Massive Cheating by Principals/Teachers in Atlanta Public Schools

You’ve seen those reports about our students’ test scores improving, right?

I’ve seen them too and I was skeptical. Why? Because those reports simply went against everything else we know about our declining culture, standards, and our young people. As an example, a Marist Poll found that 1 of 4 Americans (26%) do not even know against which country the American Revolution was fought! Some of the countries mentioned were France, China, Japan, Mexico, and Spain.

So, it comes as no surprise to learn this morning of the massive cheating that’s been going on in the public school system of Atlanta, Georgia.

Beverly Hall was Atlanta’s schools superintendent during the cheating (photo credit: AJC.com)

Mark Strassman reports for CBS News, July 5, 2011, that 80% (or 44 out of 56) of the public schools in Atlanta were found to have cheated on tests — for the last 10 years. The cheating wasn’t done by students, but by 178 principals and teachers.

Dozens of educators erased wrong student answers on state standardized tests, and inserted the right ones. In all, investigators accused 38 principals of cheating and said 82 of the 178 educators they identified as part of the scandal confessed.

Potential whistle-blowers were bullied, or worse. At one Atlanta high school, former teacher Paul Landerman saw a teacher helping 50 students change test answers. He reported it. The next day, he says, he was fired because “The greatest value inside that system is loyalty to the system.”

The motive for cheating?

It was to show phony progress at often troubled schools, which of course brought out the usual liberal scapegoating finger-pointers, such as NYU professor Diane Ravitch who blames a federal law that links funding with test performance: “We have a terrible federal law called No Child Left Behind that says that all schools have to have 100 percent of their students proficient in reading in math by the year 2014 or their schools will be shut down.”

You can see Ravitch on fellow-liberal Jon (“I’m not partisan! I’m not an activist!”) Stewart’s show HERE.

The school investigation is very critical of Beverly Hall, former superintendent of Atlanta’s public school system. Atlanta schools showed such progress during her term that in 2009, Hall was named America’s superintendent of the year. But investigators say Hall either knew of the cheating, or should have. She has denied that, but in her retirement video last month blamed other employees.: “I am confident that aggressive, swift action will be taken against anyone who believes so little in our students and in our system of support that they turned to dishonesty as the only option.”

Potential whistle-blowes were bullied, or worse. At one Atlanta high school, former teacher Paul Landerman saw a teacher helping 50 students change test answers. He reported it. The next day, he says, he was fired because “The greatest value inside that system is loyalty to the system.”

Atlanta’s cheating involved the same sort of standardized tests used all over the country. Atlanta’s scandal is the biggest in recent years, but other school systems, in Baltimore, Houston and Detroit, have had isolated cheating issues on state-wide tests.

As for whether there could be worse punishment for the cheaters, a standardized test is a government document. Altering one in Georgia can be a felony, punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

Isn’t it interesting that when you click “Salaries” on the Atlanta Public Schools Human Resource Services website, you get this error message:

“Server Not Found.”

Undeterred, I did find the following information on the Teacher Portal website:

The teacher/student ratio is Atlanta, GA is 13.7

TeacherPortal’s Salary Rank for Georgia public schools: 3rd

For Georgia public school teachers:

• Starting Salary: $34,442
• Average Salary:  $48,300
• Salary Raise Last Year: 3.81%
• Salary Raise Last 10 Years: 42.1%

Hmm, let me see if I got this right:

• Cheating by teachers in Atlanta public schools is believed to have gone on for 10 years.
• The same Atlanta public school teachers enjoyed a salary increase of 42.1% in the last 10 years.

We know there’s one thing Atlanta’s public school students have learnt:

Cheating pays!

UPDATE (April 1, 2013):

Nearly two years after the cheating scandal came to light, former superintendent Beverly Hall and 34 other administrators are finally indicted — on racketeering and conspiracy. See “Justice! – Former superintendent indicted for Atlanta public schools cheating.“

~Eowyn

Juan Williams Says Liberals Want Blacks to Stay in the Box

~LTG

Liberal Jon Stewart Denies He’s Liberal

As a student of human psychology, I’m always fascinated by how a man who mercilessly lampoons and criticizes others is so thin-skinned that he not only can’t take a criticism, he actually denies reality.

