Atlanta’s educators and the cheating scandal blame game
The country has been shocked by news that the award-winning Atlantic Public School system achieved its students’ high test scores via nearly a decade of systematic cheating by teachers and administrators.

While the Atlanta testing scandal is shaping up to be one of the largest instances of institutionalized cheating the country has seen, the phenomenon is not unusual.

In recent years officials and whistle-blowers have revealed numerous instances of teachers altering answers, failing to adhere to test requirements, and/or silencing dissenters in Maryland, Indiana, Massachusetts, Nevada, Virginia, and the District of Columbia.

With the relatively high rate of cheating and cheating allegations throughout the country, many are pointing to the fact that tests now carry greater consequences than they did before. Some say that with the stakes so high, cheating is to be expected.

“Few who have paid attention in the education era of high-stakes testing will be surprised at this,” Valerie Strauss wrote in The Washington Post last week. “And the stakes are only getting higher for teachers and principals, who are increasingly being evaluated and paid according to how well their students do on standardized tests, despite research showing that test-driven reform hasn’t made an impact in the last decade on student achievement. ”...