The feds are investigating a $1 million cheating scandal that left hundreds of uncertified teachers in Texas classrooms.
Vincent Grayson, a former teacher and basketball coach at Booker T. Washington High School in Houston, has been charged in the alleged cheating scandal.
Grayson (pictured above) is described by prosecutors as the scheme’s ringleader, along with Nicholas Newton, the school’s assistant principal and the alleged test taker.
Prosecutors say more than 200 teachers paid Newton to take the state certification exam for them. Now those teachers are scattered in classrooms across Texas.
Local and state education officials are scrambling to track down the teachers who cheated.
“The most important thing to me is the ringleaders have been identified and are being rooted out of our home school district … and the fact that they held positions of power there, where they were held in esteem by the children, is the very worst part of this crime,” Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg told reporters Monday.
“They didn’t deserve those kids’ respect and I think it leaves children feeling betrayed, not knowing who to trust.”
LaShonda Roberts, assistant principal at Jack Yates Senior High School, was also arrested for her role as “a recruiter and referral agent who brought in many individuals who sought the services of the impersonator test taker.”
Two other people not employed by the district also have been charged.
“The extent of the scheme will never be fully known but we know that at least 400 tests were taken and at least 200 teachers falsely certified,” Ogg said.
Prosecutors said all five defendants face two counts of engaging in organized criminal activity, and one felony count based on money laundering because the scheme allegedly yielded over $300,000.
The Texas teaching scandal draws similarities to a cheating scandal involving registered nurses who paid for their diplomas without taking any classes. The scandal affected hundreds of nurses at hospitals and clinics across America.
