Shani Robinson

Years before “Aunt Becky” and Felicity Huffman were charged in a high profile school bribery case, Atlanta was the focus of an education scandal of its own. But where many would say the situation Huffman and fellow actress Laurie Loughlin found themselves in was born out of privilege, the circumstances in Atlanta’s test cheating scandal evolved from a history of systemic racial and economic injustices.

That’s the case that educator and author Shani Robinson makes in None of the Above: The Untold Story of the Atlanta Public Schools Cheating Scandal, Corporate Greed, and the Criminalization of Educators. If it seems a lengthy title, it’s because Robinson covers a lot of ground. While the cheating scandal - in which 35 educators were accused of changing students’ answers on standardized tests in 2013 - could be summarized in fewer than the book’s 220 pages, Robinson and co-author Anna Simonton expand the scope of the event, not only providing autobiographical perspective on Robinson, but also reaching back through the history of public education in Georgia and the U.S. to pinpoint how a situation like the APS scandal could manifest in the first place.

If it sounds ambitious, it is. I was reminded of how much historical ground Ava Duvernay’s masterful 13th documentary covered (slavery, the Black Codes, and Jim Crow laws) to explain the racist engine that drives America’s mass incarceration and school-to-prison pipeline injustices. As Bob Marley sang in “Buffalo Soldier”, “If you know your history, you know where you’re coming from.” This is certainly true in mapping the road that led to the circumstances of the APS cheating scandal.

For Robinson, this means reaching back to the inequities that mar the history of public schools in Atlanta and the south, a list that is both long and thought-provoking. Gentrification, redlining, underinvestment in urban schools, the failures of public housing, and the cyclical trappings of poverty are all highlighted as parts of the recipe for the testing scandal.

Charter schools, viewed as an educational version of ‘white flight’, and President Bush’s 2001 No Child Left Behind Act come under some of the greatest scrutiny as 21st century plagues on the public school system. Certainly, the pressure on performance that standardized testing has brought into the classroom is something most teachers, parents, and students can relate to, regardless of race or economic status. The frustration that second semester was spent mostly in preparation for the CRCT (or now, the Milestones) rather than learning critical curriculum in social studies, math, science and other classes has been well documented as an ongoing issue.

Like a societal game of Whack-a-Mole, it appears every time someone in power tried to address and potentially rectify these injustices inherent to the system, other forces within the government and society found a way to circumvent the efforts.

The other story driving None of the Above is the trial of Shani Robinson and her fellow educators, accused of changing answers on the standardized CRCT test forms their students had filled out. The prosecution claimed that teachers were forced to erase “stray marks” on the tests, which translated into cleaning up incorrect answers. Thirty five educators were indicted, 34 of which were African-American. The charges focused on racketeering, and were leveled through the RICO Act, a 1970 federal law designed specifically for combating organized crime in America.

Given a total of 178 educators were implicated in correcting test answers, and that the RICO Act was more designed for the likes of John Gotti than Mrs. Crabapple, Robinson makes a strong case for politics playing a huge part in determining who got thrown under the school bus, as it were.

A case could also be made, as Robinson shares her perspective of the eight-month trial, that we’re only getting one side, and the essential telling of this story might be best served by a more objective party. Certainly, the more personal elements of her story - including the birth of her son as the trial was culminating, an event that postponed her sentencing - adds a human dynamic to the story that would likely be missing in a purely journalistic retelling of the trial.

However, perhaps the bigger lesson to walk away with from this story isn’t about the guilt or innocence of the educators in question, but the broken system itself and the students who suffer from it, be it because of flaws of high-stakes testing, the pressure on teachers to meet district-set targets, or the long history that preceded these issues.

I finished None of the Above feeling, both, upset and somewhat unsatisfied. Upset that the system was, and remains, broken, and the people who seem to be invested in doing something about it are often the ones most helpless to do so. The educators who are on the front lines for Atlanta’s (and America’s) children receive less support than they deserve as they walk a tightrope to ensure kids learn, targets are met, and budgets are honored. However, I wanted more from this book, and I’m not sure it’s Robinson’s fault that something more isn’t there. Her themes open up a Pandora’s Box of a broken system, and then feed into one defining court case, rather than offering possible solutions to the issues presented.

Perhaps, though, that’s not her job. Perhaps that’s the job of a lot of people, from politicians and educators at the highest level to engaged parents, teachers, and citizens. As a culture, we spend a lot of time complaining about all the ills of the education system. None of the Above shows us plenty of symptoms we should have been treating all along, even if it can’t provide a panacea. Maybe that’s enough to make readers work to improve our own scores, lest the next generation of kids find they’re out of right answers.
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The No Child Left Behind program, while sounding like it would help children achieve higher academic scores, had some very serious repercussions.

One of the primary ones was the money that flowed into schools as a result of scores. It forced many schools to close because of low scores, encouraged cheating by school personnel in order to survive, took money away from working to strengthen schools by providing better supplies, more teachers and aides, and more training. Instead, it blamed teachers, demonized schools, and encouraged more charter schools.

Atlanta, Georgia, was one of the hardest hit and became a famous target. In 2013, thirty-five black teachers and administrators were charged with racketeering and conspiracy for changing answers on students’ tests to improve their scores by a vindictive judge. The media went wild pushing the scandal theory. While there were incidents of that occurring in both schools that were primarily white as well as integrated or primarily black, only the black educators were charged.

