NY Post's Michael Goodwin Misleads Over De Blasio Chancellor Search

Another Sunday at the NY Post, more lies from NY Post propagandist Michael Goodwin.

Here's the part of the Goodwin column relevant to our topic here at Perdido Street Schools:

Seeking fools for NYC schools

Bill de Blasio is having a hard time getting to yes. Depending on who is counting, as many as three people have turned down an offer to be the new schools chancellor.

The latest “thanks, but no thanks” came from Washington, DC, Chancellor Kaya Henderson. In a letter to her staff squashing rumors she was coming to Gotham, Henderson wrote, “I love DC and I’m not about to leave.”

The mayor-elect should take a hint. Namely, the job isn’t attractive because his agenda aims mostly to keep unions happy. In big ways, that puts de Blasio on the opposite side of the national reform movement, which supports merit pay and teacher evaluations based on student performance.

Instead, the Democrat campaigned on a platform that only opposed things Mayor Bloomberg favors. Because Bloomberg is for charters, de Blasio is against them. Bloomberg closes failing schools, so de Blasio will keep them open. He never actually says how he will improve results.

It’s no coincidence de Blasio’s positions line up with the United Federation of Teachers. None of his ideas will help kids learn, but they will keep the union off his back.

That doesn’t make the job attractive to successful educators. Nor does de Blasio’s push for universal pre-kindergarten if it means protracted political fights over a tax increase. Even if Dollar Bill gets his hike, a new chancellor will face years of classroom squeezes to make room for pre-K students.

Early on, there was talk de Blasio would offer the job to Randi Weingarten, the former head of the UFT who now leads the national union. I don’t think she wants it, but her appointment would have the advantage of honesty. It would make it crystal clear the union is the boss.

Lindsey Crist, a much more reliable reporter and journalist than propagandist Goodwin, tweeted the following when the Henderson news broke:

@NYDNBenChapman but true, right? Such smart politics! From everything I've been hearing, she had a VERY small chance (and that's generous)
— Lindsey Christ (@LindseyChrist) December 13, 2013

Goodwin has an agenda here - de Blasio is beholden to the unions, the UFT is going to run the DOE now, blah blah blah.

He wants to get the meme out that nobody wants the DOE gig because the UFT is actually going to be in charge.

If it's between Lindsey Crist saying Henderson had VERY little chance for the job and was only trying to save face with her letter to her DC staff or Goodwin saying Henderson turned de Blasio down because de Blasio is too close to the UFT, I'll take Crist's side.

First, because she's got no agenda in this other than to get the story right.

And second, because Michael Goodwin does have an agenda, which is to bash de Blasio, bash the UFT, bash teachers and bash NYC schools.

You know, the normal stuff at the Murdoch Post.

Daily News: DOE Gig Looks To Be Down To Farina, Starr, And Cashin

Kaya Henderson is a no for the chancellor job. http://t.co/Ru9L14S4vJ Linda Darling-Hammond also no. Maybe: Farina, Cashin, Starr
— Rachel Monahan (@NYDNrachel) December 13, 2013

Lindsey Crist says this about Henderson's chances for the DOE job::

@NYDNBenChapman but true, right? Such smart politics! From everything I've been hearing, she had a VERY small chance (and that's generous)
— Lindsey Christ (@LindseyChrist) December 13, 2013

And so it goes - five school days left with Walcott at the helm, but we don't know his successor just yet.

Other than, it won't be Kaya Henderson.

Adding A 5th Reason To Why Kaya Henderson Won't Be NYCDOE Chancellor

Valerie Strauss lists four reasons why she thinks DCPS chancellor Kaya Henderson won't be NYCDOE chancellor despite rumors that her name is on Mayor-Elect Bill de Blasio's short list for the job.

The four reasons are 1) Henderson's staunch support of charter schools 2) Henderson's emphasis on standardized tests as the most important measure of educational achievement 3) her antagonism toward the union and 4) her dismissal of class size as an important component of reform.

I would add a fifth reason - Henderson's part in the Michelle Rhee testing scandal in DC.

When Rhee was allegedly informed about widespread allegations of cheating at DCPS schools, Henderson's was said to be present.