Jon Stewart is the latest example.

Stewart, whose real surname is Leibowtiz, is the very liberal host of what even Wikipedia describes as “the satirical news program” on Comedy Central. Stewart had described himself in high school as “very into Eugene Debs and a bit of a leftist.” (Eugene Debs was an American union leader and several times the candidate of the Socialist Party of America for POTUS.) Reportedly, Stewart has made monetary campaign donation to only one politician — the exhibitionist and still-not-formally-resigned Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner.

Yesterday, June 19, 2011, Stewart appeared on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace. This is the UK’s Daily Mail‘s account of what transpired:

But the atmosphere quickly turned serious as Mr Stewart, angered by questions over his own ‘liberal’ bias, snapped. The audience were shown a transcript of Mr Stewart describing Fox News as a, “relentless agenda-driven 24 hour news opinion propaganda delivery system.”

Mr Wallace then asked the comedian: “Where do you come up with this stuff.”

Stewart responded: “Uh, it’s actually quite easy.”

[...] Wallace then played a clip of Mr Stewart comparing a video of Sarah Palin’s recent bus tour to a herpes commercial.

Mr Stewart erupted: “You’re insane… Here’s the difference between you and I. I’m a comedian first. My comedy is informed by an ideological background, there’s no question about that. But the thing that you will never understand…is that Hollywood, yeah, they’re liberal, but that’s not their primary motivating force. I’m not an activist. I am a comedian…. Do I want my voice heard. Absolutely, that’s why I got into comedy. Am I an activist, in your mind? A partisan ideological activist.”

Mr Wallace answered with a short, “Yeah.”

“Okay, then I disagree with you.” Stewart said. Rising in temper again, he said: “You can’t understand, because of the world that you live in, that there is not a designed ideological agenda on my part to affect partisan change because that’s the soup you swim in…. It reminds me of in ideological regimes, they can’t understand that there is free media other places because they receive marching orders.”

[...] Through gritted teeth Mr Stewart added: ‘In the polls who is the most consistently misinformed media viewers. Fox, Fox viewers. Consistently. Every poll.”

To watch the Stewart-Wallace video, go HERE and scroll down.

Stewart is not a liberal activist? The same Jon Stewart who organized and led the “Rally to Restore Sanity” on October 30, 2010, in Washington, D.C.? The same rally where these pics were taken?

At the Jon Stewart Rally, Washington, DC, October 30, 2010

NAMBLA's motto: “Evil is Good, Insanity is the new Sanity. Pedophiles and Pederasts of the World Unite!”

Stewart is also plain mistaken about Fox viewers. An analysis of the Soros-funded survey that claimed Fox viewers to be the most misinformed media consumers concluded that the survey:

1. Didn’t test what it claimed.
2. Contained a trick question.
3. Contained baseless conclusions.
4. The data collected actually supported opposite conclusions from what was reported.
5. The researchers cited disputed citations as fact.

~Eowyn

Right-Left Establishment Go After Trump. Damage Inflicted?

Lately, one after another establishment personality are piling on Donald Trump.

First, we have the predictable trolls on the Left, like the man whose real name isn’t Jon Stewart but Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz. (See Stewart mock Trump on HuffPo here.) Huffington Post even has an entire webpage devoted to all the spoofs (“comedy”) that were “inspired” by Trump since the 1980s.

Entertainer Chris Rock, on the Oprah Winfrey show, compared Trump and the Birthers not just to spoiled, immature children, but said they “are possessed by the devil.”

Actor-comedian Bill Cosby said Trump “is full of it” and should just “run or shut up.”

Even actor Robert De Niro, another Democrat, piled on by calling Trump “crazy,” “a big hustle” and “a car salesman” for dare asking questions about Obama’s birth certificate. To which Trump gave this response in an appearance on Fox & Friends: “I like [De Niro's] acting, but in terms of when I watch him doing interviews and various other things, we’re not dealing with Albert Einstein.”

