Visionary Leadership Needed In The Atlanta Cheating Scandal To Keep The Battle Between The Adults From Derailng The Education Of The Children

Some Implicated Teachers Vow To Fight Dismissal

In response to the new APS Superintendent Erol Davis' request that all teachers implicated in the report "resign now or face the initiation of a termination process" so begins the second phase of the Atlanta Public Schools cheating scandal.

If this phase is not managed properly - the rabid bigots on the outside of the system are going to use the APS situation as the "Ultimate Fighting" ring for their {fill in the blank} proxy battle"

Fill in the Blank with

• Ideological Proxy Battle
• Racial Proxy Battle
• Power Over Schools & Institutions Proxy Battle

I do agree that a large portion of the indictments against individual teachers is either "heresay" evidence or some of the personal admissions of changed test scores lacks the appropriate scale.

A teacher who is guilty of changing a small number of test scores should be suspended for a defined period of time and allowed to return - not fired.

Teachers and their administrators who engaged in an ORCHESTRATED scheme to doctor the test scores should be fired.  Especially the administrators who lead the effort.

Erol Davis needs to avoid a "Fire Them All" disposition.  This is opening the door for a long, contentious fight as the teachers get "lawyered up" AND as "Fight The Power" joins the fray - arguing that with so many of the teachers' faces flashed upon the television screen being BLACK - this is an agenda to purge Black people from the classroom on the way toward reestablishing White control over Atlanta.  (I wish I was making this up and being overly contrariwise.  I am not).

The leadership should start out right now by identifying the GOAL that they seek to achieve - ACADEMICALLY and with regards to ACADEMIC INTEGRITY.    Bring the community along with them. 
IF this turns into a bloody battle from these past deeds - these next 2 years for the APS is going to be "The Lost Years".  It is the students that will suffer the most.

The greatest deliverable from these years should be an improved internal governance strategy for APS with sufficient controls to both retain the integrity but also use this new energy as INCREASED BUY IN FROM THE PARENTS AND THE STUDENTS AND THE LARGER ADULT COMMUNITY that interacts with the children in the community. 

Most of all - the wolves who seek nothing more but a fight need have the official microphone stripped from them.  (be they elected officials or community organizers).