• Former superintendent indicted in Atlanta school cheating scandal

    More than three years after a state investigation began into unexplained rises in student test scores, former Atlanta Public Schools superintendent Beverly Hall was indicted along with 34 others on racketeering charges. NBC's Brian Williams reports.

    By Kate Brumback, The Associated Press

    A grand jury indicted a former superintendent and more than 30 other educators Friday in one of the nation's largest cheating scandals that rocked Atlanta's public schools.


    The indictment named the former Superintendent Beverly Hall as well as several high-level administrators, principals and teachers. Hall faces charges including racketeering, false statements and theft. She retired just days before the 2011 probe was released, and has previously denied the allegations.

    A state investigation in 2011 found cheating by nearly 180 educators in 44 Atlanta schools. Educators gave answers to students or changed answers on tests after they were turned in, investigators said. Teachers who tried to report it faced retaliation, creating a culture of "fear and intimidation" in the district.

    The cheating came to light after The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that some scores were statistically improbable.

    The criminal investigation lasted 21 months and the allegations dated back to 2005.

    Most of the 178 educators named in a special investigators' report resigned, retired, did not have their contracts renewed or appealed their dismissals and lost. Twenty-one educators have been reinstated and three await hearings to appeal their dismissals, said Atlanta Public Schools spokesman Stephen Alford.

    The tests were the key measure the state used to determine whether it met the federal No Child Left Behind law. Schools with good test scores get extra federal dollars to spend in the classroom or on teacher bonuses.

    Georgia last year was granted a waiver from the federal law, which allowed schools to count a host of measures in addition to standardized tests.

    State schools Superintendent John Barge said last year he believes the state's new accountability system will remove the pressure to cheat on standardized tests because it won't be the sole way the state determines student growth. The pressure was part of what some educators in Atlanta Public Schools blamed for their cheating.

    Alford, the schools spokesman, said the district was moving on from the scandal.

    "This is a legal matter between the individuals implicated and the Fulton County District Attorney's office, and we will allow the legal process to take its course," he said before the indictment was announced. "Our focus is on providing a quality education to all of our students and supporting the 6,000 employees who come to work each day and make sound decisions about educating our students."

    The Georgia Professional Standards Commission is responsible for licensing teachers and has been going through the complaints against teachers, said commission executive secretary Kelly Henson.

    The commission considers cases as they are released from the district attorney's office. By Wednesday, they had received all but 26, Henson said.

    The commission waits for the district attorneys before taking action on those cases because there is likely evidence that will be useful for the commission's own investigation.

    "It is very routine for us to work with the DA's office and say we're not going to step on each other's toes and we'll work around their schedule," Henson said.

    It's common for educators to receive professional sanctions from the commission but not be charged, Henson said. The commission only requires a finding of guilt based on good evidence of wrongdoing, while criminal prosecutions require guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

    Of the 159 cases that the commission already reviewed, 44 resulted in license revocations, 100 got two-year suspensions and nine were suspended for less than two years, Henson said. No action was taken against six of the educators. 

    © 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

  • Young people cheating a bit less these days, report finds

    By Vignesh Ramachandran

    Cheating, lying and stealing among American students are all less prevalent nowadays, according to a new report.

    The 2012 "Report Card on the Ethics of American Youth" suggests that young people's morals have improved in recent years. The survey, conducted every two years by the Los Angeles-based Josephson Institute of Ethics, found that 99 percent of the 23,000 high school students sampled say they believe "it is very important to have good moral character."


    The results found 51 percent of students in 2012 admitted they cheated on an exam in the past year, which is down from 59 percent in 2010. The percentage of students admitting they've copied another's homework dropped by two points in the past couple years.

    "Changes in children’s behavior of this magnitude suggest a major shift in parenting and school involvement in issues of honesty and character," Michael Josephson, founder and president of the Josephson Institute of Ethics, said in a statement. "Though there is still far too much cheating, lying and stealing, I think we have turned the corner."

    Related: Feds say teachers hired stand-in to take their certification tests

    The survey also suggest there are fewer Pinocchios: Fifty-five percent of students in 2012 say they've lied to a teacher in the past year about something significant, compared with 61 percent in 2010.

    Students admitting they stole something from a store in the past year fell seven percentage points in the last two years, to 20 percent in 2012.

    Through hidden cameras, a few parents find out if their kids are among the 85 percent of high school students who admit to getting a little extra help. TODAY's Natalie Morales reports.

    While Josephson believes the results are "a small ray of sunshine shining through lots of dark clouds," this report comes in the midst of a number of recent cheating scandals among students a little bit older.

    At least 78 Air Force Academy cadets have been accused of cheating on an online calculus test by allegedly getting help during the exam from a website.

