Atlanta schools created culture of cheating, fear
FILE - In a July 13, 2011 file photo, students at Emma Hutchinson School in Atlanta leave after the day's classes. Hutchinson has been identified as one of forty four schools involved in a test cheating scandal. A new state report reveals how far some Atlanta public schools went to raise test scores in the nation’s largest-ever cheating scandal. The scandal first came to light two years ago. Now, investigators have concluded that nearly half the city’s schools allowed cheating to go unchecked for as long as a decade, beginning in 2001. (AP Photo/John Bazemore, File)By Dorie TurnerAssociated Press / July 16, 2011
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ATLANTA—Teachers spent nights huddled in a back room, erasing wrong answers on students' test sheets and filling in the correct bubbles. At another school, struggling students were seated next to higher-performing classmates so they could copy answers.
Those and other confessions are contained in a new state report that reveals how far some Atlanta public schools went to raise test scores in the nation's largest-ever cheating scandal. Investigators concluded that nearly half the city's schools allowed the cheating to go unchecked for as long as a decade, beginning in 2001.
Administrators -- pressured to maintain high scores under the federal No Child Left Behind law -- punished or fired those who reported anything