Free Republic

Five people have been charged in Texas with organizing and participating in an illegal cheating scheme that certified more than 200 unqualified teachers and helped the plot’s “kingpin” rake in more than $1 million, prosecutors said. In the scheme, people would typically pay $2,500 to have proxies take certification tests for them at two testing centers in Houston. The scandal involved bribing a testing proctor to allow test applicants and their proxies to switch places... Investigators noticed a pattern, they said: Numerous teacher certification candidates who previously failed certification exams would drive from faraway Texas cities to the Houston area...

Five people are charged in connection with a teacher-certification cheating ring that led to illegally certified teachers working in Texas schools, DA Kim Ogg said.

Some Houston ISD parents say the board of trustees is ignoring the Arabic connection to slavery ahead of Thursday's vote to rename schools honoring those with Confederate ties. For much of the school year, a small group has been protesting outside HISD's new Arabic Immersion Magnet School, paid for in part by money from the Qatar Foundation. “HISD is accepting money from the state that sponsors ISIS, that sponsors terror and slavery, and yet they are about to withdraw the school names of various Confederate heroes,” says Elizabeth Theiss, founder of “Stop the Magnet.” Theiss says HISD is not alone....

More than 15,000 HISD teachers, principals, instructional and non-instructional staff will receive performance pay totaling $40.4 million tomorrow for helping children improve in the classroom. This exceeds last year’s payout by approximately $8.8 million.