    Even the Ivy League has not been immune to moral lapses. It was recently reported that dozens of students at Harvard University were being investigated for possibly sharing answers or plagiarizing on a final exam.

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    A lot of young people cheat because they're under pressure to get ahead and succeed, according to David Callahan, senior fellow at New York City-based public policy center Demos.

    "Students are worried about getting left behind in this economy," said Callahan, who's also author of "The Cheating Culture: Why More Americans Are Doing Wrong to Do Well."

    In fact, 45 percent of the boys and 28 percent of the girls in the Josephson survey believe that "a person has to lie and cheat at least occasionally in order to succeed."

    "It’s still a big problem," Callahan told NBC News. "There’s been a decline, but it’s not a huge decline."

    Top New York City public school Stuyvesant High is investigating accusations that up to 70 students may have used cellphones to cheat on a major exam. ­NBC's chief education correspondent Rehema Ellis reports.

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  • Panetta orders review of ethical standards amid allegations of misconduct among high-level military leaders

    By Bill Briggs, NBC News contributor

    Defense Secretary Leon Panetta on Thursday ordered the Pentagon to dig into and determine why an alarming number of generals and admirals have been snared by a variety of ethical lapses and misconduct allegations, headlined by the admitted marital infidelity of former four-star general and ex-CIA Director David Petraeus.


    According to a statement released by the Department of Defense, Panetta believes that while the "vast majority" of U.S. general officers continue to abide by traditional ethical standards, he has nonetheless become concerned about the spike in alleged misbehavior among a rising number of flag officers spanning the Army, Navy and Marines.

    "Over the past several months, the Secretary has spoken with the service secretaries, service chiefs, and combatant commanders about those instances when senior officers have not lived up to the standards expected of them. This has been an ongoing discussion reflecting shared concerns," the DOD release said. "This week, the Secretary directed General Dempsey to work with the other members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to review how to better foster a culture of stewardship among our most senior military officers.  This process is intended to reinforce and strengthen the standards that keep us a well led and disciplined military."

    Slideshow: Petraeus case: Cast of characters

    ISAF via Reuters file

    Meet the people who have been pulled into the scandal that caused Gen. David Petraeus to resign.

    Launch slideshow

    Panetta was in Thailand Thursday as part of a visit to Asia. Neither Panetta's order nor the DOD statement mentioned Petraeus, who has been under FBI investigation, or Marine Gen. John R. Allen, the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, who is involved in the Petreaus case. Allen has denied any wrongdoing.

    In addition, three other top-rung commanders have recently been punished by the military or remain under investigation for alleged misconduct:

    • Army Gen. William Ward, the four-star general who once led the U.S. Africa Command was demoted Tuesday amid accusations that he spent thousands of dollars on lavish travel. He was stripped of one star and will retire. In August, a Defense Department Inspector General’s Report said Ward took an 11-day trip to Washington and Atlanta, costing $129,000 but spending just three days on official business.
    • Brig. Gen. Jeffrey A. Sinclair is accused of 26 violations of military law including forcible sodomy, wrongful sexual conduct, possessing pornography while deployed and conduct unbecoming of an officer. According to prosecutors, the alleged sexual assaults happened in Afghanistan, Iraq and Germany, as well as at military bases in the United States. In May, Sinclair was removed from Afghanistan, where he’d served as a deputy commander for support. An initial military hearing has ended, but there has been no decision on whether to proceed to a court martial, The Associated Press reported.
    • Navy Cmdr. Joseph E. Darlak and top officers of the San Diego-based Navy frigate USS Vandegrift were relieved of duty on Nov. 2 after a boisterous, drunken port visit to Vladivostok, Russia. Darlak was removed, the Navy said, after an investigation found he had exhibited "poor leadership and failure to ensure the proper conduct of his wardroom officers" during the three-day September stop, the Associated Press reported.

    Ward, Sinclair and Darlak have not commented publicly about the charges against them.

    Some military observers see the recent spate of high-profile cases of alleged misconduct as a much larger issue affecting the armed forces.

    Directing combat operations on the far side of the world has separated many general officers from their families for the better part of a decade while they live in “an alternate-reality universe” – culturally insulated along with other brass – while being increasingly viewed as “untouchable,” said Frank Wuco, a retired U.S. Naval intelligence chief.

    That distance and divide can put military commanders at risk of losing their moral compass, said Wuco, who hosts a weekly radio program in Tampa, Fla. In the late stages of Wuco’s intelligence career, he attended multiple meetings with then-Gen. David Petraeus who, at the time, was leading U.S. forces in the Middle East.

