It all came down to the mother's milk of federal money.
For want of more government dollars, 11 former Atlanta public school educators were convicted Wednesday of racketeering for their role in a scheme to inflate students' scores on standardized exams.
Others already pleaded guilty, and Atlanta School Superintendent Dr. Beverly Hall, who was revealed by witnesses to having pressured teachers to change the grades, died a month ago of breast cancer. She also had been charged but never stood trial.
The scheme was to show gains in achievement and meet federal benchmarks in order to unlock more federal money for the school district. Further, the inflated scores would have helped some who were convicted to collect bonuses or keep their jobs at schools that might otherwise have been closed.
Things began to unravel when the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that some of the test scores -- mostly those of poor and minority students -- were statistically impossible.
The inflated scores were found in 44 schools and involved nearly 180 educators, though only 35 were charged. Teachers who tried to report the goings-on were threatened with retaliation.
That was one school system's way of assisting poor and minority students -- throwing more federal money at the problem, money that likely never would have trickled down to the individuals who need it.
Compare that with the opportunity scholarship, or vouchers bill, currently in front of the Tennessee General Assembly. Proponents of that bill want to use money the state already is receiving to allow qualified poor and minority students in "failing" schools to enroll at private schools where they might find the learning environment more conducive. As unbelievable as it sounds, some pundits and many in the education field do not want those students to have that opportunity.
Back in Georgia, District Attorney Paul Howard hoped that prosecuting the cheating scandal, called the largest in the nation's history, was a means to an end.
"Our entire effort in this case was simple -- to get our community to stop and take a look at the education system," he said.
If it causes rethinking about the amount of testing among school systems across the country, if it forces new thoughts about how to reach poor and minority students, and if it shines a light on ineffective teachers and administrators, the six-month trial will have been worth it.