Posted on 11/25/2012 8:18:34 PM PST by Calamari
It was a brazen and surprisingly long-lived scheme, authorities said, to help aspiring public school teachers cheat on the tests they must pass to prove they are qualified to lead their classrooms.
For 15 years, teachers in three Southern states paid Clarence Mumford Sr. — himself a longtime educator — to send someone else to take the tests in their place, authorities said. Each time, Mumford received a fee of between $1,500 and $3,000 to send one of his test ringers with fake identification to the Praxis exam. In return, his customers got a passing grade and began their careers as cheaters, according to federal prosecutors in Memphis.
(Excerpt) Read more at usnews.nbcnews.com ...
It was all part of Clarence’s “No Hack Left Behind” program.
Makes one wonder how they got through college.
Why, he was just using his own form of affirmative action.
bttt
Almost certainly, this scandal will have a "disparate impact".
Sorry for such speculation...but you just know...
Ya know, while I'd suspect that's so, on the other hand I'd sure like to see how these cheating teachers' classes panned out (if the teachers didn't in turn engineer cheating for the classes, that is). It would be funny to find that, say, 5 years into the job there wasn't any discernable difference in the competence of the classes led by these teachers. Meaning the tests were largely irrelevant hooey, and that the degrees from schools of education meant enough.
Yeah, I say a pox on all their houses....
Yes, he was affirmatively enhancing his bank account.
They cheated.
Bump
Affirmative action.
Hey, if Ted Kennedy can do it, then why not teachers?
This sounds like state bar exams.
Test Question Number 1: List a 7 letter word that starts with “c”, and
is an anagram of “teacher”.
cheater... lol!
Not thinking much of it, I met with some of the other new graduates at a reception. People were talking about how hard the exams were, how they didn't know if they'd ever pass and I'd say at least 60% of the people there thought the exams were hard and/or did poorly. I was shocked.
Fast forward and one of those teachers is hired by my children's school and my daughter is put into her class. I went to the school and said I want a different teacher for my child for that subject. The school said that they didn't do teacher requests. I said I know she scored 40% on her first try on the subject area test and yet loves having the power to fail 13 year olds in the same subject. The class was changed.
I worked in education for a while and later left and started a business with my husband. I'm probably especially annoying to my children's school administrators because they know I know probably about 40% of teachers shouldn't even be in the profession for a variety of reasons. And I can pick them out from a mile away.
Anyway, I could have made some serious cash taking these exams for these people! I wasn't going to show anyone my results until all of the new teachers that had taken the exams started saying “She must have failed that's why she won't tell us.” That's when I got out my paperwork, and slammed it on the desk and showed them I had aced every one of them. One person said I was a genius. No, I'm not! I don't even think you'd need an education degree to pass these exams!
I was in my mid-30s. Had no schooling after high-school. Lady friend across the street came into my house one afternoon, handed me a piece of paper. Said take this test. She timed me, I took the test. I took 3.5 minutes to answer all the q’s on both sides. She graded it. I got 100%.
THEN she told me that this was the test currently being given to qualify teachers. They had 2 hours to take it and only needed 50% to pass.
The teachers state-wide were in a huge ruckus because the test was SO hard.
OMG.
I have to wonder if Clarence reportd this income on his Taxes. I’m betting the answer is no.
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