Both Rhee and Henderson deny ever having been told about widespread cheating allegations.

So far, the news media has seemed complacent to let that cheating story die without checking much into Rhee's or Henderson's stories.

If Henderson is offered the NYCDOE chancellor job, that cheating allegation story will resurface and get much more rigorous coverage from the media this time around.

I bet that's something that neither Henderson's old boss and pal in crime, Michelle Rhee, nor Henderson herself want.

I bet it's something the education reform establishment doesn't want either.

The Myth Of Michelle Rhee must not be exposed.

Byrd-Bennett And Henderson In Running For Chancellor Gig?

Oy:

say it ain't so @BilldeBlasio: Byrd-Bennett & Henderson considered as Chancellors despite #corpreform policies http://t.co/sBXOnEYJm2
— leonie haimson (@leoniehaimson) December 6, 2013

If these two are in the running, then we are really in trouble.

I've been sick the last day, so my brain isn't working so well.

But with news of Henderson and now Byrd-Bennett, I'm starting to get a bad feeling about things.

The Bratton pick for NYPD I expected.

Byrd-Bennett or Henderson at the DOE?

Have to admit, never expected that.

If this news is true, then de Blasio's DOE really won't be much different than Bloomberg's.

No Wonder De Blasio Didn't Want An Open Process For The Chancellor Pick

With the news that Bill de Blasio's team may have reached out to Michelle Rhee acolyte/DCPS chancellor Kaya Henderson to interview her for the NYCDOE chancellor position, we now can see why he got snarky yesterday over his flip flop on having an open process to pick the chancellor.

To recap, De Blasio said the following about picking a chancellor last year:

He said at a mayoral forum a year ago that schools chancellor candidates must undergo a “serious public screening...We need a chancellor who is presented to the public, not just forced down our throat.”

This week he said:

But Monday, as he mulls his own schools chancellor pick, he said there would be no “beauty contest” where finalists for the job are publicly identified and scrutinized. The change angered some education advocates.

“I want to be very blunt about this. That was clearly a reference to an unfortunate chapter in our city’s history related to Cathie Black,” de Blasio said of his earlier comments. “And I am going to ensure that we will never have a situation like that on my watch.”

...

“We are talking to a number of individuals who have extraordinary careers in education,” de Blasio said. “This is an open process in the sense that any name could be put forward, and names are being looked at that clearly have extraordinary educational credentials. So there’s not going to be a Cathie Black situation here.”

A reporter pressed de Blasio on how a public screening could be possible if the public is not informed of who the candidates are. An irritated-sounding de Blasio replied only: “I’m defining what I was saying then and what I’m saying now.”

With Henderson's name surfacing in a Times article about the chancellor search, it turns out de Blasio was quite right - "any name could be put forward."

Henderson's is the kind of name you wouldn't expect from a candidate for mayor who ran on turning back the clock on the standardized test-based school system that uses test scores as bludgeons against students, teachers and schools.

I must admit, I have a little skepticism that Henderson really was interviewed for the chancellor gig.

But with de Blasio already flip flopping on having an open process to choose the next chancellor, it is quite possible that he is set to flip flop on the kind of chancellor he wants to run the system and the kind of system he wants to run.

And if this is the kind of person he is interviewing for the chancellor job, then I can see why he would want no public scrutiny.

Did De Blasio Interview Kaya Henderson To Be The Next NYCDOE Chancellor?

On the heels of Bill de Blasio's flip flop over wanting an open process for the picking of the chancellor comes this doozy from the NY Times:

In recent weeks, Mr. de Blasio and his team have reached out to Dr. Starr, the superintendent of the Montgomery County school district, and Kaya Henderson, chancellor of the Washington school system, say people close to Dr. Starr and Ms. Henderson. It was unclear whether the calls were to gauge their interest or to merely solicit advice.

...

 Ms. Henderson is considered friendly to the kind of policies endorsed by Mr. Bloomberg — she was once a deputy to Michelle A. Rhee, the hard-charging former chancellor of Washington schools. But she is considered more of a peacemaker than her predecessor and an agile negotiator with the teachers’ union. A spokeswoman said Tuesday that Ms. Henderson was traveling and unavailable for comment.