    Wuco describes the former four-star general as “down to earth,” but he said the social status of many U.S. generals has ballooned to new heights during the two wars (Iraq and Afghanistan), allowing American military leaders to “begin to live in this kind of artificial bubble.”

    “With the senior guys and the flag officers, this is like the new royalty. We treat them like kings and princes. These general officers in the military, at a certain point, become untouchable,” Wuco said. “In many cases, they get their own airplanes, their own helicopters. When they walk into a room, everybody comes to attention. In the case of some of them, people are very afraid to speak up or to disagree. Being separated from real life all the time in that way probably leaves them vulnerable (to lapses in moral judgement)."

    But Thomas Ricks, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, disagrees with the notion that military leadership is more insulated and that they have had their heads clouded by adulation. To Ricks, the problem is squarely centered on a wholesale loss of accountability across the landscape of the American armed forces.

    "It is because the U.S. military has lost hold of the idea of accountability - that is, rewarding success and removing failures. And so people get promoted kind of mindlessly, and aren't punished when they fail repeatedly over the years," said Ricks, who also writes a blog for ForeignPolicy.com called “The Best Defense."

    "Ultimately, when their failure becomes public, they may get punished. Bottom line: Today being a general is like being a tenured professor. You can do a lousy job and keep it, but if you embarrass the institution with moral lapses, you will get bounced," Ricks said.

    Click here for more military-related coverage from NBC News.

    As for the reports of Petraeus’ infidelity – as well as any unreported sexual dalliances involving other military leaders – ex-intelligence chief Wuco contends such behaviors within the highest levels of the military “are nothing new.”

    “This type of cheating, while definitely alarming, is not off limits to the military,” Wuco said. “This is classic ‘men of a certain age.’ You’re looking at a guy who’s up there in age. He’s been working his ass off his entire adult life, separated from all of the good times everybody else has been having. I don’t think it’s anything more than: it made him feel good. It was good for his ego. He was holding the attention of a younger woman. It’s a classic story across every center of society.”

    In fact, two of America's most venerated generals - Dwight D. Eisenhower and Matthew Ridgway - were known to have had romantic flings during World War II and the Korean War, but their infidelities didn't make news and certainly didn't cost them their commands.

    A third World War II hero, Gen. George S. Patton, also had an extramarital affair, according to the book, "Patton," by the late Martin Blumenson.

    "We’re in a different time now," said Robert O. Kirkland, a military historian who teaches at the University of Southern California. He called the Eisenhower and Ridgway liaisons with women other than their wives "documented in the historical record."

    "Maybe some things in the past were overlooked," Kirkland said. "They’re now enforced."

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  • Emails show Palin as governor: 'I can't take it anymore.'

    Mark Wilson / Getty Images

    The last of the emails that the state of Alaska could recover from Sarah Palin's brief term as governor were released on Thursday.

    Editor's note: Here's a link to msnbc.com's previous coverage of a release of Sarah Palin's public records, and our database where you can read those public documents. The Associated Press was apparently the only news organization to be notified by the state that new records were available. Here is the AP's report. Others that had requested them said they had not been informed of the release. They include Mother Jones magazine (which blogged about the odd release), CNN, The Washington Post, ABC News, and the Republican political activist Andrée McLeod, who said Thursday, "The culture of corruption continues unabated."

    By Becky Bohrer
    The Associated Press

    JUNEAU, Alaska—In the final months before she resigned as Alaska's governor, Sarah Palin displayed growing frustration over deteriorating relationships with state lawmakers and their perceived efforts to "lame duck" her administration, along with outrage over ethics complaints that she felt frivolously targeted her and prompted her to write: "I can't take it anymore."

    The details are included in more than 17,000 records released Thursday by state officials -- nearly 3 1/2 years after citizens and news organizations, including The Associated Press, first requested Palin's emails.

    By the spring of 2009, the emails show, Palin was regularly butting heads with lawmakers of both parties over her absences from the Capitol and over her picks for vacancies in the state Senate and her own cabinet. The emails she sent to staff illustrate Palin's growing suspicion that those legislators were seeking to undermine her administration by harping on how often she was away from Juneau, the state capitol.

    She asked her aides to tally how many days she was out of Alaska in 2008. The staff came up with 94 days, but 10 less if you count travel days when she was in the state part of the day, The absences included all of October and most of September while she was on the campaign trail as the GOP vice presidential candidate.

    "It's unacceptable, and there must be push back on their attempts to lame duck this administration," Palin wrote to her top aides on April 9. "That's only going to get worse as they try to pull more bs and capitalize on me being out of the capitol building for 36 hours," she wrote aides.

    Palin also asked her aides to see if they could hold certain legislators' "feet to the fire" and hold votes on her nominees. She wrote words of encouragement to Wayne Anthony Ross, her nominee for attorney general, telling him to "stay strong."

