No criminal charges brought in South Georgia cheating cases

Punishments for cheating

Educators accused of cheating faced three separate punishments. They could have lost their jobs, their teaching certificates and their freedom. State investigations concluded that 185 Atlanta Public Schools teachers and administrators participated in cheating, and 49 educators were implicated in Dougherty County.

• Both the Atlanta and Dougherty County school systems worked to fire many educators allegedly involved with cheating. In Atlanta, 160 educators lost their jobs due to firings, resignations or retirements. In Dougherty, 19 educators lost their jobs.
• The Georgia Professional Standards Commission has taken action to suspend or revoke the licenses of educators accused of cheating. The commission has sought sanctions against 157 Atlanta educators and 35 Dougherty educators.
• Criminal charges were brought by the Fulton County District Attorney's Office against 35 former Atlanta educators. The Dougherty County district attorney chose not to seek any cheating-related prosecutions.

Unlike Atlanta’s cheating scandal, South Georgia educators accused of fudging standardized test scores won’t face criminal charges.

Dougherty County District Attorney Gregory Edwards said Friday he decided against prosecuting any of the 49 teachers and administrators accused by state investigators of misconduct. Similar to cheating in Atlanta, the investigation found that Albany-area educators erased incorrect answers to make their results look better.

Edwards said the potential suspension or revocation of their teaching certificates would be adequate punishment because there wasn’t a “top-down conspiracy” to cheat in Dougherty.

“The individuals here were working independently,” Edwards said. “The sanctions offered by the administrative process are sufficient for the infractions we saw here.”

Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard took a different approach by bringing felony charges against 35 former Atlanta Public Schools educators in March. A jury found one of the defendants not guilty of influencing a witness last week, but she and the rest of those charged still face trial on broader conspiracy charges next year.

While Dougherty educators aren’t threatened with prison, they could lose their careers. The Georgia Professional Standards Commission is moving forward with cases to sanction the certifications of both Atlanta and Dougherty educators accused of tampering with the 2009 Criterion-Referenced Competency Test.

The Georgia attorney general’s office last week began moving the first of the Dougherty educators’ appeals toward a hearing where they can appeal the standards commission’s recommendations. In general, the commission recommended two-year license suspensions for teachers and license revocations for administrators.

“Albany is different from Atlanta because the allegations of cheating are not systemwide, but rather isolated incidents on a school-by-school basis,” said Lauren Kane, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Sam Olens. “No allegations have been made against anyone in the central office.”

Those cases will be heard by administrative law judges, with the attorney general’s office acting as prosecutor. Decisions of administrative law judges can be appealed in superior court.

While the standards commission also has recommended sanctions against most of the Atlanta educators accused of cheating, none of their appeals is ready for a hearing.

The attorney general’s office has held off pursuing Atlanta cases because it didn’t want to impede the criminal investigation, Kane said. The attorney general’s office wants to proceed with cases involving educators who aren’t facing indictment, but its prosecutors can’t move forward until they receive evidence from the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office.

Of the Dougherty educators cited for misconduct by the state cheating investigation, the commission has recommended sanctions against 35.

“We wanted to take a very strong stance, but in some cases, when you get into it, there’s not enough evidence to say, ‘We know you’re the one who cheated,’” said Paul Shaw, director of educator ethics for the commission. “We know cheating was going on, but we can’t always pin it on somebody specifically.”

Twenty-four of the Dougherty educators facing sanctions have sought hearings to appeal the commission’s recommendations.