It doesn't matter if de Blasio was interviewing Henderson for a possible hiring as the next chancellor or simply soliciting advice from her.

As the deputy to Michelle Rhee at DCPS, as one of the key ed deformers who has pushed test score-based schooling and teacher evaluations, either interviewing her for a job or soliciting advice from her is problematic in my eyes.

I wrote last night that de Blasio's flip flop on the chancellor pick process was a troubling sign for what may come in a de Blasio mayorality.

If de Blasio reached out to Kaya Henderson for either reason - to interview her for the DOE job or just to ask her advice about something or somebody else - it's another troubling sign.

That's a big if, of course.

This story could just be one of those "planted" things by some DFER or Eva Moskowitz ally looking to stir things up.

Nonetheless, I think it is important to warn de Blaiso publicly that holding Henderson in anything other than contempt for her education record and policies is unacceptable.

One good thing might result if he does tap Henderson to be chancellor, however.

She might finally get some scrutiny for the cheating scandal in DC she helped quash, along with her boss at the time, Michelle Rhee.

D.C. City Council Will NOT Investigate Rhee

I'm not surprised by this news:

The chairman of the D.C. Council’s education committee said Sunday that he has no plans to reinvestigate allegations of widespread cheating on standardized tests during the tenure of former Chancellor Michelle Rhee.

Council member David Catania (I-At Large) said he will instead focus on improving the integrity of future tests, which are used to evaluate schools and teachers.

Catania’s statement came three days after the public airing of a 2009 memo indicating that as many as 191 teachers in 70 D.C. public schools may have committed testing infractions in 2008.

The memo, based on an analysis of wrong-to-right erasures on answer sheets, contained no proof of cheating and warned that there wasn’t enough information to draw firm conclusions. But it stoked questions about whether Rhee and other school officials, including current Chancellor Kaya Henderson, were aggressive enough about responding to suspicions of cheating.

Rhee and Henderson both said they did not recall receiving the 2009 memo, and school system officials pointed to multiple investigations — including by local and federal inspectors general — that found no evidence of widespread cheating.

Catania said that in light of the 2009 memo, he is “bewildered by the narrow scope” of a investigation by the D.C. Inspector General, which lasted 17 months and focused only on one school. But he said reinvestigating five-year-old allegations “would be impractical and would yield little in terms of accountability.”

“Among other things,” he said, “simply identifying and interviewing the hundreds of witnesses would overwhelm the Council’s limited staff and resources.”

It makes more sense to focus on tightening test security and strengthening efforts to identify cheating in the future, the council member said.

Unless the clamor for an investigation grows, Michelle Rhee and Kaya Henderson are going to skate on this.

It has been quite clear previous to this that the fix is in when it comes to Rhee.

The powers that be do NOT want to know anything about Michelle Rhee and cheating - not Barack Obama, not Arne Duncan, not the D.C. City Council, not the elite media.

And it looks, at least for now, as if that impunity for Rhee is going to continue.

Both Kaya Henderson And Michelle Rhee Deny Seeing The Cheating Memo

The Associated Press reports that both Henderson and Rhee claim in statements they have never seen the internal DCPS memo from 2009 that pointed to possible widespread cheating on high stakes standardized tests in the school system.

Henderson also said in her statement through a spokesperson that the memo was based on incomplete information and flawed methodology.

She didn't say how she knew the memo was based on incomplete information or flawed methodology since she claims she doesn't remember seeing the memo, but I guess that's neither here nor there.

John Merrow, the reporter who broke the story about the memo, says he has a highly placed and reliable source who told him Rhee spoke about this memo at DCPS brass staff meetings.

It is clear that neither Rhee nor Henderson are going to be forthcoming about the memo or their actions after they were made aware of potential cheating DCPS in 2009.

The only way to get these women to, perhaps, come clean on the matter is to put them under oath in a criminal investigation.

Certainly the only way to hold these two purveyors of teacher accountability accountable themselves is to put them under oath in a criminal investigation.

Anything less will mean the powers that be in D.C. do not want to get to the bottom of the matter.

