Saturday, October 15, 2011

Accused Atlanta Schools Officials Want Erasure Analysis Thrown Out

This from WSBTV:

The lawyer for four high-ranking Atlanta Public Schools officials told Channel 2 Action News he will ask a judge to throw out an erasure analysis that is key to many of the allegations against his clients in the CRCT cheating scandal.

Attorney George Lawson represents SRT Executive Directors Tamara Cotman, Dr. Sharon Davis-Williams, Dr. Robin Hall and Michael Pitts. Lawson spoke exclusively to Channel 2 investigative reporter Mark Winne about why he alleges the erasure analysis is flawed and should not be used against his clients.

Lawson told Winne regarding the 2009 and 2010 CRCT erasure analysis ordered by the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement, “it’s not sound, scientifically and statistically.”

Mike Bowers, one of the governor’s special investigators, counters that claim . “I say he’s totally wrong ," Bowers said. " I think it is absolutely legitimate, solid. I don’t see any reason not to rely on it.”
Bowers said the erasure analysis was finished when then-Gov. Sonny Perdue named him, Bob Wilson and Richard Hyde as special investigators. Bowers said they called in a top expert and worked hard to verify that the erasure analysis is legitimate.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You reap what you sew. Tell folks they are going to lose their jobs if they don't get kids scores up; and even with the most genuine, no matter how industrious and diversely skilled educator one is you find out that pedagogy and sweat alone won't cut it when it comes to continuously higher expectations for student performance, that it really boils down to student effort, innate ability and non school related factors - what do you expect? Professionals have invested education for a career, have families to support and actually limits underwhich they can devote so much time to their job. Dog gone it, kids don't have any remorse about cheating, it is part of most young folks' ethos. YOu play by the rules which are ever being changed, no wonder teachers would cheat. Not saying it is right but we are creating conditions which are running seasonsed teachers out of the classroom either by force or voluntarily and replacing them with inexperience and sometimes even untrained or certified novices. We have already started to see it occur in our state and I imagine we will only see it increase unless we start putting some realistic parameters on student expectations and support them with adequate resources.