Teachers Sent to Jail in Atlanta Cheating Scandal, NYC Covers up - Do Nuhrenberg "following orders" rules apply

Remember those guys from WWII claiming they were just following orders? The Nurenberg trials punctured holes in that excuse.

So what are teachers who are given immoral or illegal orders by their supervisors to do? I always tell my whistle blowing teacher friends that they will end up coming for you or your colleagues and not the principal. In some Gulag schools, principals order teachers to cheat - and if they follow orders they come under the chopping block.

We know stories of blatant cheating here that have been covered up. In one small school in a very disadvantaged neighborhood, a school lauded by some quasi deformers, the principal ordered people to put up posters with the answers. When the school scores in a math subject were higher than one of the best high schools in the city, instead of warning bells going off, there was praise for the "miracle."

Some whistle blowers blew this all up and an investigation was supposedly begun -- but the often untenured teachers who followed orders became a target, which made one whistle blower feeling that tables had turned the wrong way. Luckily for Tweed, the principal committed a fairly minor indiscretion and Tweed used it as an excuse for removal -- though for all we know that principal is still operating somewhere in the system.

No word ever emerged publicly on the outcomes.

Here is the story on Atlanta from George in Chicago.

Eleven Atlanta teachers and administrators have been found guilty in the major test cheating scandal... Former 'Superintendent of the Year' Beverly Hall died before the trial of her subordinates began....

George N. Schmidt - April 02, 2015
Eleven of twelve Atlanta educators were convicted of racketeering after a lengthy trial following a state investigation that exposed massive cheating in Atlanta Public Schools under the administration of Beverly Hall. One of the defendants was acquitted. Twenty-one others who were indicted made plea bargains. 

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