Click to go to the Subscriber Log In Page
Go to menu with buttons for all pages on BC
Click here to go to the Home Page
Est. April 5, 2002
 
           

May 14, 2015 - Issue 606

Bookmark and Share

BlackCommentator.com May 14, 2015 - Issue 606: Black Teachers Take The Fall - View from the Battlefield By Jamala Rogers, BC Editorial Board



It’s been several weeks now since the sentencing phases of the cheating trials ended in Atlanta and my reaction is just as intense now as it was then.
 
There’s no defense for cheating and I’m not here to mount a defense for those black teachers caught up in the scandal to raise test scores in Atlanta public schools. Seeing African American teachers being led out of a courtroom in handcuffs is still unsettling for me.
 
I know the trials and tribulations of teachers and administrators struggling to bring a positive educational experience in the chaos and oppressive conditions that have been created by the State-imposed policies and dictates.
 
In my past writings, I have not spared anyone in the public education system but there is a thing called proportionality—those most responsible for damage should get the harshest sentence.
 
While there’s enough blame to go around, I’m still processing the Atlanta scandal. Black teachers were charged under the racketeering law and getting sentences that exceed some murder sentences! The RICO Act was intended for use on organized crime, like the Mafia. Yet, it was used on black teachers—most with no criminal records.
 
Was it about a power play by the white Republican governor who ordered the investigation into the cheating situation after an investigative reporter broke the story in the Atlanta Journal Constitution?  Has he been just as quick to demand investigations into other corruption cesspools in his state?
 
Was it about vengeance by the white judge whose severe sentencing of the black teachers even took the prosecution aback? He had already threatened those who didn’t take a plea would face unsparing justice in his courtroom.
 
This is not the first revelation of cheating occurring in school districts as administrators struggle to meet irrational quotas with little support. President Bush’s “Leave No Child Behind” mandate was a tragic joke because many kids got left behind—most of them were black and brown and poor.
 
What happens to cheaters depends on who the cheater is and who they cheated.
 
In St. Louis white firefighters stole the standardized tests used to determine promotions. When it was discovered that whites were cheating on the tests to gain advantage over the black firefighters, no one was criminally charged. No one even lost their job.
 
I don’t remember anyone going to jail over the Veterans Administration scandal where intake data and other records were deliberately misreported to project higher numbers of veterans being served. A VA audit showed the practice was widespread; about 70 percent of the 731 VA facilities around the country were falsely manipulating the books under extreme pressure from superiors. At the Phoenix VA (and I’m sure other facilities) up to 40 vets died waiting for treatment. Dead vets but no criminal charges filed here either.
 
And I know damn well all of the Wall Street thugs who brought the U.S. economy to its knees never served a day in prison. The country is still recovering from the devastating and far-reaching effects of their greedy actions.
 
What happens to cheaters depends on who the cheater is and who they cheated.
 
Our justice system boils down to who is going to take the fall. It has nothing to do with who’s responsible or the need to rectify a situation. It’s a cowardly system--preferring to take down the most vulnerable, the unorganized and the least resourced. The bullies with power and wealth continue their dastardly deeds regardless of the scope of their crimes.
 
I’m clear that cheating on standardized tests only hurts the students in public education and that it compromises their futures—our future--on so many levels. I’m angry that a school system that incentivizes harm to children is not on trial. (Teachers received monetary bonuses for increases in their students’ test scores.)
 
I’m also painfully clear that indicting 35 teachers for cheating has done nothing to change the dysfunctional Atlanta educational system. To perpetrate a myth that getting rid of these teachers has sanitized the system once and for all is perhaps the real crime.

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member and Columnist, Jamala Rogers, founder and Chair Emeritus of the Organization for Black Struggle in St. Louis. She is an organizer, trainer and speaker. She is the author of The Best of the Way I See It – A Chronicle of Struggle.  Other writings by Ms. Rogers can be found on her blog jamalarogers.comContact Ms. Rogers and BC.

Bookmark and Share

 
 

 

 

is published every Thursday
Executive Editor:
David A. Love, JD
Managing Editor:
Nancy Littlefield, MBA
Publisher:
Peter Gamble