“It’s the sickest thingâ€: judge who handed out the sentences.
By Raif Karerat
WASHINGTON, DC: 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, according to Reuters.
Three of the 11 educators found guilty by a jury earlier this month were handed 20-year sentences, with seven years being served in prison and the rest on probation.
Superior Court Judge Jerry Baxter gave five more educators received five-year sentences, with two ordered to serve two years in prison and three to serve one year.
Two of the convicted educators avoided potentially harsher punishments by striking deals with the prosecution.
One was ordered to serve six months of weekends in jail and five years of probation. The final educator also cooperated with prosecutors and apologized in court. She was given five years probation, with one year of an evening home curfew, but received no jail time.
Baxter had previously urged the defendants to consider plea deals that would require them to accept responsibility in exchange for limiting their prison time.
Erasing wrong answers was part of the cheating by the educators, who were under intense pressure to meet test targets, prosecutors said during a nearly six-month trial. Reuters reported the inflated levels of student achievement helped the former principals, teachers and administrators to secure promotions and cash bonuses.
During sentencing, Baxter called the cheating “pervasive.”
“It’s like the sickest thing that’s ever happened in this town,” he said.
ABC News reported on a state investigation that found educators from the 50,000-student Atlanta school system were feeding answers to students or changing incorrect answers on tests as far back as 2005. Evidence of rampant cheating was found in 44 schools with nearly 180 educators involved, and whistleblowers who tried to report it were consequently threatened with retaliation.
The recent verdict is reminiscent of the 2013 trial that saw 35 educators indicted on charges including racketeering, making false statements, and theft. Many pleaded guilty before the trial and the jury acquitted one of the 12 former educators who went to trial while convicting the other 11 on a racketeering charge.
Former Superintendent Beverly Hall was among those indicted, but she did not go to trial because her lawyers successfully argued that she was too sick. She eventually died from complications of breast cancer. The 11th convicted former educator had a baby over the weekend per ABC News and will be sentenced at a later date.