Black Clergy Group Says Investigation into Standardized Test Cheating in Atlanta Public Schools is Racist

I just abhor the fact that some blacks love to interject race in every dogfight. According to CBS Atlanta, some members of the Concerned Black Clergy have said the special state investigation into cheating on Criterion-Referenced Competency Test (CRCT) is racist. Whether you are black, white, Latino, Asian, Muslim or whatever ethnicity, cheating is just plain wrong. The bigger issue for me in this whole cheating scandal is why the answers were changed from wrong to right, just to help these kids pass the exams, when they had really failed. I am just so sick and tired of some of our so-called black leaders focusing on the wrong issue when they scream racism.

"The bigger option is dealing with racism, and how it affects the public education system," said Concerned Black Clergy President the Rev. Richard Cobble on Monday.

Pressed on how the CRCT investigation was racist, Cobble told CBS Atlanta, "Cheating on tests is one of the means in which the system designed to keep us unfocused, to keep us distracted and keep us at each other throats."

Members of the Concerned Black Clergy also said they plan to meet with the Fulton County District Attorney and ask him not to impose jail time on educators found guilty of cheating on standardized tests. Source: CBS Atlanta

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation and two special investigators, appointed by Gov. Sonny Perdue have charged that many teachers and administrators have admitted to changing answers on the tests. If the schools where the cheating took place are predominantly black, then the root of the problem is that these children weren't prepared to take the tests and they aren't being taught on the same level as the children in the predominantly white schools such as those in Alpharetta, Roswell, Buckhead and Sandy Springs, for example. Those teachers and administrators who knowingly changed answers, a slap on the wrist isn't an adequate deterrent. Sorry, but playing the race card has become trite and ridiculous. No-one will take these people serious when there is a racist incident. Stop crying wolf.