Reference - Clicky
What is this world coming to? Too many people want to take too many shortcuts! :bitchslap100 teachers in Miami-Dade landed jobs with fake credentials
When James Majors applied for a teaching job at Miami-Dade County Public Schools in 2002, school district officials took little notice of a remarkable achievement: three degrees in only three months.
Without scrutiny from school officials, no one noticed that Majors, 26, provided fake teaching credentials to the district, and he went on to teach 300 students, according to a Miami-Dade grand jury report issued Monday.
The report raised serious questions about the Miami-Dade school district, where 99 other teachers also found work after providing fake credentials. Neither state education officials nor school district officials conducted a review of the job applicants, the grand jury noted in the report.
Miami-Dade school spokesman Joseph Garcia said the district has improved its screening process since 2002.
"We take teacher qualifications very seriously," Garcia said, noting that the district now examines degree completion dates and transcripts more closely and looks for fraud. He said the school district has asked investigators for the names of the other 99 teachers.
Besides providing academic credentials, teachers must be certified by the state before they can teach in any public school.
Majors' record was not uncovered until he applied for a job with Broward County Schools, the report said.
Authorities later discovered that William McCoggle, a long-time teacher at Palmetto Senior High School, issued fake college credits and transcripts to teachers in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties through Moving on Toward Education and Training, authorities said.
The program, which charged teachers $774 for three credits, allowed four teachers to improperly receive more than $345,000 in salaries, officials said.
The grand jury indicted McCoggle, 73, on charges of running an organized scheme to defraud. It indicted Majors on grand theft charges. Neither Majors nor McCoggle could be reached for comment.
Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said the investigation unveiled a disturbing culture where teachers are willing to cheat to further their careers.
"It's completely unacceptable," Rundle said.
Teachers learned about the program through word of mouth, and showed up at Palmetto Sr. High School on Saturdays to enroll.
While McCoggle, who recently retired after 22 years with the district, claimed to have a number of "adjunct professors," teachers received credits without attending classes, completing homework nor taking a test, authorities said.
"Teachers simply paid money and later received a transcript," the grand jury's report said.
Majors claimed that he received a bachelor's degree from Vernell University and masters and doctoral degrees from Florida State University. Vernell is not an accredited institution, and the timing in which Majors claimed to have earned all three degrees also should also have raised a red flag, the grand jury said.
"Had that been detected," the report said, "it would clearly have alerted the reviewer that something was not right and that further verification was necessary."
Majors was hired for $42,000 a year. He spent 14 months teaching at the Cutler Ridge and Westview middle schools. He failed 22 students at one school.