The state’s investigation into test tampering at Atlanta Public Schools took an ominous turn last week for the teachers and administrators implicated in the scandal.
Many had faced disciplinary action by the state commission that licenses educators. Now, some of them may be charged with crimes.
Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard on Tuesday announced that he was deputizing the two men leading the state’s investigation, former state Attorney General Mike Bowers and former DeKalb County District Attorney Bob Wilson. If criminal prosecutions become necessary, Howard said, they will help his office pursue the cases.
“The team assembled by the governor presented my office with clear-cut, direct, eyewitnessed evidence that Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests were impermissible altered by Atlanta Public School employees,” Howard said.
The Fulton DA’s involvement immediately changed the political dynamics — and the gravity — of the ongoing probe, which was ordered by Gov. Sonny Perdue three months ago. No longer is it only an investigation ordered by a Republican governor. It is now being pursued by Howard, a longtime Democrat who said he may impanel a special grand jury that could hand up criminal indictments.
“We need to understand what happened and then move forward so our children can be the best educated in the country,” Howard told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Friday. “It’s really the children who are at the bottom of this thing. That’s what people have got to understand — this is about our kids.”
The arrangement came about after a chance meeting of Howard and Wilson at the Nov. 15 swearing-in of DeKalb’s new district attorney. The two discussed the cheating investigation and Howard offered his help. The special investigators then obtained Perdue’s permission to formally ask Howard for his assistance, and a meeting was quickly arranged.
After Bowers, Wilson and GBI Director Vernon Keenan laid out for Howard what they’d uncovered, Howard did not hesitate to designate Bowers and Wilson as special prosecutors, participants in the meeting said.
Keenan said Howard’s quick decision was no surprise.
“He’s always believed that issues that occur in Fulton County need to be addressed by the Fulton District Attorney’s Office and not outside prosecutors,” Keenan said. “He’s never wavered from that in my entire relationship with him.”
Howard has already faced criticism for taking on the controversial case.
Members of the Concerned Black Clergy and other community leaders have denouced the designation of Bowers and Wilson as Fulton prosecutors. The groups’ press release called the development “disturbing, reprehensible and misguided.”
The Rev. Timothy McDonald said no school official should go to prison for test cheating. “Everybody knows that cheating occurred,” he said. “We do not support cheating, but we do support our teachers, administrators, parents and students. ... We feel the criminalization of this investigation is unprecedented.”
Howard said he talked to members of the Concerned Black Clergy on Thursday and asked for their support, and he said he is sensitive to complaints that investigators are targeting teachers and administrators.
“But that’s not what we’re after,” Howard said. “We’re trying to get to the truth.”
Howard said his public integrity section has handled other sensitive cases, citing prosecutions of local police officers and government officials and a recent criminal probe of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s finances.
Bob Holmes, a former Democratic state lawmaker from Atlanta, questioned the need for a large GBI presence in the APS case, but said he understood why Howard made his decision.
“By bringing in the special investigators, he doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel because they have already been on the case,” Holmes said. “Now they can perhaps move much more expeditiously, and we all want to get this thing over as quickly as possible.”
Keenan said that while 50 GBI agents — more than one-fifth of the agency’s force — were initially deployed to interview teachers and administrators across APS, the bureau has reduced the number assigned to the case and is deploying them as needed.
Already, numerous school officials have confessed to investigators that they changed students’ test papers, provided answers to students or saw others manipulate test results, an official briefed on the investigation told the AJC last week.
The destruction or altering of public documents, such as correcting wrong answers on CRCT exams, is a felony under state law. So is lying to agents conducting an investigation. GBI officials have said that teachers would not be prosecuted so long as they tell the truth.
One question confronting Fulton prosecutors is how high up in the APS hierarchy their investigation will lead them. Teachers, testing coordinators, assistant principals and principals have been implicated, but it is unclear whether the investigation is reaching beyond individual schools to the district’s central office.
Patrick Crabtree, an APS elementary schoolteacher who heads the Atlanta Association of Educators, said his group has helped teachers caught up in the probe find lawyers to represent them and has helped pay the legal fees by tapping into a National Education Association legal assistance program. A number of school principals have retained their own defense attorneys.
The investigation should focus on school leaders and their tactics, Crabtree said, because principals and administrators pressured and “bullied” teachers to meet academic targets.
“This overt threat of job loss, bonuses and pay for performance created this climate,” Crabtree said. “It was stated that targets must be met ‘by any means necessary.’ ”
No one condones unethical behavior, he said, but “when an ethical person operates under constant threats, they will do unethical things, simply for survival. I have met with the investigating team and they assured me that they are not out to ‘get the teacher’ and they want to go after the ones who created the climate. That part I commend them [for] but, in many cases, the threats have been a bit much.”
Atlanta lawyer Jeff Brickman, a former DeKalb DA, said that now that investigators have obtained cooperation from some school officials, they will try to match up their testimony with the actual test papers and other documents obtained through subpoenas.
“They are certainly going to try to corroborate what these cooperating witnesses have to say — to make sure their stories hold water,” he said. “Because it won’t be the number of witnesses they have that leads them to decide whether to bring charges, it will be the quality of the evidence. They won’t do that until they feel satisfied they can prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Howard’s pursuit of possible criminal charges for these educators has precedent.
Last year, a DeKalb County principal and assistant principal were swept up in a groundbreaking audit by the state that included an “erasure analysis” of student answer sheets. In the subsequent scandal, officials found that tests had been tampered with at three other elementary schools besides DeKalb’s Atherton Elementary School, including those in Atlanta and Fulton and Glynn counties.
After Principal James Berry and Assistant Principal Doretha Alexander confessed that they changed students’ answers so that they passed, DeKalb authorities charged both with falsifying a state document, a felony that carries a potential two- to 10-year prison term.
Berry pleaded guilty to that charge last December. He was sentenced to two years’ probation and a $1,000 fine. Alexander completed 40 hours of community service at a local food bank and faced no further action.
With Howard, there is also the question of how much autonomy the DA will give Bowers and Wilson, two seasoned prosecutors who are now working for him. Howard has long faced criticism that he micro-manages his assistant district attorneys and does not let them exercise enough discretion.
Asked Tuesday if he would take a similar hands-on approach in the APS case, Howard smiled and answered, “They will not be exempt.”
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