The ultimate test and punish.

• Author: Resseger, Jan
• Position: Atlanta test-cheating scandal - Public School Shakedown - Brief article

Eleven educators in Atlanta got long prison sentences in that city's test-cheating scandal. On the one hand, this is a local story. It is about one city's response to the federal testing law, No Child Left Behind, and the law's demands for immediate, radical change. But the story of the teachers and administrators who will be locked away for years also shows something profound about what happens when laws pressure real people to implement policies that have nothing whatever to do with reality.

The problem is much larger than Atlanta. The Guardian reports "documented cheating in at least 40 states, since the Atlanta Public Schools cheating scandal came to light." In March of 2011, USA Today uncovered what seems to have been an obvious cheating scandal in Washington, D.C. Michelle Rhee, the Washington, D.C. superintendent at the time, never had to answer for those allegations, despite an effort of several years by PBS...