Read more here: http://www.thestate.com/2013/04/13/2722899/the-buzz-the-bee-eater-was-here.html#storylink=rss#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.thestate.com/2013/04/13/2722899/the-buzz-the-bee-eater-was-here.html#storylink=rss#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.thestate.com/2013/04/13/2722899/the-buzz-the-bee-eater-was-here.html#storylink=rss#storylink=cpyThere were also some tweets on the Students First twitter account on Thursday April 11, but then everything went silent right around 1 P

D.C. City Council To Hold Hearings On Rhee Cheating Memo Revelations

Well, this is at least something:

The City Council in Washington will hold a hearing next week after a memo warning officials of cheating on standardized tests during the chancellorship of Michelle A. Rhee surfaced Thursday night. 

Allegations of cheating have dogged Ms. Rhee — now a lightning rod in education circles for her advocacy through StudentsFirst, a nonprofit group she founded — since an investigation by USA Today found high rates of erasures on standardized tests at a Washington elementary school. 

Although subsequent investigations by both the city’s inspector general and the federal Education Department concluded that widespread cheating had not occurred, a memo that said 191 teachers in 70 schools were “implicated in possible testing infractions” in 2008 has ignited calls for further inquiries. 

The memo, disclosed by John Merrow, the education correspondent for “NewsHour” on PBS, was written by a consultant hired by the Washington school system to investigate data that showed a high number of test answer sheets on which wrong answers had been erased and changed to correct answers. The memo, which Mr. Merrow said had been written by Fay G. Sanford, a consultant, offered a detailed discussion of a high number of erasures at Aiton Elementary School. But the memo noted that “Aiton is NOT the only school in this situation.” 

Ms. Rhee issued a statement saying that she did not recall receiving the memo. She added that both the city inspector general and the Education Department had already “reviewed the memo and confirmed my belief that there was no widespread cheating.” 

Blanche Bruce, the deputy inspector general in Washington, declined to comment on whether her office had reviewed the memo. 

A spokeswoman for the Education Department’s Office of Inspector General confirmed that the agency had reviewed the memo.

The Washington D.C. City Council hearing is a good start at getting to the bottom of this mess, but it certainly is not enough.

There have already been two limited investigations, and both were as ineffective at getting to the truth as Michelle Rhee claims most teachers are at teaching kids.

City Council hearings themselves may bring attention to the contradictions in Rhee's and Henderson's stories, they may bring a little more heat onto the principals involved, but they certainly won't move the story forward any.

But a criminal investigation will.

As Valerie Strauss wrote at The Answer Sheet:

The memo does not offer conclusive evidence that cheating occurred, but it literally begs for a thorough probe to be conducted — this time by investigators with subpoena powers.

The indictment of former Atlanta superintendent Beverly Hall and 34 other educators on test cheating charges — under a law used against mobsters — shows that the only way to get to the truth about these suspicions is by approaching it as a criminal case and sending in investigators who can subpoena witnesses. You don’t investigate criminal activity by going in and asking, “Did you cheat? Are you sure you didn’t cheat?” Everyone should have to testify under oath, including Rhee, who appears to have done her best to keep a lid on the allegations.

Unless Rhee and Henderson are interrogated under oath on what they knew about the cheating allegations, when they knew that information, and what they did about it, they are going to continue to evade and stonewall.

We have the blueprint for how to get to the bottom of a cheating scandal - do what they did in Atlanta and have an investigation that is run just the way Governor Sonny Perdue ran his in Atlanta, with special prosecutors and subpoena powers and a substantial budget that allows for a real investigation.

Anything other than that, and we know that the people in power in Washington D.C. municipal government, Congress and the Obama administration aren't interested in getting to the bottom of this.

USA Today Picks Up The Rhee Cheating Memo Story

A very good article in USA Today on the Rhee cheating memo.

It's so good, I am going to repost in full:

District of Columbia Public Schools officials have long maintained that a 2011 test-cheating scandal that generated two government probes was limited to one elementary school. But a newly uncovered confidential memo warns as far back as January 2009 that educator cheating on 2008 standardized tests could have been widespread, with 191 teachers in 70 schools "implicated in possible testing infractions."

The 2009 memo was written by an outside analyst, Fay "Sandy" Sanford, who had been invited by then-chancellor Michelle Rhee to examine students' irregular math and reading score gains. It was sent to Rhee's top deputy for accountability.

