He arrived before first light. He was dressed in a smartly cut, dark suit and a crisply pressed white shirt. The colorful silk tie he selected for the occasion was nothing less than perfect.
His name is Donald Bullock and, until a few years ago, he was a testing coordinator at Usher-Collier Heights Elementary School in Atlanta. However, if a team of state investigators and county prosecutors are to be believed, Bullock is anything but perfect. Last Friday, he became one of 35 former Atlanta Public Schools administrators and teachers indicted in what may prove to be the most pervasive,organized cheating scandal in recent memory.
The voluminous indictment reads like a Homeric tragedy, replete with misplaced intentions, unchecked greed and self-aggrandizement; reckless disregard for the educational welfare of at-risk children and a concerted effort to aggressively stonewall state investigators. Stories of burned memos, open-air threats and malicious, retaliatory firings would make for a good made-for-cable drama script.
But this isn’t a critically acclaimed episode of The Wire. The Atlanta cheating scandal is about real life, a real “wire” — real children and all too real consequences.
The litany of charges spells out 65 criminal counts, including theft by taking and influencing, false statements, perjury, and the most explosive of all: racketeering.
Five executive level administrators, six principals, two assistant principals, six testing coordinators and a gaggle of classroom teachers are among those expected to turn themselves in at the Fulton County jail on Rice Street. They will present themselves to a sheriff’s deputy, submit to the rigors of the inmate booking process and, if personal resources allow, post extraordinary bond payments to secure their release until trial. Each stands accused of orchestrating and/or participating in a scheme to falsify standardized test scores for career and monetary gain.
Related: Atlanta educators begin turning themselves in amid cheating scandal
“Rice Street,” as the facility is commonly known, is a county jail under judicial consent decree based on its track record for overpopulation, lack of security and frequent violence against both guards and inmates. It’s the last place one would expect to find a nattily clad, college educated man like Bullock. Escorted by his defense attorney, Bullock is one of eight educators who checked into Rice Street on Tuesday. Local news cameras were camped outside to capture the unimaginable.
‘Profiting on bad public policy at the expense of our children’
Student testing has long been a part of public education as a means of measuring academic progress. Spend more than ten minutes in a U.S. classroom and you have likely faced down a page of empty ovals with a number two pencil. However, the shift came when we financially incentivized testing for schools and teachers. While well intentioned, so-called “high stakes testing” has created an environment that allows for many bad actors to flourish.
Tipped off by miraculous academic advances, Georgia state investigators say dishonest people were profiting on bad public policy at the expense of our children. Their 800-page report says that at least 178 individuals were culpable; some of them banking ill-gotten bonus checks as the schools they “served” lost funding based on fraudulent academic gains. In one example, W.L. Parks Middle School — where ironically the motto is: “excellence is our only option”— forfeited an estimated $750,000 in federal funding due to inflated test scores while its former principal Christopher Waller and some of his staffers walked home with thousands in bonuses and public accolades.
Thankfully, history will not be kind to Waller; one of former superintendent Beverly Hall’s “favorites.” His career in education is over. Despite his pristine suit, Bullock will never escape the humiliation of that pre-dawn booking photo. As a parent of children who attended and graduated from Atlanta Public Schools, I will say unequivocally that neither man deserves to be within a thousand yards of a classroom. By all accounts, Waller “juked the stats” in his own favor. He stood chest out and proud of the test scores he knew to be fake. He paid his mortgage, his light bill and car note with my tax dollars in a day when I struggled on the margins to make a better way for my family.
Families, like mine, trusted him. And he betrayed us.
The results are “irretrievable,” according to American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten, for “kids, for schools and for teachers.” For her part, Dr. Hall, the alleged ringleader and a once nationally celebrated school reformer, reportedly reaped a half million dollars in performance bonuses over a ten year period, based in large part on the test scores Waller, Bullock and others delivered. Hall was lauded in the national press and greeted with open and praising arms at the White House. Her audience included Education Secretary Arne Duncan, a proponent of incentivized testing. She found safe harbor within the Atlanta business community. Most notably the Chamber of Commerce leadership questioned the propriety of the investigation until forced to face what parents like me long suspected. After all, the city’s reputation was at stake, right?
Next: no-nonsense ringleader ‘was getting results’
Hall, who retired under a cloud of suspicion in 2011, faces a plethora of charges. Prosecutors recommended a $7.5 million bond. She could face up to 45 years in prison. To onlookers, that may seem extreme. For Atlanta parents struggling to provide health and balance for our children, it sends exactly the right message.
A child I knew to be struggling academically was bringing home “solid Bs,” despite my efforts to goad her into the classroom on a daily basis. I did everything except sit behind her in class. My protests, and those of other parents, were met with reassurance and later arm-folded silence laced with resentment.
Ultimately, after a torrent of pressure from reporters — including repeatedly unanswered phone messages and Freedom of Information Act requests by the Atlanta Journal Constitution — the case brought together an unlikely coalition of Georgia civic and business leaders. Two republican governors, a former attorney general, a popular big city mayor with close ties to the Obama administration and a multi-termed, dogged county prosecutor stood shoulder-to-shoulder.
