While it will likely take years to determine the breadth of the consequences and effects from this massive cheating scandal, the most critical outcome is that real damage has been done to the students of the Atlanta Public Schools system. I’m not sure how the administrators and teachers will accomplish the tough task of convincing thousands of K-12 students that the adults actually do care about their academic growth and achievement. Because so many students were aware that teachers willingly gave them test answers from one grade to the next, the school system is tasked with not only changing the culture and expectations surrounding testing, but also instilling hope and confidence in the students’ own perception of their academic potential. There has to be a dramatic shift in the expectations for groups of students who have grown accustomed to teachers who cheat, express little faith in their abilities as learners, and harbor low expectations of them. These young people will need to be re-trained so that they are able to embrace and believe in their own potential for high academic achievement. Every APS student deserves to know that they are not “dumb as hell,” but instead, are endowed with certain gifts and abilities that match their dreams and hopes for school, career choices, and life as a whole.

This marks an ugly chapter in American public education, especially as education stakeholders continue to work so hard at developing solutions and new school models for the multitude of problems in K-12 schools nationwide. Everyone knows that it will take a while to design the kind of comprehensive reform framework that can be adapted based on unique student and school populations. This is why we must continue to exercise patience with the implementation and adaptation of the benchmarks that define the No Child Left Behind legislation. We know that NCLB is not a panacea, but it has given us a good foundation for improving standards and accountability for school-aged youth, their teachers, and schools. In the aftermath of the APS debacle, most people have resisted the temptation to blame the focus on standardized testing for the ethical and moral failures of a segment of classroom instructors and principals. What we can learn from the failures of the APS system is how important it is to design systems, processes, and structures that reward the right actions and maintain a focus on student learning and achievement. The failures of the APS organization expose the risks involved as educators misinterpret and misapply the true goals for raising the standards and improving accountability in our schools nationwide. Education leaders and policymakers never intended for school leaders to employ pressure, fear, and retaliation, as they worked to attain NCLB benchmarks. If we didn’t learn anything else, we learned all over again that teaching professionals and school administrators need more guidance, tools, and resources as they attempt to develop school cultures that match the broader goals for K-12 education.