OP-ED: Beverly Hall: A Classic Case of Moral Turpitude Against Atlanta’s Children
By GLENN DOWELL, Ed.D.
Special to Focus Daily News

Beverly Hall is definitely no stranger to controversy. Her career as a superintendent in Georgia and in New Jersey has been characterized by inattention to corruption. Numerous individuals have been prosecuted or suffered under her various administrations especially in Atlanta- but she always surfaces unscathed. She has always been able to manipulate public opinion in her favor while casting dispersions on others under her supervision. In Hall’s case, she “insulated” herself from the day-to-day enterprise of educating children except to benefit financially from the appearance of skyrocketing test scores and improvements in schools that even surprise experts in the field of education. Hall, while superintendent of Atlanta, was not flashy, but she frequently traveled with her cabal of minions who chauffeured her around and catered to her every need.

Hall is not entirely to blame for the current cheating scandal that some say is the worst betrayal of kids and a community in the history of our country. Members of the Atlanta’s Board of Education, who by not exercising their fiduciary responsibility in firing or reining her in essentially became her co-conspirators. Before the testing scandal board members, including the current chair, Brenda Muhammad, were so enamored of Hall that it was a common belief in Atlanta that she was the “boss” of the board, rather than the reverse. Mayor Kasim Reed, is also responsible. It was he, as a former legislator, who successfully pushed legislation that allowed Hall to hold such power.

Hall has deceived the parents, students, and community stakeholders of Atlanta in the face of the present testing scandal. It is my contention that as a veteran educator she deceived Atlanta Public Schools for personal gain. Over a 10-year period, Hall used psychological intimidation and terror (a belief by principals that if they did not meet performance benchmarks, they would be fired). As principals achieved these fraudulent benchmarks, Hall, with wanton callousness and disregard for our children always benefited financially from taxpayers’ dollars. It is for this reason that Hall should be investigated for acts of moral turpitude.

It is no doubt that Hall is a smart woman. Before becoming superintendent in Atlanta (1999), she was the appointed superintendent in the State of New Jersey's takeover of the Newark, School System.

After a brief tenure in Newark it was clear that it was a “Hall” take-over and not the State's. She left a surfeit of woes in Newark that the school district to date, has not recovered. This woman simply pimped the public trough of that school district, perpetuating a pattern of hiring her cronies without any interference from State officials. The NAACP of Newark was so angry at how the school system was further ruined under her leadership, that they too, were happy at her departure.

Hall left Newark just in time. The Atlanta Public School System, a district suffering from a similar plague of mismanagement and low test scores, without any due diligence in investigating this woman’s past, saw her as a kind of savior and visionary and immediately hired her in 1999, not realizing or caring that she was the target of a major New Jersey, State Senate investigation concerning what she did with $58 million dollars of taxpayers’ money.

After descending on Atlanta, she was up to her old tricks at deceiving the public again. Hall began to hire her cronies and to cement her reputation in the community as a tough, capable and no nonsense superintendent. She was very popular with the business community. In fact, it is believed by some in the city that the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce lost its power of being impartial when it came to Hall and was simply an extended part of her community of sycophants , essentially being an apologist for her benefiting financially from meeting fraudulent benchmarks over a 10 year period relating to student achievement. Hall’s critics believe she created an environment in Atlanta Public Schools that caused administrators to perceive the Criterion Reference Competency Test (CRCT) to simply mean Creating Results while Cheating on Tests!

In all fairness to the Chamber, Hall wove her web so extensively and persuasively in Atlanta and around the country that Fortune 500 businesses and even major broadcast and print media entities appeared to be included as part of her network of apologists.

Even when faced with incalculable amounts of evidence that Hall should be removed as superintendent in order to restore confidence in the school system, her community of apologists and defenders such as former Mayor of Atlanta, Shirley Franklin, continued to defend this woman, allowing her to resign without legal consequences.

HALL LEAVING ATLANTA IN MIST OF CRISIS

Just as Hall got out of town when things got hot for her in New Jersey, she is now leaving Atlanta with the school system on probation and in potential ruins.

Hall should be prosecuted for what she has done to the great city of Atlanta. Some in the community have tried to make the cheating scandal into a racial issue. IT IS NOT. It is racial only to the extent that a Black person who was given carte blanc by a great city and its leaders, leaves a trail of malaise that will require Atlanta to attempt to rise from the destruction not caused by fire this time, but by a predator who may cause children to have their dreams truly deferred. Hall and her cabal of data manipulators have tarnished Atlanta’s reputation and ruined the lives of countless educators and children. It is time for her to suffer the same ignominy and consequences of her actions. It is for this reason that as a Georgia community stakeholder, that were it legally possible, I would petition that her actions as Superintendent in Atlanta, clearly amount to crimes against children for personal financial gain.

 
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