The memo notes that nearly all of the teachers at one Washington elementary school had students whose test papers showed high numbers of wrong-to-right erasures and asks, "Could a separate person have been responsible?"

It recommends that DCPS contact its legal department "as soon as you think it advisable" and ask them to determine "what possible actions can be taken against identified offenders."
DCPS officials have said they take all cheating allegations seriously, but it's not immediately clear how they responded to Sanford's warnings. Only one educator lost his job because of cheating, according to DCPS. Meanwhile, Rhee fired more than 600 teachers for low test scores — 241 of them in one day in 2010.

The cheating issue first came to light in 2011, after USA TODAY reported that, between 2008 and 2010, 103 schools had test-erasure rates that surpassed districtwide erasure-rate averages at least once.

Erasures are detected by the same electronic scanners used to score tests. When a teacher or student erases a bubble sheet, this leaves behind a light smudge. Computers tally the smudges as well as the new answers.

The USA TODAY investigation found that, as far back as 2008, the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE), D.C.'s equivalent of a state education department, asked for an erasure analysis. Among the 96 schools flagged for wrong-to-right erasures were eight of the 10 campuses where Rhee handed out so-called TEAM awards "to recognize, reward and retain high-performing educators and support staff." In all, Rhee bestowed more than $1.5 million in bonuses based on increases in 2007 and 2008 test scores.

The USA TODAY investigation led to inquiries by the D.C. Office of the Inspector General and the U.S. Department of Education's Inspector General. Neither found evidence of widespread cheating, but both primarily focused on just a handful of schools.

The 2009 memo was obtained by veteran education journalist John Merrow, who has been covering Rhee since her arrival in D.C. in 2007. His documentary on her legacy ran on PBS' Frontline in January.

FRONTLINE: 'The Education of Michelle Rhee'

JOHN MERROW: Michelle Rhee's Reign of Error

Merrow provided a copy of the memo to USA TODAY on Thursday. Its findings stand in stark contrast to public statements made both by Rhee and her onetime deputy, Kaya Henderson, now D.C.'s chancellor. In a Jan. 8 statement coinciding with Merrow's broadcast, Henderson noted, "All of the investigations have concluded in the same way that there is no widespread cheating at D.C. Public Schools." She added, "We take test security incredibly seriously and will continue to do so even after our name has been cleared."

Sanford's memo warns its intended recipients to "keep this erasure study really close (sic) hold. No more people in the know than necessary until we have more conclusive results."

The memo suggests, "Don't make hard copies and leave them around. Much of what we think we know is based on what I consider to be incomplete information. So the picture is not perfectly clear yet, but the possible ramifications are serious."

At the time, many D.C. schools, as well as those nationwide, were struggling to meet the federal government's "adequate yearly progress" (AYP) levels, which required year-to-year test score gains. Agencies such as OSSE were pushing for improvements.

"If all 70 schools wind up being compromised AND OSSE wants AYP blood," the memo warns, "the result could be devastating with regard to our reported gains in 2008."

In a statement, Rhee said she didn't recall getting Sanford's memo: "As chancellor I received countless reports, memoranda and presentations. I don't recall receiving a report by Sandy Sanford regarding erasure data from the (DC Comprehensive Assessment System), but I'm pleased, as has been previously reported, that both inspectors general (DOE and DCPS) reviewed the memo and confirmed my belief that there was no widespread cheating."

Henderson's spokeswoman, Melissa Salmanowitz, said the chancellor "has no recollection of receiving/reading this document, nor of discussing it with then-chancellor Rhee" because Henderson wasn't involved in erasure analysis at the time. But Salmanowitz said DCPS' testing company noted that the district didn't have enough information to conduct an investigation and, based on Sanford's analysis, shouldn't necessarily conclude that cheating had occurred.

As of 7:49 AM Friday morning, the Washington/Kaplan Test Prep Post hasn't picked up the story yet.

I find it fascinating that the same paper that broke Watergate, the same paper that is supposed to cover DC schools, has been scooped on this story twice - first by USA Today, then by John Merrow at Frontline.

