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RedStatehttps://redstate.com/erick/2011/07/07/the-george-bush-ted-kennedy-chickens-come-home-to-roost-in-atlanta/feed/Conservative News & Politicsen-usWed, 10 Jun 2026 11:20:53 -0400The George Bush-Ted Kennedy Chickens Come Home to Roost in Atlanta<![CDATA[One of the worst trends in modern public education in the United States is using a child’s performance on a standardized test to assess whether a teacher is doing his or her job and whether a school is performing or not performing.The trend was growing before George Bush and Ted Kennedy sat down and drafted No Child Left Behind in the early part of W’s administration. But then they decided to add in financial incentives and penalties and near national standards. Conservatives who were willing to speak up at the time said it would lead to dark places. Unfortunately, too few wanted to speak up against the new “conservative” President who’d just given the “liberal lion” carte blanche to draft education legislation.As predicted by the few conservative voices in the wilderness, the chickens are coming home to roost in Atlanta, GA. A multi-year investigation into standardized test cheating in the Atlanta Public School system has found a mafia like atmosphere from the top all the way down to classroom teachers.For the past decade, Atlanta’s schools received national praise for their success — success measured by performance on standardized tests. And as the performance increased, the benchmarks for the tests increased. Consequently, cheating had to become more widespread.It got to the point where teachers were having parties where they’d sit down on a weekend together and wholesale erase and redo students’ test answers. Children unable to read were making near perfect scores on reading comprehension tests. The Superintendent and her school bosses would scream racism when anyone dared question what was going on. They’d behave like global warming scientists and destroy documents requested by the media. They’d fabricate, alter, and destroy evidence and obstruct investigators.]]>Thu, 07 Jul 2011 11:33:51 -0400<![CDATA[Erick Erickson]]>https://redstate.com/erick/2011/07/07/the-george-bush-ted-kennedy-chickens-come-home-to-roost-in-atlanta-n39585