The trials went on for an excessively long time. Eventually, many of those charged, even if they were not guilty, admitted guilt so they could get on with their lives and stop increasing their costs for court and attorney fees.

One of them did not. Shani Robinson was the youngest of the accused, was a three-year teacher and pregnant. She taught first grade. While her students all had to take the tests, their scores had no effect on the results that determined the school’s ranks. Before turning in the answer sheets, she was ordered to erase some extraneous scribbling on some of them. She did not change any of the answers and was charged. She kept fighting the charges despite facing a jail term of twenty years. She was told she could avoid jail if she pleaded guilty. She refused to do so.

NONE OF THE ABOVE is her story. It is very well-written and I shared her frustration and disgust with the city, school system, and courts.

I received a copy of this book from LibraryThing Early Reviewers… (más)

This was not the book I wanted it to be. I come from a family with three generations of educators. Over the years I've heard countless stories about the changing face of education - the pressure to increase test scores, the funding cuts, even the outright vilification of teachers in general.

What I expected was an insider's look at what really happened in Atlanta, and how it could serve as a microcosm for the testing culture nationwide.

Instead I got a one-sided, hostile narrative that amounted to I didn't do it. My friends didn't do it. Everyone else is lying. They probably did it, but it wasn't their fault. Generations of greedy white men are really responsible.

Did Shani cheat? I don't know. The evidence presented in the book is too slim and one-sided to make an informed decision.

What I do know was that Shani was ill-prepared to be a teacher. She left her job as a television news producer after the station cut her hours when her "attention noticeably waned." She became a substitute teacher based on the belief that her mother's experience in education and her own years of babysitting gave her enough background. After a quick summer training with Teach For America she became a full time Atlanta Public Schools teacher (a job she left a few years later to become a counselor - with apparently no training whatsoever).

Her first grade students (like all Georgia students) were required to take proficiency test. She says at the end of the testing day she was instructed to meet with other teachers and erase stray marks and doodles from her students tests. She also says she was told to write-in or correct missing or inaccurate demographic information. Two of her fellow teachers say she also changed answers.

She admits her students "wrong to right" erasure marks were statistically improbable. (Actually she incorrectly and repeatedly states that any data falling three standard deviations or more from the norm is "considered impossible without human intervention." This makes my head explode. I defy you to find me any statistic book that makes such judgement calls. What statistics books will tell you is that 99.7 percent of all data in a normal population falls within three standard deviations of the mean. You actually EXPECT 0.3% of data to be more than three standard deviations from the mean. That the wrong to right erasures on her tests were 11.8-13.5 standard deviations only shows that it was highly improbable (ridiculously so). You might infer that human intervention was involved, but that's your judgement call not a statistical fact /end rant).

She suspects one of the teachers that testified against her was responsible. Or possibly the principal. She is angry that prosecutors never called the principal to testify others had access to the tests - strangely she doesn't fault her own attorney for failing to call any witnesses.. She claims because her students were too young to be counted in the schools measure of Adequate Yearly Progress and she earned very little bonus money she had no incentive to cheat. There are other motivations. In my district a teacher broke into the principal's office prior to the exam, looked through the content and spent a week pre-teaching exactly the questions that would appear on the test (administrators reported this violation immediately to the state). The school's AYP was excellent and no bonus money as a stake, so by Shani's reasoning he had no reason to cheat. But the teacher was young and insecure, and wanted to prove he was a good teacher by having the best test scores. I can imagine a scenario where a new, under-qualified teacher might feel the same. Or perhaps feel pressure to go along with colleagues. I'm not saying that's what happened, I'm just saying that AYP didn't count for her isn't proof of innocence.

She also claims as a defense that she and the other teachers simply didn't have time to cheat. And again I wonder how long do you really need to figure of the right answer to a first grade test?

I guess my disappointment stems from wanting a different narrative. I wanted (and thought I was getting) a book on the testing culture in this country. The pressure to cheat isn't limited to poor, predominately black schools (see the recent college admissions scandal). I wanted to hear from someone who admitted to cheating and discussed the multitude of reasons why teachers and schools cheat. Because the problem is nationwide, in all communities and the causes are certainly more complex that developers wanting to gentrify neighborhoods or corporations wanting to privatize schools.… (más)

Written by a teacher convicted for altering student test score in the Atlanta School Public System, this book is not an unbiased journalist tome. Readers will find that education is a big business in which the providers of education are not valued. At the core of the cheating was an organized plan to alter student scores in order to receive more money. There is discussion about the environmental factors that lead to limited resources and low scores in Atlanta schools. Statistical reviews showed Robinson is one of the teachers that had a high percentage of test scores changed. While she admits that she erased stray marks on the tests, she maintains her innocence regarding changing answers on her first-grade students’ tests. Even if she had changed answers, it would not matter since the results were not included in the benchmarks that affected funding. The jury determined that is did matter and found her guilty. What is missing from the discussion is the impact on the students. Cheating may have gotten additional resources for education in the short term, but changing student test scores implies a competence for the students that is not there and those students will set up to struggle for a life time. Endnotes and an index are provided.… (más)