But it’s not just the Left who feel threatened by a possible Trump run for the presidency. On the other side of the partisan spectrum, one GOP establishment elite after another are also piling on.

Last week, GOP strategist Karl Rove called Trump the “Al Sharpton of the Republican party” and said this about Trump calling attention to Obama’s eligibility: “His full embrace of the birther issue means that he’s off there in the nutty right and is now an inconsequential candidate.” To which, Trump gave this quick and apt riposte: “Bush finished so weak that we ended up getting Obama. [Rove] ran the man [Bush] into the ground. And the more I see about Karl Rove, the more I realize: maybe it wasn’t completely Bush’s fault.”

Then conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer added his two cents. In his column for the Washington Post on April 21, 2011, Krauthammer wrote this about Trump:

“He’s not a candidate, he’s a spectacle. He’s also not a conservative. With a wink and a smile, Muhammad Ali showed that self-promoting obnoxiousness could be charming. Trump shows that it can be merely vulgar. A provocateur and a clown, the Republicans’ Al Sharpton. The Lions have a better chance of winning the Super Bowl.”

Conservative columnist Michelle Malkin took a shot too. In her op/ed for Investor’s Business Daily on April 25, 2011, Malkin called Trump “no more a standard-bearer of conservative values, limited government and constitutional principles than the cast of ‘Jersey Shore’.”

This morning it’s another conservative pundit’s turn. Over at National Review, Thomas Sowell published “Obama’s Trump Card, The damage the Donald can do,” arguing that if Trump runs he will likely lose, but in the process will badly hobble the GOP field, like Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee. And if the unthinkable happens, If Trump somehow wins the nomination, that will guarantee Obama’s reelection.

All these hits on Trump from both the left and the right appear to have inflicted damage.

A new USA Today/Gallup poll finds 50% of Americans, including 31% of Republicans, saying Trump would make a “poor” or “terrible” president. 63% of Americans, including 46% of Republicans, say they definitely will not vote for Trump for president. In comparison, 46% of Americans say they definitely will not vote for Obama in 2012.

What is intriguing is that the poll found that it’s not the birther issue that’s hurting Trump because support from the “birthers” is stronger for Sarah Palin, Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney. The poll also found that the number of Americans who believe Obama definitely was born in America has dwindled to 38%.

John Romano of the blog, Yes, But, However, has this trenchant observation about Trump:

“The last politician that the Democratic party and the GOP establishment partnered to destroy was Sarah Palin. In that instance, the destruction politically was complete…. Ms. Palin is DOA at the ballot box in the short term if not forever.

The main way that the unlikely coalition destroys outspoken or non-establishment Republicans or conservative ideas is to make supporting the idea or candidate carry an element of shame with it. A great example of this is when the media aligned with the Democratic party accuses someone or a group of racism without any concrete evidence. This trick was used with only mixed results on the Tea Party. Sure, the Tea Party denizens are mostly white, but so was John Stewart’s “Rally to Restore Obama’s Image”…. Thanks to the internet and media rabble-rousers like Andrew Breitbart, James O’Keefe and others, this weapon is less effective….

Trump has been in the media for over twenty years. to suddenly call him a racist would be tough. When the “Donald” said he had great relations “with the blacks” two weeks ago, it was almost enough for the media to begin its tar and feather act, but it didn’t catch on. That tells you something. Trump will have to foul up big time on the race issue for the media to use it.

Another weapon in the arsenal of political destruction is to have entertainment icons knock an idea or personality. Sounds pedestrian, but it is usually very effective. We saw this with Tina Fey’s dead-on impersonation of Sarah Palin. Do a poll today and most people will tell you that it was the “idiot” Sarah Palin who said she saw “Russia from my house”. It was Tina Fey on NBC’s Saturday Night Live. Ms. Palin said, correctly, that “you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska.” Never let the facts get in the way of a good political beating.

