Only Teachers Know the Climate of Fear

rampant in almost every public school district in the United States. Since administrators are gods, to run afoul of them is tantamount to career destruction.

To do what these administrators want is tantamount to career destruction--and possibly prison--anyway, so teachers have to waste tons of energy trying to avoid becoming targets.

In Atlanta, that was almost impossible. Even principals were treated with humiliation, which they then turned around and did to teachers.

I seriously doubt Dr. Hall was in the dark about the rampant test cheating in her district. She has now retired:

Investigators described how Dr. Hall had humiliated principals who didn’t reach their targets. Every year she gathered the entire district staff at the Georgia Dome. Those from schools with top scores were seated on the Dome floor; the better the scores, the closer they sat to Dr. Hall. Those with low scores were relegated to sitting in the stands.

Principals, in turn, humiliated teachers. At Fain Elementary, the principal, Marcus Stallworth, had teachers with low test scores crawl under a table, according to the report. At Parks Middle School, teachers who refused to join “changing parties” that were organized by the principal, Christopher Waller, to doctor answer sheets were isolated or let go, the report said.

A couple of comments following the article point to the hopeless situation teachers find themselves in:

I am not defending cheaters; what those "educators" did was reprehensible. But I do feel sympathy for teachers who are put in the position of choosing between unethical behavior and unemployment. It's easy to say, "Quit and find another job" or "Report it to authorities." Reality is more complicated. Principals *are* the authorities (who likely instructed those teachers to make the changes) and can make sure you never work in a classroom again, even if you did the honorable thing. I'm glad I don't have to decide whether to participate in massive fraud as a condition of my employment in the middle of one of the worst job markets in decades. The price of martyrdom might be homelessness.

Another:

Unfortunately, NCLB has created an atmosphere of fear and resulting deception in many places. It is heartbreaking to hear of teachers losing their license over a situation where they had very little control. What other job requiring a college degree routinely humiliates their employees in public simply because they cannot entirely control learning outcomes of other people. These teachers had families - mortgages to pay and children to feed. If their administrators told them to cheat - or be publicly humiliated and/or fired - then they did what they were told. Teachers are no longer seen as professionals since the implementation of NCLB. They are held accountable for the entirety of student learning. Parenting, home environment, and student attendance, ability, and willingness to learn are all discounted.