CRCT cloud dissipates

Oh, and by the way … the CRCT investigation down in Dougherty County, well, it’s over.

The state’s investigation into the administration of 2009 Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests in Dougherty County, a suspicious cloud that has hung over the system for a year now, is over, with the information filtering down to Albany in what can only be described a bewildering fashion. It was, at best, a decidedly feeble conclusion to a high-profile educational concern.

In an Associated Press account on the state’s findings in its CRCT probe of the Atlanta school district on Tuesday, there was a paragraph deep in the article noting that a spokeswoman for Gov. Nathan Deal’s office mentioned that the investigation of Dougherty County’s schools had been dropped and that the governor was satisfied with the results of the Dougherty School System’s own probe of its testing. That self-investigation last year resulted in the Dougherty system saying it found no cheating on the tests, which were administered in grades one through eight in spring 2009.

Meanwhile, Dougherty County school officials had no idea the system had been cleared by the governor’s office until Albany Herald reporters contacted them Tuesday evening. Having learned that the state had wrapped up its investigation of the much larger Atlanta district, officials in Albany were awaiting word on when investigators would turn their attention in our direction.

Not surprisingly, the Dougherty school officials we reached Tuesday night were reluctant to comment at all, given the absence of any kind of statement from the governor’s office. And attempts starting late Tuesday afternoon to get the governor’s office on the record regarding the status of the investigation of the Dougherty County School District took some time, with the office first saying it would have no comment until today and then, shortly after noon Wednesday, finally confirming that the Associated Press report was correct.

So, we know the investigation was dropped at some point and that the results of the Dougherty School System’s self-investigation, which was deemed inadequate by Gov. Sonny Perdue in 2010, has been accepted by Deal. We have no idea when that decision was made — we hope today’s expected statement from Deal’s office will clear that up — or why the decision was kept quiet.

There have been questions as to whether this probe was necessary to start with. There has been some thought that state officials, when all this started, needed a second system to be targeted so that they would not come under attack for zeroing in on the Atlanta schools. We hope the state put Dougherty school officials through the wringer over legitimate concerns and not for political cover.

Locally, officials have said they hoped to get a clean bill of health and an apology from the state. If it is a case in which state officials were truly concerned about the education of students, there’s no need for an apology. If an investigation was needed to ensure the right things were being done, then an investigation should have been launched.

But when it was determined that there was no cause for action, the school system and the people of Dougherty County certainly deserved prompt notification, and not merely a side note. That’s just common courtesy.