Jul 07 2011
Unionized Education Commits Fraud And Theft Of Children’s Futures
The reason unions are on the ropes – especially government employee unions – is their history of poor performance. While police and fire fighters are rightfully held in high esteem, those in the broken public education system are probably running well behind in terms of respect from the citizens of their locale.
This is not a universal damnation. Many know of individual teachers who have had immense positive impacts on their children. Count me as one of that group who can point to wonderful individuals who have fought the broken system and succeeded in spite of it. But I also can point to more individuals who epitomize the broken pubic education system.
But the news out in the past few weeks will cement the image of public education as criminally broken. Because what we have discovered now in three states plus DC (and I would wager will be discovered across the nation) is massive cheating by administrators and teachers. Cheating which was designed to create the fraud that these educators were educating. Fraud that actually won these charlatans praise and monetary rewards for fake results. Fraud on a scale that implies unionized education has taken on the traits one would expect from those Mob run unions of old.
But remember, this fraud covers up a heinous theft. And that is how many children had their education stolen, and therefore their futures. They are now critically injured and impaired due to this crime. They do not have the skills required to survive and thrive. They now must go through years of rehabilitation to regain what was stolen from them. So don’t think this is simply a crime of fraud. The damage done to these kids is horrible and deep and will leave scars for their entire lives.
The latest revelations are from Atlanta Georgia, which appears to be the largest incident yet uncovered:
Across Atlanta Public Schools, staff worked feverishly in secret to transform testing failures into successes.
eachers and principals erased and corrected mistakes on students’ answer sheets.
Area superintendents silenced whistle-blowers and rewarded subordinates who met academic goals by any means possible.
Superintendent Beverly Hall and her top aides ignored, buried, destroyed or altered complaints about misconduct, claimed ignorance of wrongdoing and accused naysayers of failing to believe in poor children’s ability to learn.
For years — as long as a decade — this was how the Atlanta school district produced gains on state curriculum tests. The scores soared so dramatically they brought national acclaim to Hall and the district, according to an investigative report released Tuesday by Gov. Nathan Deal.
Emphasis mine. These crooks stole 10 years of education from thousands of kids. It is likely some kids lost everything due them from 2nd grade to their senior year in High School. Imagine thinking you were passing all those years to learn now you have serious educational handicaps. Imagine what a public education from Atlanta now looks like on college and job applications.
The intimidation from higher ups was so severe that teachers are being provided immunity to testify against the ring leaders. Seems straight out of the Sapranos.
Another instance of criminal public education was discovered in Baltimore, MD:
The Maryland version of the achievement tests mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act are the MSA (Maryland School Assessment) tests. In May of 2010 an 18-month investigation into George Washington Elementary School culminated with the conclusion by Baltimore City investigators that school administrators had erased thousands of wrong answers on the MSA tests and had changed them to the right answers.
In the summer of 2010, a second Baltimore City School, Abbottston Elementary School, fell under suspicion. As a result, Baltimore City Schools spent nearly $400,000 to insure that the 2011 tests were on the level, going to unprecedented lengths, including an ominous video message telling of dire consequences if more cheating was discovered.
Another was possibly discovered in Florida:
The FCAT has been given and calculated, but now state education officials wonder if some students cheated.
Tests taken by nearly 7,000 students out of more than 4 million showed some irregularities. Fourteen school districts, including 21 schools, are being investigated for having too many erasures or changed answers on the test. Hillsborough, Manatee and Polk are on the list.
Hillsborough school officials are investigating one school.
And another is possibly in DC.
This is not coincidence, not when it spans four major areas along the east coast of America. With 4 examples already out there, my guess is this scandal will grow over the next year. The left’s control over schools is about to come to an abrupt end. While Wisconsin’s new legislation regarding unionized teachers has already saved a school from bankruptcy, these examples of criminal behavior will increase the scrutiny on public education across the land.
Not only is this damning of unionized public education, it pretty much pulls the credibility away from any union whining about having to shoulder their health and retirement benefits. We now have another way to relieve the budget nightmares in states. Arrest the perps in this criminal endeavor and strip them of all their benefits.
We can clean up our broken education system and save money (by not paying criminals for their actions) all at the same time.
