How the Atlanta Teaching Scandal was Uncovered

A recent article in Business Insider shed some light on how a teaching scandal in Atlanta was uncovered. The scandal involved teachers who were changing their student’s answers on a standardized test so that their students could score higher and the school district and teacher could get better funding and bonuses. (See more about the scandal at these previous posts: Teaching by Example: Fraud in Public Schools and More on the Cheating Scandals in Public Schools.)

The article says that the scandal might have never been uncovered “if it weren’t for a pair of ambitious reporters at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.” The reporters noticed several unexplained increases in test scores at several schools and decided to investigate further. One reporter said to the Huffington Post, “We were poking around. We saw some schools that had very hard to believe gains, just looking with the naked eye.” By poking around and noticing something unusual the cheating scandal was revealed and further investigations pursued.

This is another lesson that when you see something that is too good to be true, pay attention since it probably is!