Updated: Eleven Atlanta Educators Jailed For Test Cheating For Bonuses, Eight Sentenced To Prison

Posted April 2, 2015 6:22 PM ET; Last Updated April 14, 2015 9:13 PM ET


Former Deerwood Academy assistant principal Tabeeka Jordan, center, is led to a holding cell after a jury found her guilty in the Atlanta Public Schools test-cheating trial, Wednesday, April 1, 2015, in Atlanta. Jordan and 10 other former Atlanta Public Schools educators accused of participating in a test cheating conspiracy that drew nationwide attention were convicted Wednesday of racketeering charges. 

(AP Photo/Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Kent D. Johnson, Pool)


[From article]

Eight former Atlanta public school educators were ordered on Tuesday to serve between one and seven years in prison for their convictions on racketeering charges in one of the nation's largest test-cheating scandals.
The lengthy prison sentences, unusual for educators, contrasted to the treatment of two defendants in the case also found guilty by a jury this month. Both accepted responsibility under a deal with prosecutors that spared them significant time behind bars.
[. . .]
"There were thousands of children that were harmed in this thing," Baxter said during a rancorous hearing.
"It’s like the sickest thing that's ever happened to this town," he later said of the scandal that raised national alarm about high-stakes testing.
[. . .]
Erasing wrong answers was part of the cheating by the educators under pressure to meet test targets, prosecutors said during a nearly six-month trial.
Student achievement helped the former principals, teachers and administrators to secure promotions and cash bonuses.
A Georgia grand jury in 2013 roiled the community by indicting 35 Atlanta educators, including former school Superintendent Beverly Hall, on conspiracy and other charges.
[. . .]
While cheating has been reported in 40 states and Washington, D.C., in recent years, educators do not usually serve prison time,

http://news.yahoo.com/pleas-mulled-former-atlanta-educators-test-cheating-scandal-120733406.html;_ylt=AwrBJR8ROi1VG0YAVUTQtDMD

Prison sentences for eight former Atlanta educators in test-cheating scandal
By David Beasley
April 14, 2015

* * *

[From article]
A group of former Atlanta educators convicted in a test cheating scandal were locked up in jail Thursday as they await sentences that could send them to prison for years.
In one of the nation's largest cheating scandals of its kind, the 11 defendants were convicted Wednesday of racketeering for their roles in a scheme to inflate students' scores on standardized exams.
They include teachers, a principal and other administrators, who were accused of falsifying test results to collect bonuses or keep their jobs in the 50,000-student Atlanta public school system. A 12th defendant, a teacher, was acquitted of all charges by the jury.
The racketeering charges carry up to 20 years in prison. The convicted former educators are set to be sentenced later this month.
"This is a huge story and absolutely the biggest development in American education law since forever," University of Georgia law professor Ron Carlson said. "It has to send a message to educators here and broadly across the nation. Playing with student test scores is very, very dangerous business."
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/58447a404ff34413be536de642a38a99/former-atlanta-educators-jailed-test-cheating-scandal

Former Atlanta educators jailed in test cheating scandal
By KATE BRUMBACK
Apr. 2, 2015 12:21 PM EDT

Real Estate Executive Returns Bonus

Rick Holley

Courtesy of Plum Creek Timber Co.
[From article]
Rick Holley is CEO of Plum Creek Timber Co. PCL 0.50% , a Seattle-based real estate investment trust that owns and manages around 6.8 million acres of timberland in 19 states. Today Holley disclosed, via a regulatory filing, that he has returned 44,445 restricted stock units back to the company because “he does not believe that he should receive such an award unless Plum Creek’s stockholders see an increase in their investment return.”

http://fortune.com/2014/12/18/ceo-gives-back-bonus-says-he-doesnt-deserve-it/

CEO gives back bonus, says he doesn't deserve it
by Dan Primack @danprimack

DECEMBER 18, 2014, 2:21 PM EST

Obama Diverts Attention Again


"There are many reasons to hate Wall Street, even if you haven't heard Goldman's Blankfein quip that he's doing "God's work" when he trades bonds and earns all that bonus money.

But the ultimate culprit for the fact that these guys are raking it in while the rest of the nation suffers isn't Blankfein or the Wall Streeters at yesterday's meeting -- it's their enablers in government, including the man in the White House."

