Finally, a saner head prevailed, ending the
long-running vendetta of Gwinnett County school officials against
teacher James Hope.
Hope, the Centerville Elementary Teacher of
the Year, had been hounded for nearly three years for daring
to complain
that
the expensive, high-stakes Gateway Test created by Gwinnett
officials was a bad test. He posted several of the more dubious
questions on a Web site to demonstrate how poorly the questions
had been worded.
That act brought down the wrath of the county
school board and Superintendent J. Alvin Wilbanks, who also
targeted Hope
as the lead suspect when someone else stole a copy of the
test and mailed it to the media.
Wilbanks unleashed the school district’s
police force to launch a witch hunt of Hope and parents who
opposed the
test. Although certified police officers, school police
have neither the manpower nor time to investigate such cases,
but
investigate they did.
Brutishly and poorly.
Eventually, the school board, the state Professional
Standards Commission and a state administrative law judge
all ruled
that Hope had violated the teachers’ code of
ethics that prohibits teachers from copying test questions
and giving them to students.
In other words, they claimed he cheated, a crime for
which he was reprimanded by the school board and suspended
for six
months by the commission.
Once the case got to court, though, Fulton County
Superior Court Judge Gail S. Tuscan, ruled in favor of logic,
common
sense and an ability to read plain English. Tuscan said
posting a few questions on the Web after the test had been
administered
was obviously not cheating.
“
Public policy dictates that Hope, an experienced 17-year veteran
educator who works directly teaching and evaluating the very
students to be tested, be able to actively participate in the
public debate regarding the test and share with the concerned
parties the benefit of his hands-on experience with the students,
the test and its administration,” the judge ruled.
With their vendetta against Hope, school board
members and Superintendent Wilbanks clearly were trying
to intimidate
his fellow teachers into silence. Board members also
sat by and
allowed Wilbanks to run roughshod over every teacher’s
constitutional rights.
For that, they need to be held accountable.
