to include multiple measures of school quality.

This would provide a more holistic depiction of schools and could lessen the temptation to alter scores, since altering scores would no longer dramatically shift the overall rating. Finally, school officials need to be trained in how to address unethical behavior in their school districts. Fear, intimidation, and verbal abuse need to be reined in by school leaders before they spiral out of control.   

References 

Boyd, D., Grossman, P., Ing, M., Lankford, H., Loeb, S., & Wyckoff, J. (2011). The influence of school administrators on teacher retention decisions. American Educational Research Journal, 48, 303-333. 

Chang, M. (2009). An appraisal perspective of teacher burnout: Examining the emotional work of teachers. Educational Psychology Review, 21, 193-218. 

Cook, L. (2007). When in Rome. . . : Influences on special education student teachers’ teaching. International Journal of Special Education, 22, 119-130. 

DiPaola, M.F. & Walther-Thomas, C. (2003). Principals and special education: The critical role of school leaders (COPPSE Document No. IB7). Gainesville, FL: University of Florida, Center on Personnel Studies in Special Education. 

Gagnon, J.C., Murphy, K.M., Steinberg, M.A., Gaddis, J., & Crockett, J. (2013). IDEA-related professional development is juvenile corrections schools. Journal of Special Education Leadership, 26, 93-105. 

Gersten, R., Yovanoff, P., & Harniss, M.K. (2001). Working in special education: Factors that enhance special educators’ intent to stay. Exceptional Children, 67, 549-567. 

Hamre, B.K. & Pianta, R.C. (2005). Can instructional and emotional support in the 1st-grade classroom make a difference for children at risk of failure? Child Development, 76, 949-967. 

Jennings, P.A. & Greenberg, M.T. (2009). The prosocial classroom: Teacher social and emotional competence in relation to student and classroom outcomes. Review of Educational Research, 79, 491-525. 

King-Sears, M.E.  & Baker, P.H. (2014). Comparison of teacher motivation for mathematics and special educators in middle schools that have and have not achieved AYP. International Scholarly Research Notices: Education, 1-14.  

Nichols, S.L. & Berliner, D.C. (2007). Collateral damage: How high-stakes testing corrupts America’s schools. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press. 

Osher, D., Sprague, J., Weissberg, R.P., Axelrod, J., Keenan, S., Kendziora, K., et al. (2007). A comprehensive approach to promoting social, emotional, and academic growth in contemporary schools. In A. Thomas & J. Grimes (Eds.), Best practices in school psychology, Vol. 5 (5th ed.), pp. 1263-1278. Bethesda, MD: National Association of School Psychologists. 

Pugach, M. & Blanton, L.P. (2009). A framework for conducting research on collaborative teacher education. Teaching and Teacher Education, 25, 575-582. 

Rosenholtz, S.J. (1989). Teachers’ workplace: The social organization of schools. White Plains, NY: Longman.  

Villani, S. (2006). Mentoring and induction programs that support new principals. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. 

 

Citation: Saultz, A., Murphy, K.M., & Aronson, B. (2016). What can we learn from the Atlanta cheating scandal?  Phi Delta Kappan, 97 (6), 48-52.