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/the_two_faces_of_oTswtJpCjQusQCFCMdiluJ

The two faces of O
Prez's lovefest with Wall St. 'fat cats'
By CHARLES GASPARINO
New York Post
Last Updated: 5:47 AM, December 15, 2009
Posted: 1:29 AM, December 15, 2009

AIG Bonuses in Perspective; Obama's AIG Bonus; Geithner's Role Creating the Throwing Money Policy

This comment on the Heritage Foundation blog expresses my sentiments.

http://blog.heritage.org/2009/03/17/argh-the-aig-fiasco-gets-worse/

ARGH: The AIG Fiasco Gets Worse
James Gattuso
The Foundry
March 18, 2009

Jerome Zacny writes:
March 18, 2009
Mr. Geithner doesn’t know how the AIG bonus package got into the
bailout plan he crafted. Mr. Dodd doesn’t know how his amendment to
the bailout, restricting bonuses to executives, became “gutted” to
exempt bonus payments to AIG executives from those restrictions. Mr.
Obama doesn’t know how all of this happened and is now “outraged”. At
least that’s what his teleprompter said. These people are either the
biggest liars in government, or they are the most inept, lazy and
irresponsible people to ever work in Washington.

I tend to believe the latter. Trying to determine the biggest liar in
government is like trying to determine the largest grain of sand on
the beach. The safer bet is that no one actually read the compilation
of provisions that were crammed into the bailout legislation. Mr.
Obama turned the whole enterprise over to Mr. Geithner and the
Legislature. The Legislators put their ideas on paper and turned those
papers over to their staffers, who completed the bill and sent it to
the President. Mr. Obama promptly signed the bill into law. Now, those
who are responsible claim to have no idea how these bonus payments
ever found their way into the provisions of the bailout.

Nobody, not the President, not Ms. Pelosi, not Mr. Geithner, not Mr.
Dodd or his boss Harry Reid bothered to read the final version of the
bailout legislation before putting it into law. Everyone involved
trusted others to do their jobs for them. Now, when the fecal matter
hits the fan, they are all “outraged”.

This isn’t the only piece of important legislation that went unread
before being signed into law. The “stimulus” legislation was well over
a thousand pages long. It would be safe to say that no one read the
entire draft of this legislation, other than the typist who produced
it, before it was signed into law. There will be no shortage of
“outraged” legislators, no doubt including Mr. Obama himself, when we
all discover later exactly what was put into law. We may discover that
we have negated the Constitution, ceded the Southwest U.S. back to
Spain, the Southeast U.S. back to France, Alaska back to Russia and
the rest of the Country back to England. Who would know, no one read
those thousand pages before passing the legislation and signing it
into law. Perhaps that’s what Mr. Obama meant when he said the
legislation “wasn’t perfect”.

This kind of irresponsibility would not be tolerated in any other
environment. Can you imagine standing before a judge trying to explain
how you, an ostensibly rational adult, should not be held accountable
to the terms of an agreement or contract that you signed, based on the
argument that you didn’t read it?

This administration likes to talk a lot about accountability.
Teachers, doctors, bankers, stock brokers, insurance companies all
should be held accountable. But what about U.S. Representatives,
Senators, the President and their minions? Should they not be held
accountable? How can the American public have any confidence at all in
“representatives” who don’t read the legislation for which they vote?
Why should the American public have any confidence in a President that
signs into law legislation that he has not read?

* * *
“Treasury Secretary Geithner is disingenuous at best and untruthful at
worst when he says that he ‘inherited the worst fiscal situation in
American history.’
The truth is that Secretary Geithner didn't inherit the policy of
throwing billions of taxpayer dollars at failing companies - he helped
create it.

Even before he was Treasury Secretary - when he was still head of the
New York Federal Reserve - Geithner was so deeply involved in the
government's bail out of Bear Stearns, its take over of Fannie Mae and
Freddie Mac, and its bailout of AIG that this was the Washington
Post's headline from September 19, 2008:

"In the Crucible of Crisis, Paulson, Bernanke and Geithner Forge a
Committee of Three".

The first meeting of the first bailout - of Bear Stearns - was held in
Geithner's office. And the first meeting of what has become a $170
billion bailout of AIG was held - where else? In Geithner's New York
Fed office.

http://mail.google.com/mail/?hl=en&zx=j1s93pkjnt10&shva=1#inbox/120183535538f013

March 18, 2009 Vol. 4, No. 11
Bankruptcy, Not Bailout
Human Events
by Newt Gingrich

* * *

http://www.examiner.com/x-268-Right-Side-Politics-Examiner~y2009m3d17-Obama-Received-a-101332-Bonus-from-AIG

Obama Received a $101,332 Bonus from AIG
March 17, 3:01 PM · 582 comments
Dan Spencer
Examiner.com
Right Side Politics Examiner