    "Those who want to turn this into a kangaroo court will soon see you confirmed as Alaska's AG," Palin wrote.

    Ross was not confirmed, the first ever cabinet level candidate rejected by the Alaska Legislature. Palin traveled to an anti-abortion rally in Indiana the day he was defeated.

    Tim Crawford, treasurer of Sarah Palin's political action committee, encouraged everyone to read the emails. "They show a governor hard at work for her state," he said.

    The emails are the last of her emails from her time as governor, according to Alaska state officials. Citizens and news organizations, including the AP, first requested Palin's emails in September 2008, as part of her vetting as the Republican vice presidential nominee. The state released a batch of the emails last June, a lag of nearly three years that was attributed to the sheer volume of the records and the flood of requests stemming from Palin's tenure.

    The 24,199 pages of emails that were released last year left off in September 2008. When it became clear that the June release would not include all the emails from Palin's tenure last June, requests were then made for the remaining emails. Thursday's release includes 17,736 records, or 34,820 pages, generally spanning from October 2008 until Palin's resignation, in July 2009. Of those, 13,791 records were released without redactions, according to the governor's office. Another 965 documents were withheld.

    Several media organizations, including msnbc.com, said they were not informed of Thursday's release.

    Sharon Leighow, a spokeswoman for the current governor, Sean Parnell, said she was looking into why msnbc.com was not on the list.

    Palin's frustration over a series of ethics complaints filed against her, one of the issues she cited when stepping down, emerges in a series of e-mails on March 24, 2009.

    "These are the things that waste my time and money, and the state's time and money," she wrote to then-Lt. Gov. Parnell.

    In an April 2009 email, she commiserated over a story indicating another ethics complaint was to be filed: "Unflippinbelievable... I'm sending this because you can relate to the bullcrap continuation of the hell these people put the family through," she wrote to Ivy Frye, an aide during the first part of her term, and to Frank Bailey.

    Later that day, in an email to her husband and two top aides, on the issue, she said: "I can't take it anymore."

    The first batch of emails released last June, before she announced she would not run for president, showed that Palin was angling for the vice presidential slot months before John McCain picked her to be his running mate. Those records produced no bombshells, while painting a picture of an image-conscious, driven leader, struggling with the gossip about her family and marriage, involved in the day-to-day duties of running the state and keeping tabs on the signature issues of her administration.

    Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

  • Palin aide pays $11,900 fine to settle ethics complaint over emails

    By Bill Dedman, Investigative Reporter, NBC News

    A former top aide to Sarah Palin when she was Alaska governor has paid $11,900 to settle an ethics complaint with the state of Alaska.

    Mark Wilson / Getty Images

    One of Palin's former aides penned a tell-all book about the abbreviated administration of the former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice-presidential candidate.

    The complaint by Republican activist Andrée McLeod alleged that Frank Bailey used confidential emails, which were being withheld from the public, to write "Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin," his tell-all book about the abbreviated administration of the former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice-presidential candidate.

    The settlement was reached last week and disclosed Tuesday when the attorney general's office informed McLeod.

    Documents in the case, in PDF files:

    The fines are described in the settlement as $3,600 for using confidential information in drafting his book, $7,200 for disclosing confidential information to his co-authors, and $1,100 for publishing information after the state Department of Law told him it was confidential. The settlement said Bailey withheld more information on the advise of the state lawyers.

    More: Reporter Richard Mauer at The Anchorage Daily News has more on the ethics case.

    McLeod issued a statement on Tuesday saying more disclosure is needed:

    “Justice has yet to be served.  I have called on the Attorney General to reveal all the public’s documents and emails that Bailey confiscated and shared with others when he left state employment.”

    McLeod and members of the media have requested all of Palin’s email communications for the time she was Alaska’s governor.  Although some have been revealed, many couldn’t be located because of Palin’s rampant use of private email accounts for official business, and thousands more remain undisclosed as Alaska’s governor’s office cites executive privileges and other delay tactics.

    “Every one of those confidential and still undisclosed public documents that were in Bailey’s possession must be made public, immediately, as Bailey broke the chain of custody when he illegally shared them with his co-authors Jeanne Devon and Ken Morris,” McLeod said. 

    “This is the second time that Sarah’s go-to guy has been found to have crossed the line.  The first was back in November of 2008 when I filed another complaint against Sarah and her staff, including Bailey,” McLeod said.

    McLeod continues, “This agreement proves, yet again, that Sarah Palin’s account of her role in reforming Alaska’s government while governor is truly the only real ‘false narrative’ being bandied about.”

    Previous coverage: See our coverage from last summer on the release of many of the Palin administration's emails, including our database where you can read those documents.