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Saturday, June 19, 2010

100 Atlanta school employees implicated in test cheating scandal �| ajc.com

100 Atlanta school employees implicated in test cheating scandal �| ajc.com

100 Atlanta school employees implicated in test cheating scandal

AJC exclusive: Respect earned by APS, superintendent in jeopardy

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

An investigation of suspected cheating at Atlanta Public Schools has concluded that as many as 100 employees at 12 schools violated testing protocols, the chairman of a special investigative committee told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Thursday.

Gary Price, chairman of the independent panel that was formed to investigate irregularities on state standardized tests at city schools, did not detail the violations, which could range from inadvertently violating test security rules to outright cheating. Price’s committee will release the key findings and recommendations from its exhaustive three-month inquiry on Tuesday.

"I'm outraged, primarily because I think about 50,000 kids in this system," said Price. He has also declined to name the schools where these employees work, although school names will be included in the findings, he said. "If [students] don't perform well on these tests, if we've been passing people along through the system, that's the important issue."

The committee’s release on Tuesday will be a watershed for the Atlanta system and its acclaimed superintendent, Beverly Hall. Hall will either respond to the report in a way that engenders confidence in the system or that provides more ammunition to critics who want new management.

The school system continues to win national awards — as does Hall — for closing an academic gap that appeared