Preparing Children for Life: 35 Educators Indicted in Massive Cheating Scandal
Three dozen former Atlanta school administrators, teachers and principals, including the former superintendent, Beverly Hall, were indicted Friday in a massive standardized test cheating scandal.
A Fulton County grand jury indicted Hall and 34 others on charges that they conspired to help students cheat, and even erased wrong answers, on federally mandated standardized tests from at least 2005 to 2010, reports the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
So Far… None of the defendants have surrendered
On Friday, a Fulton County grand jury indicted former Atlanta Public Schools Superintendent Beverly Hall and 34 others — top aides, principals, teachers and a secretary — for racketeering as well as theft by taking for the bonuses they received for good test scores or making false statements or writings, charges that provided the basis for the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization count.
Though the grand jury said Hall’s bond should be set at $7.5 million, a judge will decide how much Hall and the others have to put up to be released from jail.
The indictment came 20 months after the release of a scathing report in which state investigators uncovered detailed what they called a decade of systemic cheating in Atlanta Public Schools. The investigators concluded that Hall, who retired from APS in the same month the report was released in July 2011, knew or should have known about about cheating on state mandated Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests.
