An Atlanta Education

Nation & World | 80% of Atlanta schools cheated on testing, investigators find | Seattle Times Newspaper: "WASHINGTON — Georgia investigators have found evidence of cheating at close to 80 percent of the Atlanta schools where they examined the 2009 administration of state tests.

The result was inflated test scores that led to thousands of children being denied the remedial education they were entitled to, state officials said Tuesday in announcing the results of the investigation. More than 80 educators have so far confessed to misconduct, and investigators said the cheating dated back to at least 2001.

The 48,000-student Atlanta district has been under a cloud for the past two years, ever since an Atlanta Journal-Constitution analysis found improbably high results on the state's Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests, or CRCT. Georgia uses those tests to determine whether schools have made adequate yearly progress under the federal No Child Left Behind law."