ADDENDUM TO AUGUST STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION REPORT

By: Jim Puckett | August 20, 2010, 11:54 am

In a rare move, Governor Sonny Perdue appeared before the State Board of Education Wednesday to outline his plan for launching a special investigation into allegations of testing irregularities in the Atlanta City and Dougherty County School Systems.

The Governor's remarks immediately followed a report to the State Board from the Office of Student Achievement (OSA) that the local system investigations of high numbers of erasures on test answer documents in the two districts had been "found to be incomplete."  The OSA report charged that the Dougherty self-investigation "lacked rigor and attempted to explain away erasure data rather than investigate classrooms where alleged erasures were above the norm."  According to OSA, the Atlanta investigation conducted by a 'blue ribbon' panel of business representatives "lacked comprehensiveness, did not follow OSA guidelines, and conducted minimal interviews of those suspected of erasure irregularities."

Governor Perdue called the Atlanta and Dougherty investigations "woefully inadequate in scope and depth."  Charging that there were "obvious attempts in the local investigations to de-emphasize alleged irregularities", he announced he was initiating an in-depth investigation in the two systems, to be conducted by a special investigator.  The investigator would have subpoena powers.  Results of the special investigation would be brought to the State Board of Education and to law enforcement agencies if there was evidence of behavior that might result in criminal prosecution.  The investigation will commence "as soon as possible."

Noting that "the actions of a few do not reflect on most Georgia educators," the Governor said the investigation was necessary to protect the integrity of the testing program and to identify students in need of remediation.