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Reporter Maura Walz’s journey from GothamSchools to Georgia placed her in the South just in time to cover the education scandal of the century — or at least the summer.

Atlanta’s steadily increasing state test scores were, at least in part, driven by cheating, according to investigators appointed by former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue. Today, Perdue’s successor, Nathan Deal, released the results of the two-year investigation.

Investigators looked at more than half of Atlanta’s 100 public schools and found evidence of cheating in the vast majority of them. They found that more than a third of the city’s principals had knowledge of or input into cheating at their schools; thousands of students had been denied extra help after being given scores they didn’t deserve; and “a culture of fear, intimidation, and retaliation” inhibited whistle-blowing.

State officials say criminal charges are likely to follow for some of the 180 teachers, principals, and district officials named in the report.

From Walz’s story for Georgia Public Broadcasting:

The governor refused to comment on how much responsibility for the cheating lies with former Superintendent Beverly Hall, who retired last week. But the report cites what investigators call a “major failure of leadership.” (more…)

A comparison of urban districts' math score changes over time. From The Nation's Report Card.

While most big-city superintendents would rather their scores on the National Assessment of Education Progress just go away, Beverly Hall of Atlanta has gone out of her way to make sure her students’ progress is judged against the national yardstick.

In a recent profile of Hall, EdWeek reported:

As test scores rose steadily year after year, Ms. Hall wanted to ensure that Atlanta’s progress would not be dismissed by criticism that Georgia’s performance standards and assessment, before recent changes to both, weren’t as rigorous as many other states’. The superintendent decided the city’s students would take a more rigorous national exam and publicly report the scores.

Hall’s colleagues feared that low scores on the national test would draw negative attention to the city’s schools.

But instead, Atlanta was the only district that showed significant gains in both reading and math every year. (more…)