Book Review: None of the Above: The Untold Story of the Atlanta Public Schools Cheating Scandal, Corporate Greed and the Criminalization of Educators
By Shani Robinson & Anna Simonton
I highly recommend reading this engaging and well-researched story that explains the education reform movement and the corporate attack on the public schools by both the Republicans (No Child Left Behind) and the Democrats (Race to the Top).
It brought back painful memories of the Common Core attack and closing our public schools, massive testing of the kids and evaluating the teachers, a stress that continues to this day!
What happened in Atlanta is exactly what happened in Chicago. They too competed for Race to the Top dollars, closed public schools and replaced them with charter schools to make way for gentrifying neighborhoods, created a charter schools commission to override local school board decisions to close charters, and implemented the same TIF (Tax Increment Financing) scam to take money from the public schools and transfer it to rich developments. In Atlanta they called it TAD (Tax Allocation Districts). Are we in Kansas, Dorothy?
It is always interesting to hear the other cities and countries dealing with the education reform fight. We highlight stories by our wonderful correspondent Stephen Wilson about what is happening in Russia that replicates Chicago in this global community. In the case of tax monies going to build wealthy development, in Atlanta they actually sued the city to say you cannot transfer money for education to developers. And the Georgia Supreme Court agreed! However, the rich never stop scheming, and they went around the courts by going to the legislators they bought off and got them to issue a referendum to restore the education dollars to the real estate market. That is how the world really works!
They did to poor black people in Atlanta, what they are doing to poor black people here and everywhere - trying to erase them! They destroy their public housing and public schools, and make way for the rich and white. Atlanta rulers tried to emulate New Orleans, but they didn´t have Hurricane Katrina that helped New Orleans to close half the public schools and replace them with charter schools. Pig faced Chicago Tribune editorial writer Kristine McQueary called for a Hurricane Katrina in Chicago to whip out the Chicago public schools and replace them with charters, which was repeated by Chicago schools chief Arne Duncan who became Barack Obama´s education secretary. Duncan had to apologize; I'm still waiting to hear from McQueary.
This was how CORE was formed to lead the Chicago Teachers Union and fight back against this ugly education reform movement!
The bookś authors take a close look at the Atlanta testing scandal which highlighted the racism as there were teachers all over the state and country who were/are cheating to keep their jobs, but they had to make 35 black educators scapegoats. Duncan quickly dismissed the cheating charges in Washington D.C. home to education reform darling Michelle Rhee and the feds never prosecuted.
Georgia used the racketeering laws that were used to prosecute the mafia to highlight how horrible these teachers were. It was a conspiracy!
Prosecutions are tied to politics, and this comes out loud and clear in the book. We know the wealthy like Trump and sex predator Jeffrey Epstein paid off the politicians to get special treatment. Unfortunately, the teachers like Shani Robinson, who say they were innocent and it certainly looks that way, still believed in the American system of justice to fight in the courts. The others wisely took plea deals after being threatened with 20 year prison sentences because they hurt the kids on those standardized tests. They then ratted out or falsely accused the others to get convictions, despite the overwhelming evidence, or lack thereof, to show any conspiracy. In Robinson´s case, she thought she was just erasing stray marks from 7-year-olds whose tests didn´t count anyway toward the annual yearly progress they hold schools accountable. Who actually changed those answers to get higher test scores isn´t revealed in the book. But who cares, the whole thing is ridiculous!
Talk about racism alive and well in this country. In Georgia you have the first republican-elected governor in the state since reconstruction and he immediately cuts $1 billion in education funding and wants to restore the confederate flag. Atlanta named Beverly Hall, a black administrator from NY, as superintendent of the Atlanta Public Schools, who tragically died while fighting her case for cheating. Her transgression was crossing a white overlord - Gov. Sonny Perdue (currently serving as the head of agriculture in Trump's cabinet) - by contesting and appealing his investigation into massive cheating on the tests in Atlantaś public schools. But I have no strong tears for Hall, she became a darling of the reformists by firing hundreds of educators back East. They use you up, then throw you out. Look at our very own former CPS CEO Barbara Byrde Bennett who Mayor Emanuel used to close lots of black schools, until she got too greedy and is now in prison.
For some reason persecutor-turned-defender of public education Diane Ravitch loved Hall. At first, until it all turned sour.
What looked like a clear case of framing these poor black teachers turned into a witch hunt. The authors write how the corporate media made the teachers look like witches, rather than present both sides to the story. Any book that takes a serious look at the corporate media is important!
I didn´t like the part where, after they present all this research to show how charter schools were merely a scam concocted by the ruling class to screw the public schools, they then defend some of them. They write at the end that some charter schools are doing a great job, including those that are African-centered. Charters were merely pawns of the ruling class, and no African-centered charter is worth closing the public schools surrounding it.
I highly recommend everyone interested in public education to read what you can´t read in our mainstream media. It is an honest look at the education reform movement that focuses on real estate, with schools a mere fig leaf to disguise their true intentions. Anna Simonton did great research and clearly explains the various real estate scams, including mixed-income housing charades to tell the real story for the people who don´t have million dollar investments riding on destroying public education.