Doing the same kind of thing to Donald Trump is a near impossibility which puts both ends of the destroy Trump camp in a pickle. He is a caricature of a caricature of himself. The “Donald” has lived his life in the press. Every odd or bold statement, marital foible, triumph and failure has been in the New York and national press for over 20 years. The man is an open, highly entertaining, book. Instead the tack so far is to play up celebrities like Jerry Seinfeld and Robert Deniro taking it to Trump. It may work, but I doubt it. Look for Lady Gaga to opine about Mr. Trump at some point in the near future (I’m not kidding). Without a Tina Fey moment, the whole exercise is futile. Although, SNL hasn’t taken a real shot at Mr. Trump yet. We shall see….

Whatever happens with Mr. Trump’s bid, a new paradigm is forming. The American people are thirsting for a leader with the brass cojones that characterizes both the Palin and Trump identity. Where is 2012 right now? The Karl Roves of the world think they are saving the republic by pushing for a mealy-mouthed devout Christian for the GOP. The Democratic party thinks that this country belongs to them and that we all just live in it. But the day is coming when a genuine leader from outside the establishment will withstand the media and personal onslaught from the left and right. Is that person Donald Trump? It may very well be.”

~Eowyn

The Jon Stewart [Rally] Freak Show

Here are 14 photos of comedian Jon Stewart Leibowitz’s left-wing “Rally to Restore Sanity [sic]” in Washington, DC, which you’ll never see in the MSM. 

[Source: Doug Ross @ Journal]

~Eowyn

It’s still Bush’s fault! It’ll always be Bush’s fault!

But…but…I thought liberals say they’re all about Peace and Love

Sarah Palin is Hitler! Glenn Beck is Hitler! Rush Limbaugh is Hitler! We’re surrounded by Hitlers! Aaack! Paranoia, anyone?

The motto of NAMBLA (North American Man/Boy Love Association):

“Evil is Good, Insanity is the new Sanity. Pedophiles and Pederasts of the World Unite!”

Okay, I’m stumped. “Dry hump your party?”

Yes, yes! That’s what we have in America: Our media/press are too conservative!

Hmm, what are the chances they are among the 47% of Americans who don’t pay any federal income tax?

It’s funny when an atheist invokes God.

Were you looking at yourself in the mirror?

Did you say “crazy”?

Who’s crazy now?

I definitely see crazy from my house!

This hater is carrying a flag made from pieces and shreds of the American Flag

++++

UPDATE:

And now, for the most offensive and insane sign at the rally:

Democrats: A Party of Clowns

Our Founding Fathers would surely cringe in supreme embarrassment at the sight of a “president” and a political party sucking up to comics and “entertainers” clowns and jesters in a desperate bid to revive their plummeting fortunes.

H/t my friend Bob W.

~Eowyn

Jon Stewart’s Comic Relief 2010

By George Neumayr – American Spectator - October 28, 2010 

Once upon a time jesters courted kings. Now enfeebled kings court jesters. Panting after the approval of the smug comedian Jon “Stewart,” Barack Obama taped an interview for The Daily Show on Wednesday.

The smirking jester is also scheduled to hold a kind of charity benefit for his sickly king this weekend, a Comic Relief 2010 called The Rally to Restore Sanity. Obama and the Dems are suffering from a debilitating political disease, but Jon, Whoopi, Robin and Joy, among other celebrity jesters, stand ready to help them in their affliction.

No cure appears likely, though. Comic Relief 2010 may raise a little money and get some college students to the polls, but it is surely too little too late. As many dismayed Democratic strategists even suspect, Obama’s ill-advised Daily Show appearance is a harbinger of defeat.

It is reminiscent of John McCain’s odd decision to host Saturday Night Live shortly before election day in 2008. McCain’s campaign started as a joke and ended as one, with McCain fishing for laughs off SNL parodies that were predicated upon his imminent defeat.

At a time of high unemployment, Obama is content to play the empty celebrity, appearing on shows as shallow as his policies and delivering trendy messages about the latest anxiety of the coastal elite — the “gay teen suicide epidemic.”

