Bill Black: We Send Teachers to Prison for Rigging the Numbers, Why Not Bankers?
By Bill Black, the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One and an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Jointly published with New Economic Perspectives
The New York Times ran the story on April Fools’ Day of a jury convicting educators of gaming the test numbers and lying about their actions to investigators.
ATLANTA — In a dramatic conclusion to what has been described as the largest cheating scandal in the nation’s history, a jury here on Wednesday convicted 11 educators for their roles in a standardized test cheating scandal that tarnished a major school district’s reputation and raised broader questions about the role of high-stakes testing in American schools.
On their eighth day of deliberations, the jurors convicted 11 of the 12 defendants of racketeering, a felony that carries up to 20 years in prison. Many of the defendants — a mixture of Atlanta public school teachers, testing coordinators and administrators — were also convicted of other charges, such as making false statements, that could add years to their sentences.
This was complicated trial that took six months to present and required eight days of jury deliberations. It was a major commitment of investigative and prosecutorial resources. But it was not investigated and prosecuted by the FBI and AUSAs, but by state and local officials. In addition to the trial success, the prosecutors secured 21 guilty pleas.
Atlanta’s public schools, of course, did not engage in “the largest cheating scandal in the nation’s history.” The big banks’ cheating scandals left the Atlanta educators in the dust.
The two obvious questions are why the educators cheated and how they got caught. “High-stakes testing” cannot explain the scandal because we have had such tests for over 50 years. The article explains the real drivers – compensation, promotions, fear, and ego (aka “reputation”). .................(more)
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/04/bill-black-send-teachers-prison-rigging-numbers-not-bankers.html
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Highly educated women. 
whether a legal system that does exactly what the substructure 'needs' and 'requires' it to do -- ratify, propagate and replicate the existing set of property relations -- can ever really be called 'corrupted'.
I'm not sure what 'fix our economic system' means any longer; ours is a system that has produced a situation where 10% of the population controls (aka "owns"
80% of its wealth. Politicians and lawyers both play roles in the superstructure that seek to perpetuate the underlying substructure.
One goal I have before I die is to read Das Kapital in its original German. Like you, though, making time for that goal is easier said than done.
Greedy, self-serving, egotistical, overpaid louts.
Wait what am I saying? I'm a teacher.
Could be the pressure of these ever growing number of standardized tests on their professional future.
And bankers are groovy!
in his book "The Divide" pretty well explains how the haves screw -----people / human beings and the have not's-----just plain get screwed