Among them was Richard (Dick) Hyde, a tough-as-nails former detective turned private investigator. Hyde, known for his no-nonsense style, spent years chasing down every breadcrumb of evidence. Former corrupt judges, drug dealers and white-collar criminals are certainly sorry they ever met him. I had the pleasure of spending time with Hyde when I helped re-open the Atlanta Child Murders case for a CNN documentary. I knew him, by reputation, from the countless ethics investigations he has led. He is among the most compassionate people I have ever met and, in my opinion, the straightest of straight-shots. If the truth is out there, Dick Hyde will find it. If he knocks on your door and flashes his badge in your peephole, you should answer.
It was Hyde who convinced Witness #1, a third-grade teacher in southwest Atlanta, to come forward. She had been one of “The Chosen”, a group of seven teachers and principal staff at Venetian Hills Elementary School who sequestered themselves in windowless rooms and corrected the answers on the Criterion-Referenced Competency Test (CRCT). That instructor hid an electronic wire on her person for weeks to record the conversations of her colleagues. According to the investigative and prosecution team, the audio renderings are damning.
In those after school hours, a box of Just Basics pink rubber erasers were weaponized. Administrators stood guard at classroom doors while those under their charge effectively gunned down and maimed the collective futures of thousands of, by and large, black and economically disadvantaged public school children. Of the 100 schools in the Atlanta system, 58 of them were impacted by the cheating scandal. All of them are located disproportionately African-American communities.
The grand irony? Nearly all of the indicted educators are black.
I was among a group of business leaders and community advocates that welcomed Hall to our city. During her decade long tenure, Atlanta students often “out-tested” our suburban neighbors on state tests despite economic disparities. Even so, we watched uneasily as she humiliated “low performers” during rallies at the Georgia Dome. Many of us wondered aloud about her take-no-prisoners, by-any-means necessary management style, her refusal to answer public questions without a screener and the high dollar security detail more befitting of a head of state. She fired 90 percent of her district principals when they did not meet testing performance goals. Tempers flared among parents, while the business community applauded her administration’s commitment to “accountability.”
When the local teacher’s union blew the whistle in 2005, nobody listened. Hall was getting results. Test scores were at an all-time high. In 2009, the American Association of School Administrators named Hall “superintendent of the year”. She was effectively untouchable.
Today, Hall stands accused of helming a criminal enterprise — one that victimized thousands of children from underserved communities. As I sat staring at the television watching her walk into Rice Street this evening, I recalled the spate of effusive, self-congratulatory public letters Hall issued over the years. Looking back, knowingly or not, she misrepresented the academic performance of the 52,000 children — including mine — ho she was charged to serve. Under Georgia law, it does not matter if she did not know. What matters is she fostered an environment that fermented criminal activity and that she should have known. In this case, malfeasance is criminal.
Next: high stakes testing a ‘minefield’, but lack of integrity to blame
On Monday evening, I joined the inaugural edition of MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes to express my displeasure with the spectacle now known as The Atlanta Cheating Scandal. I did so with a profound love for my city and an ultimate concern for the families who live and work here. Frankly, I have been stunned by degree of blame-shifting.
Without a doubt “No Child Left Behind,” enacted by the George W. Bush administration, seeded the landscape for criminal behavior. And while I am telling the truth, “Race to the Top” fortified that minefield with explosive incentives that blew up on our children. Both were well-intentioned policies, to be sure. But Atlanta is not alone.
The student casualties number larger than the so-called “thousand points of light” — the shadow of impropriety casting a dark pall over a noble profession. An audit, reported by the Arizona Daily Star, labeled El Paso schools as “diploma mills.” In the wake of Michelle Rhee’s controversial tenure, many remain skeptical of Washington, DC’s academic test scores. “Waiting for Superman” was a great movie, but I am not buying it. According to a study reported by the Atlanta Journal Constitution, every quarter of this country has been impacted by these federal policies. There is a term for this: unindicted co-conspirators.
Fact: We over-test our children using superficial measures of accomplishment. There are better ways to gauge academic proficiency.
Fact: Pubic education policies that financially reward educators can and have led to disastrous outcomes.
But fact: This is about integrity.
“That is not how education should work,” current superintendant Errol Davis told the New York Times last February. “If you create the right kind of system, run by the right kind of people, tests scores will take care of themselves.”
My daughter will, hopefully, join Davis’ Atlanta teaching team one day. She has wanted to become a teacher nearly every day of her life, investing the full of herself in educational and in-class training. I am proud of her and remember fondly the countless Atlanta Public School teachers who inspired her. I ran into her elementary school librarian recently. “How’s my little girl?” the now elderly woman shouted. “Your little girl is graduating from Brown this spring, thanks to you. She wants to be a teacher.”
Her eyes welled with tears. And mine too. Nothing, but nothing can replace the value of a good teacher. Her name is Carolyn George.
I have heard a litany of excuses that range from blaming high stakes testing to intimidating work environments. Some lay the blame on the low teacher compensation, even asking me what I personally would do if my livelihood were on the line. Answer: I’ve been a soup line, homeless, my children cold and crying. Make no mistake this is not about “entrapment.” The indicted did not steal a bushel of oranges. They stole one of our most precious resources: the promise, hopes and dreams of innocent school children.
Thank heavens there are more people Carolyn George in the world than there are like Donald Bullock and Christopher Waller.
Goldie Taylor is the editor of The Goldie Taylor Project and an MSNBC contributor. Follow her on Twitter at @GoldieTaylor.