Cheating teachers

From CNN, 32 teachers lose their jobs in Florida for buying fake transcripts.

While I sympathize with the idea that continuing ed classes can be a burden on teachers who more often than not already have way too much to do, buying fake credits to cheat your way around the requirements crosses the line.

You wouldn’t accept faked work from your students, why should your students accept it from you?

The punishments stem from a scam run by former high school teacher William McCoggle, who claimed to offer continuing-education classes through a private company. McCoggle pleaded guilty to fraud in November, admitting he did little more than sell transcripts, requiring no tests, homework or other academic work.

Oddly,

dozens of students and parents defended the teachers who lost their jobs, saying that removing them in the middle of the school year would be too disruptive.

On the other hand, it does send the message that cheating will not be tolerated. From anyone.

Here’s more from the Miami Herald

”You don’t know me,” said Currais, one of 32 teachers who was fired or forced to resign for participating in Miami-Dade’s continuing-education credit-buying scandal.“You don’t know anything about me except the one mistake you saw on that paper.”

This is often the reaction I’ve gotten from students who were caught cheating on assignments.

Here’s more.

Many of the teachers who would comment said they never tried to submit the MOTET classes when they renewed their licenses.

”When I realized it didn’t seem like a normal education program, I refused to use the credits I received,” [Maria] Dominguez said. “If the School Board is going to terminate my employment, I will file an appeal and take it to a hearing with the UTD’s support.”

And hopefully this reacher will win the appeal, or not have to go through it in the first place. It’s certainly possible that some of these teachers didn’t know it was a scam until the scammer got their money and they got a transcript without having done any work. My next step might have been to sue the pants off the scammer.

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