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Abstract

This article examines the 2015 Atlanta cheating scandal trials and sentencing. Using critical race theory, the authors argue that cheating is a natural outgrowth of market-based school reform and that racial realism will always lead to scrutiny of Black performance. The sentences of these Black educators is overkill, rooted in anti-Blackness, and can be best understood as a means of preserving Whiteness as property.

Keywords

African American educators school reform standardized testing African American students urban education

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Overkill: Black Lives and the Spectacle of the Atlanta Cheating Scandal

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