I don’t tolerate this junk here. There is no IQ gene tied to skin pigment. There are social handicaps tied to the victimhood status liberals have foisted on the African American community over decades. But trust me, this has nothing to do with IQ and race – there is no connection biologically.
re: “But remember, this fraud covers up a heinous theft. And that is how many children had their education stolen, and therefore their futures. They are now critically injured and impaired due to this crime.” AS
From what I have read the perps are Blacks through and through in this sordid mess: students, teachers, and administrators, all Black. This is where affirmative action brings a Nation. Does it matter if Michelle Obama gets into and through both Princeton and Harvard Law as a fraud ( read her Senior Thesis from Princeton if you want proof ) committed by Ivy League white admission Administrators and Deans or if an army of Black Administrators and Teachers give a leg up to their Black charges during their earlier 12 year sentences in Public School. The FRAUD exists on both levels.The problem is the denial of the IQ curve. American Blacks cannot escape the tyranny of the Binomial Distribution of IQs. A group with a mean IQ of 80 to 85 is doomed to underperform a group with an IQ mean of 100 to 105. Since the zeitgeist of the era is to DEMAND one genuflect to the idea that all races are equal in intellectual potential there SHOULD NOT BE ANY DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THEM IN EDUCATIONAL OUTCOME.Whites react to the persistent performance gap with White Guilt driven institutionalized racial preferences to over come the perceived disparate impact while Blacks being dumber take the easy way out, not being capable of high level sophism, they just cheat.The fraud exists from Pre-School through the highest level in the University and should be extirpated throughout. Fat chance unless the Nation comes to realize all groups have DIFFERENT capabilities: intellectual, social , and physical.The Blacks that have “benefited” from these actions, on all levels, are not “…now critically injured and impaired due to [these] crime[s],” no, they are merely playing out their genetic destiny as they, as a group, never had the potential in the first place. It is the Whites and Asians who have been short changed and stunted in their careers by being passed over for the benefit of less deserving Blacks. That is the real crime.
Dan Kurt
Three words.
Class. Action. Lawsuit.
Actually several suits. The students who have been defrauded of an education (or at least of honest feedback on their weaknesses) can sue. The taxpayers/governments can sue. And there is a neat criminal fraud case.
Dan Kurt are you saying what I think you are?
New Orleans has turned into a fascinating real life experiment on school choice ever since Katrina hit – even Newsweek noticed last year.
The most important thing to remember is that although some people left, most of those were adults. The makeup of the city’s school population did not change very much, so all the change that has resulted can be credited to the fact that an existing, dysfunctional bureaucracy was wiped out and a new, charter based system focused on the students was put in it’s place. Basically, 2/3 of all of the pre-Katrina public schools were closed, the N.O. School Board was stripped of almost all of it’s authority, and a new network of privately run Charter schools were allowed to take over about 2/3 of the educational enrollment in the city.
The most important point – the vast majority of the teachers working in the old, failing system pre-Katrina were fired and were *not* invited back into the new system, and ALL of the old administrators were fired. The old rot had to be cleared away before a new system could arise, and in a way New Orleans has been very lucky that Katrina allowed that to happen. Silver linings and all that. (And it’s not just me saying that; I heard this from my relatives in N.O., and they say all their friends agree, even though they’re still a bit embarrassed to say it in public)
The results have been phenomenal! And this didn’t happen because the kids were different; this happened because the system was radically changed, from a model that guaranteed failure to one the strongly encouraged success.
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/08/26/new-orleans-s-charter-school-revolution.html
Here’s how much the system was changed – Before Katrina, the hopelessly corrupt New Orleans School Board ran about 70 schools, and they were the only schools allowed in the city. They were consistently the worst performing school district in the State, and horror stories abounded, such as when the High School valedictorian failed the state mandated math exam (measuring nothing but basic competency) 5 times! It was common for high school students in the old system to graduate without knowing how to read and write, especially if they were good at a sport.
Today: The local board still runs six schools and oversees 11 charter schools; the state, meanwhile, oversees 66 schools, directly running 15 of them with 51 others run as charter schools. The days of graduating illiterates are long gone, and the drop out rate and the rate of state test failure has plummeted.
If we want to truly reform schools in this country, New Orleans has already walked the path we need to follow.
Imagine that WWS. When a school system is run for the benefit of the children, children actually learn. What does that say about the NEA and other teacher unions?
Yes, New Orleans will benefit GREATLY by the Charter Schools and the payoff will be for generations…which is exactly what New Orleans needed. I know. I lived there 20 years.
re: “There is no IQ gene tied to skin pigment.” AS
That is debatable. Dan Kurt
No Kurt – it is not debatable. You apparently do not have a science background nor a grasp of the science of biology (as opposed to myself). Your warped views are not welcomed here.
AJStrata
[…] Hot Air posted a very similar view on the fraud and theft discovered in public education testing to the one I posted yesterday. A key snippet: Evidently state level investigations into Georgia public schools are nothing new, […]