Atlanta's cheating scandal has gripped the nation, with 35 educators indicted Friday for raising their students' standardized test scores. But while the scandal should be investigated and dishonest teachers held to account, the overall picture is more complicated. On the first episode of his new primetime show on MSNBC, Chris Hayes also takes a critical look at the testing-obsessed education system that has created an incentive for this kind of cheating.

Speaking with a panel that includes Nation contributor and NYU education professor Pedro Noguera, Hayes discusses the nationwide practice of evaluating education mainly on the basis of test scores under George W. Bush's No Child Left Behind and Barack Obama's Race to the Top laws. 

—Alec Luhn

It's a been a big week for Nation contributors Chris Hayes and Katha Pollitt, Katrina vanden Heuvel writes.