America is criminalizing Black teachers: Atlanta’s cheating scandal and the racist underbelly of education reform

Apparently Atlanta is a lot like San Diego. When illegal activity happens in a school, local officials handle the issue in two very different ways. When the wrongdoer is an adult with political connections, taxpayer money is poured into that person's defense, and the schools go into cover-up mode. On the other hand, if the wrongdoer has no political connections, the school goes after him or her with a vengeance. The justice system stands ready to support schools and other public entities. You're fighting an uphill battle when you want justice from a pubic entity. See Depraved in Poway and series of posts about shenanigans in Poway.  Adults in San Diego County schools usually misbehave with impunity, but kids who do the same thing are called "depraved." There was an amazing case at Guajome Park Academy where teachers improperly changed grades, but instead of censuring the teacherd, the school sued a whistle-blower kid who hacked the school computer to prove the wrongdoing.
 
See also my comparison of the Atlanta cheating scandal and the bizarre color-coordinated indictments of school officials in San Diego.


America is criminalizing Black teachers: Atlanta’s cheating scandal and the racist underbelly of education reform
Our educational system stacks the deck against Black children -- now we're throwing their teachers in jail Brittney Cooper
Wednesday, Apr 8, 2015
Salon 

Former Atlanta Public Schools school research team director Tamara Cotman, center, is led to a holding cell after a jury found her guilty in the Atlanta Public Schools test-cheating trial, Wednesday, April 1, 2015, in Atlanta. (Credit: AP/Kent D. Johnson)

Last week, an Atlanta jury convicted 11 teachers and school administrators of racketeering in a system-wide cheating scandal. Yes, you read that correctly. Teachers and administrators inflating student scores on standardized tests is now considered “organized crime” in this country, and is punishable by more 20 years in prison, in these cases.

I am an educator. I am a Black woman who may someday mother a Black child. I have taught other Black mothers’ children. Much of my educational success in elementary school is directly attributable to high performance on standardized tests that caused my white teachers to notice me and intervene on my behalf to get me “tracked” into higher-achieving classrooms. I believe all children deserve access to a good, high-quality, public education.

Therefore, I don’t have to condone cheating in any form (and I don’t) to assert that what has happened in Atlanta to these teachers is a travesty. The pictures that emerged last week of handcuffed Black schoolteachers being led out of Southern courtrooms in one of the country’s largest urban Black school systems were absolutely heartbreaking.

Scapegoating Black teachers for failing in a system that is designed for Black children, in particular, not to succeed is the real corruption here. Since the early 1990s, we have watched the deprofessionalization of teaching, achieved through the proliferation of “teacher fellow” programs and the massive conservative-led effort to defund public education in major urban areas throughout the country. There is no longer a consensus that a good public education — a hallmark of American democracy — should be considered a public good.

Black children have for generations been the primary victims of this continuing social mendacity about the national value of education. More than 51 percent of children who attend public schools live in poverty. In Georgia, the percentage of Black children living in poverty hovers right around 39 percent. For Latino children, the number is consistently over 40 percent. Nationally, the number for Black children is 39 percent, according to most recent data, and 33 percent for Latino youth...

Read more at http://www.salon.com/2015/04/08/america_is_criminalizing_black_teachers_atlantas_cheating_scandal_and_the_racist_underbelly_of_education_reform/?source=newsletter

Sometimes our legal system manages to go after rich and powerful wrongdoers.  Unfortunately, this seems to require horrific crimes and years of waiting.  This is the story of Stephen Flatow, a man who was determined to wring some justice out of the system.

A Grieving Father Pulls a Thread That Unravels Illegal Bank Deals

By JESSICA SILVER-GREENBERG and BEN PROTESS

New York Times

June 30, 2014 

Stephen Flatow of West Orange, N.J., accused Iran of financing the terrorist group responsible for the suicide bombing that killed his daughter, Alisa, in 1995.

A bus bombing two decades ago — and a New Jersey father’s quest for justice — inadvertently set off a chain of events that led American prosecutors to accuse some of the world’s biggest banks of transferring money for nations like Iran.

On Monday, that crackdown culminated with the guilty plea of BNP Paribas, which admitted to doing billions of dollars in deals with Iran and other countries blacklisted by the United States and agreed to pay a record $8.9 billion penalty to state and federal authorities.

The trail that ultimately led to BNP began in 2006, when the Manhattan district attorney’s office came upon a lawsuit filed by the father, who blamed Iran for financing the Gaza bus bombing that killed his 20-year-old daughter. Buried in the court filings, prosecutors found a stunning accusation: a charity that owned a gleaming office tower on Fifth Avenue was actually a “front” for the Iranian government, a claim that the prosecutors ultimately verified.

The prosecutors soon discovered that Credit Suisse and Lloyds, two of the world’s most prestigious banks, had acted as Iran’s portal to the United States financial system. To disguise the illicit transactions — the United States is closed for business to Iran — Credit Suisse and Lloyds stripped out the Iranian clients’ names from wire transfers to the Fifth Avenue charity and affiliated entities. The findings led the Manhattan prosecutors and the Justice Department in Washington to announce criminal cases against both banks.

As those cases were coming to light in 2009, a whistle-blower stepped forward to point the finger at BNP, France’s biggest bank. That tip has now materialized in a landmark criminal settlement, with BNP pleading guilty to criminal charges, capping a sweeping investigation into how the bank processed billions of dollars on behalf of Sudan and Iran.

The twists and turns leading to the BNP case — a series of whistle-blower tips and fortuitous discoveries recounted in interviews with current and former prosecutors — open a window into the interconnected yet shadowy world of global finance...