“Can The Comedian Save The Vote?” asks Matt Drudge of Stewart. No, this jester can’t save his king. Still, Stewart is feeling his oats, basking in near-universal approval from the liberal elite. They can’t get enough of him and live in dread fear of losing his approval. A desperately contrite Rick Sanchez, so grateful to Stewart for taking a reconciliation phone call from him after his firing, pronounced the comedian the “classiest” guy in the world.

While Stewart engages in a lot of cutesy mugging and seemingly self-deprecating humor about such accolades, he takes himself very seriously indeed. His own liberal assumptions are exempt from mocking, and he claims to be deeply pained by “phoniness” at the highest levels of society. Yet somehow this concern about phoniness doesn’t extend to something as basic as his own name, which is not Jon Stewart but Jon Leibowitz, or his own role in high society. The self-proclaimed puncturer of all things phony has a phony name, and the jester has no intention of dropping his mask or reforming his juvenile ways.

The most respected liberal in America, according to one recent poll, throws his spit balls, then makes sure to hide in the bushes. On Crossfire several years back, he made it clear that he thinks others — but not he — are “hurting” society.

A cocky celebrity wanting it both ways is hardly news, but it is notable that the Democratic Party is now led in large part by comics. Stephen Colbert testified before Pelosi’s Congress as an honored guest; SNL alumnus Al Franken sits in the Senate; comedienne Joy Behar vets presidential candidates on The View; and Bill Maher is treated like Mark Twain.

Had Joy Behar lived a century ago, she would have been a lewd barmaid somewhere. Now she is an important Democratic “opinionmaker,” browbeating this or that public figure. She stomped off the set in an elephantine huff the other week after Bill O’Reilly failed to pay sufficient homage to Islam. But this week the defender of religions of peace cast Sharron Angle into the fires of “hell” and called her a “bitch.”

One wonders how long Behar would avoid a stoning if she ever talked like that in Saudi Arabia. The ladies of The View are lucky the show is not shot in Riyadh.

Liberalism, perhaps under the influence of its foul-mouthed jesters, has suspended some of its old sensitivities, as its practitioners call Meg Whitman a “whore” (an honorable if insufficiently regulated line of work from liberalism’s point of view), Angle a “bitch,” and everyone from Juan Williams to Christine O’Donnell “crazy.” Is that any way for liberals to talk about the mentally ill? And who knew that New Age NPR executives used “feelings” and “psychiatrist” so easily in punchlines?

Obama himself, trying hard to impress Jay Leno early in his term, used the “Special Olympics” as a punchline during that late-night appearance. But it is his administration and party which look increasingly lame and laughable as they court comics.

George Neumayr is editor of Catholic World Report and press critic for California Political Review.

No Potty For You

God Bless the Marines. Thanks to them, the libs won’t even have a pot to pee in at their Comedy Central rally.

~Tom in NC

D.C. toilet shortage is Keeping Fear Alive

October 20, 2010

About 65,000 are expected to attend the Comedy Central rallies Oct. 30. (WTOP Photo)

WASHINGTON — The calls of nature may be particularly loud at an upcoming D.C. event if attendees don’t have a place to “go.”

Comedy Central organizers are having a hard time finding port-o-potties for their rallies to take place in a week and a half, after the Marine Corps Marathon planners snatched up about 800 of them for the same weekend.

The organizers of Jon Stewart’s Rally to Restore Sanity and Stephen Colbert’s March to Keep Fear Alive, both to take place Saturday, Oct. 30, have asked the marathon staff to share the portable toilets with their 65,000 expected to attendees.

But the Marines aren’t budging — they plan to lock the toilets until the morning of their race the day after, they tell the New York Times.

The National Park Service requires portable toilets for events expected to exceed capacity of “comfort facilities” on NPS property, according to a department document. They recommend one toilet for every 300 people.

An NPS spokesperson tells WTOP that comedy Central should be able to get more port-o-potties in the greater D.C. area.