Might it be the Washington/Kaplan Test Prep Post, a big supporter of Michelle Rhee, corporate education reform, and high stakes standardizing test, doesn't want to cover the story or learn the full of extent of what Rhee and Henderson did and didn't do?

Rhee/D.C. Cheating Memo Leaked - But Will It Lead To A REAL Investigation Of Rhee's DCPS Tenure?

Someone leaked a memo from outside data consultant to Michelle Rhee that informed her that widespread cheating on the high stakes tests in the DC school system had taken place.

John Merrow was the recipient of that leaked memo and went public with it last night:

Michelle A. Rhee, America’s most famous school reformer, was fully aware of the extent of the problem when she glossed over what appeared to be widespread cheating during her first year as Schools Chancellor in Washington, DC.  A long-buried confidential memo from her outside data consultant suggests that the problem was far more serious than kids copying off other kids’ answer sheets.  (“191 teachers representing 70 schools”).  Twice in just four pages the consultant suggests that Rhee’s own principals, some of whom she had hired, may have been responsible (“Could the erasures in some cases have been done by someone other than the students and the teachers?”).

Merrow reports there is a "reliable witness" who says Michelle Rhee, then chancellor of the DCPS, discussed the memo with her deputy chancellor (now the current DCPS chancellor) Kaya Henderson:

The rash of “wrong to right” (WTR) erasures was first noticed by the DC official in charge of testing, who, after consulting with the test-maker, asked Rhee to investigate, in November, 2008.  Through her data chief,  Rhee turned to Dr. Fay G. “Sandy” Sanford for outside analysis.

I have a copy of the memo[2] and have confirmed its authenticity with two highly placed and reputable sources. The anonymous source is in DCPS; the other is DC Inspector General Charles Willoughby. A reliable source has confirmed that Rhee and Deputy Chancellor Kaya Henderson discussed the memo in staff gatherings. Sanford came to Washington to present his findings in late January, 2009, after which he wrote his memo.

In response to my request for comment, Rhee issued the following careful statement:  “As chancellor I received countless reports, memoranda and presentations. I don’t recall receiving a report from Sandy Sanford regarding erasure data from the DC CAS, but I’m pleased, as has been previously reported, that both inspectors general (DOE and DCPS) reviewed the memo and confirmed my belief that there was no wide spread cheating.” After receiving this statement, I sent her the memo; her spokesman responded by saying that she stood by her earlier statement.

Chancellor Henderson did not respond to my request for a response.

Sanford wanted the memo to be kept confidential. At the top and bottom of each page he wrote “Sensitive Information–Treat as Confidential,” and he urged, “Don’t make hard copies and leave them around.” (The memo.)

The gist of his message: the many ‘wrong to right’ erasures on the students’ answer sheets suggested widespread cheating by adults.

This "smoking gun" memo that shows Rhee, Henderson and other DCPS brass knew of the allegations of widespread cheating in DCPS and did nothing to investigate them shows us why there needs to be an independent, Atlanta-style investigation of Rhee's tenure at DCPS.

But who's going to call for that investigation?

The education reform establishment long ago hitched their wagons to the Rhee wagon train.

They're not calling for an investigation.

The Obama administration has close ties to Rhee and Arne Duncan in particular has a conflict of interest in the matter.

There is no way you're going to get the USDOE to conduct an independent investigation of Rhee and DCPS.

And those in power in the DC municipal government don't seem too interested in learning the truth either.

So far, we have had the USA Today investigation which showed just how many red flags are up over the test scores during Rhee's reign.

Then we had the Frontline investigation wherein a former DCPS prinicipal said she witnessed adults tampering with students' tests at a school that had been flagged by USA Today for an inordinate amount of wrong to right erasures.

Now we have the memo from the outside data consultant telling Rhee and Henderson that something was indeed funky throughout the system and a witness saying Rhee and Henderson discussed this memo at staff meetings.

Yet Rhee denies she had knowledge of the memo and Henderson refuses to respond to questions about it.

Will Rhee and Henderson continue to get help from the Obama administration, the education reform community and even the media in their stonewalling of this scandal?

So far, it seems it doesn't matter what evidence emerges about Rhee - she seems to be impervious to the scandal.