By Shani Robinson & Anna Simonton
It brought back painful memories of the Common Core attack and closing our public schools, massive testing of the kids and evaluating the teachers, a stress that continues to this day!
What happened in Atlanta is exactly what happened in Chicago. They too competed for Race to the Top dollars, closed public schools and replaced them with charter schools to make way for gentrifying neighborhoods, created a charter schools commission to override local school board decisions to close charters, and implemented the same TIF (Tax Increment Financing) scam to take money from the public schools and transfer it to rich developments. In Atlanta they called it TAD (Tax Allocation Districts). Are we in Kansas, Dorothy?
It is always interesting to hear the other cities and countries dealing with the education reform fight. We highlight stories by our wonderful correspondent Stephen Wilson about what is happening in Russia that replicates Chicago in this global community. In the case of tax monies going to build wealthy development, in Atlanta they actually sued the city to say you cannot transfer money for education to developers. And the Georgia Supreme Court agreed! However, the rich never stop scheming, and they went around the courts by going to the legislators they bought off and got them to issue a referendum to restore the education dollars to the real estate market. That is how the world really works!
They did to poor black people in Atlanta, what they are doing to poor black people here and everywhere - trying to erase them! They destroy their public housing and public schools, and make way for the rich and white. Atlanta rulers tried to emulate New Orleans, but they didn´t have Hurricane Katrina that helped New Orleans to close half the public schools and replace them with charter schools. Pig faced Chicago Tribune editorial writer Kristine McQueary called for a Hurricane Katrina in Chicago to whip out the Chicago public schools and replace them with charters, which was repeated by Chicago schools chief Arne Duncan who became Barack Obama´s education secretary. Duncan had to apologize; I'm still waiting to hear from McQueary.
This was how CORE was formed to lead the Chicago Teachers Union and fight back against this ugly education reform movement!
The bookś authors take a close look at the Atlanta testing scandal which highlighted the racism as there were teachers all over the state and country who were/are cheating to keep their jobs, but they had to make 35 black educators scapegoats. Duncan quickly dismissed the cheating charges in Washington D.C. home to education reform darling Michelle Rhee and the feds never prosecuted.
Georgia used the racketeering laws that were used to prosecute the mafia to highlight how horrible these teachers were. It was a conspiracy!
Prosecutions are tied to politics, and this comes out loud and clear in the book. We know the wealthy like Trump and sex predator Jeffrey Epstein paid off the politicians to get special treatment. Unfortunately, the teachers like Shani Robinson, who say they were innocent and it certainly looks that way, still believed in the American system of justice to fight in the courts. The others wisely took plea deals after being threatened with 20 year prison sentences because they hurt the kids on those standardized tests. They then ratted out or falsely accused the others to get convictions, despite the overwhelming evidence, or lack thereof, to show any conspiracy. In Robinson´s case, she thought she was just erasing stray marks from 7-year-olds whose tests didn´t count anyway toward the annual yearly progress they hold schools accountable. Who actually changed those answers to get higher test scores isn´t revealed in the book. But who cares, the whole thing is ridiculous!
Talk about racism alive and well in this country. In Georgia you have the first republican-elected governor in the state since reconstruction and he immediately cuts $1 billion in education funding and wants to restore the confederate flag. Atlanta named Beverly Hall, a black administrator from NY, as superintendent of the Atlanta Public Schools, who tragically died while fighting her case for cheating. Her transgression was crossing a white overlord - Gov. Sonny Perdue (currently serving as the head of agriculture in Trump's cabinet) - by contesting and appealing his investigation into massive cheating on the tests in Atlantaś public schools. But I have no strong tears for Hall, she became a darling of the reformists by firing hundreds of educators back East. They use you up, then throw you out. Look at our very own former CPS CEO Barbara Byrde Bennett who Mayor Emanuel used to close lots of black schools, until she got too greedy and is now in prison.
For some reason persecutor-turned-defender of public education Diane Ravitch loved Hall. At first, until it all turned sour.
What looked like a clear case of framing these poor black teachers turned into a witch hunt. The authors write how the corporate media made the teachers look like witches, rather than present both sides to the story. Any book that takes a serious look at the corporate media is important!
I didn´t like the part where, after they present all this research to show how charter schools were merely a scam concocted by the ruling class to screw the public schools, they then defend some of them. They write at the end that some charter schools are doing a great job, including those that are African-centered. Charters were merely pawns of the ruling class, and no African-centered charter is worth closing the public schools surrounding it.
I highly recommend everyone interested in public education to read what you can´t read in our mainstream media. It is an honest look at the education reform movement that focuses on real estate, with schools a mere fig leaf to disguise their true intentions. Anna Simonton did great research and clearly explains the various real estate scams, including mixed-income housing charades to tell the real story for the people who don´t have million dollar investments riding on destroying public education.
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