There are just a handful of words in the English language that generate visceral reactions regardless of context.  Genocide.  Rape.  Incest.  Murder.  Racism.

Such reactions owe to the fact that the victims of these despicable acts are innocent, typically unsuspecting and vulnerable victims in the light of such unwarranted abuse. 

I had a similar reaction when I read this week the investigative study performed by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper that found 196 public school districts with such dramatic shifts in student test scores that the odds of them occurring without test tampering are one in one thousand, and in some cases one in a million.  

Cheating in school is almost always associated with students.  What happens when the cheating is associated with teachers?  The very fabric of the institution of public education begins to unravel as the public’s trust of this institution lowers and the strength of our democracy along with it.  Innocent victims suffering at the hands of unwarranted attacks on their lives' potential.

Overblown?  Hyperbole?  Just a handful of teachers to whom it has not been proven that cheating actually occurred against a mass of honest, hardworking teachers who show up every day and don’t use higher standards, tougher accountability and student growth measures as a reason to cheat?  Perhaps.  But in the same way a single terrorist’s actions can change the course of a nation’s airport security measures, I fear the education discourse that follows around the need, relevance or priority of tougher and higher standards, accountability and teacher evaluations. 

Can raising the bar ever be considered an appropriate excuse for lowering morality?  Should our expectations for those we daily entrust our children to be lower in light of demanding job pressures and expectations?  Would we allow the same for say police officers?  Their jobs are tough, pay is comparatively low and pressures are real.  Should we lower the bar on our expectations for public safety so they are not pressured to cheat?  Should we blame the impossibility of all of society adhering to all of the criminal code as a way to justify lowering some laws or lowering police effectiveness? 

Teachers cheating.  Two more words in the English language that fail to generate any sympathy.  The AJC article reminds us that the mettle of a man or woman is refined during tough times.  Pressure draws out the true character of a person.  Teachers accepting the high bar of expectation society places on their profession while refusing any way that lowers their integrity in meeting that bar -- that is what our public education and the democracy it supports has always believed and rested on.