Must be nice to made of this kind of teflon, have such great friends in high places and be so central to the corporate education reform narrative that nothing can happen to you.

Policy Makers And Politicians Responsible For Numbers-Funking Belong In Jail Next To Beverly Hall

From The Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

The book that lay on Beverly Hall’s desk through years of acclaim and reproach at the Atlanta Public Schools contained neither business-school bromides nor educational platitudes.

It was “The Art of War.”

The millennia-old, pre-Machiavellian classic, by the Chinese general Sun-Tzu, lays out strategies for prevailing in any conflict through ruthless efficiency. Its eternal presence on her desk underscores Hall’s approach to her dozen years as Atlanta’s school superintendent: Schools were a battlefield. Test scores were weapons. Defeat was not an option.

An indictment issued Friday charging Hall and 34 other Atlanta educators with racketeering and other crimes sends the former superintendent into a new battle — this one in a courtroom. The case asks the court to render judgment not just on Hall and the other defendants, but also on the aggressive, sometimes-intimidating management style that she, her top advisers and their subordinates propagated for years.
...

Even setting aside criminal culpability, the indictment portrays a workplace with a toxic culture in which leaders routinely sacrificed their integrity to preserve the district’s image, not to mention Hall’s. Desired results, no matter how unlikely, drew little skepticism, grand jurors found. Truth-telling, on the other hand, could result in severe punishment. Employees who reported cheating put their jobs in jeopardy, and the indictment recounts an episode in which Hall lightly punished a cheating teacher but fired the whistleblower.

Through her lawyers, Hall denied the charges, as did other defendants, and the indictment provides no direct evidence that Hall ordered district employees to cheat on the Criterion-Referenced Competency Test, or CRCT. But it states that Hall did little or nothing to ferret out cheaters, and it alleges the superintendent and others took extreme actions to cover up wrongdoing.

“All warfare is based on deception,” Sun Tzu wrote.

If the indictment is accurate, Beverly Hall took his words to heart.

Rhee, Henderson, Klein, Bloomberg - they've all created workplaces with toxic cultures in which leaders routinely sacrifice integrity to preserve a district's image as well as their own.

If New York City and Washington D.C. were given the same going-over that Atlanta received under Governor Sonny Purdue, there would be lots of people carted out in handcuffs on RICO charges.

Does anyone really think Michelle Rhee and Kaya Henderson were unaware that administrators and teachers, under tremendous pressure from the feds and the city, were funking with the numbers in D.C.?

Does anyone think Joel Klein and Michael Bloomberg were unaware that administrators and teachers, under tremendous pressure from the feds, state and city to increase test scores and graduation rates, were funking with the numbers in NYC?

For that matter, does anyone really think Bloomberg and Ray Kelly are unaware that the precinct officers, captains and central office brass, under tremendous pressure from the mayor, are funking with the crime stats?

The pressure to continuously get better stats NO MATTER WHAT creates that toxic workplace culture that leads to cheating and funking with the numbers.

This is not to excuse the behavior, only to say that the people REALLY responsible for the toxic culture that leads to cheating and numbers-funking - the policy makers and politicians - are being spared the perp walks.

Do not think for a minute that the people who set up these policies - get the numbers up AT ANY COST - are not aware that they have set off a rash of cheating under them.

But they will not be held accountable in this mess.

George W. Bush, Rod Paige, Margaret Spellings, George Miller, Ted Kennedy, John Kline, Tom Harkin, Lamar Alexander, Barack Obama, Arne Duncan, Bill Gates, Eli Broad and all Wall Streeters and hedge fund managers and other corporate reform functionaries will skate accountability (in Kennedy's case, his memory will remain unsullied, at least by NCLB if not by Chappaquiddick.)

From the stories that are emerging of how Beverly Hall ruled by fear, punished whistleblowers in the system and let cheaters get off lightly, she ought to be held accountable for the cheating.

But so should all the policy makers and politicians and corporate funders and malanthropists who have engineered the education reform movement that created this toxic mess in the first place.

Just as the banksters who raided the economy and continue to engorge themselves off the Federal Reserve printing press have skated accountability for the financial collapse of '07/'08, the people responsible for the cheating of the children in Atlanta will skate accountability.