The booker t bball coach took money from people wanting to be teachers and was the "mastermind." Asst principal from booker t would take the certification exam. Asst principal from Yates would recruit imbeciles who would pay to cheat to be a teacher. Others also in trouble.



https://www.click2houston.com/news/local/2024/10/28/live-5-arrested-in-1m-teacher-certification-cheating-scheme-harris-county-da-kim-ogg-announces/

Quote:

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How the scheme work
Levine said candidates would pay Grayson usually $2,500. He then would forward roughly 20% of that money to Gilford Mason for her willingness to allow the cheating to occur.
The candidate would then reportedly be instructed by Grayson, on where and when exactly to test. They would come, show ID, sign in and leave, Levine stated.
A few minutes later, Nicholas Newton, the proxy tester, would reportedly sit in their seat, take and pass the test that they felt they could not.

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The Pappadeaux restaurant on the East Freeway is going to lose its best lunch customers.

But don't worry, I'm sure paying teachers and administrators more will fix it.

And there will still be idiots screaming about how the state takeover of HISD wasn't needed

it's rotten to the core

BQ_90 said:

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And there will still be idiots screaming about how the state takeover of HISD wasn't needed

it's rotten to the core

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Oh they already are- saying that the Republicans at the state level which took over HISD are responsible for this.

The state took over HISD last year, right? And the scam has been going on for 5-6 years and would have been undetectable without the whistleblower because the person who was supposed to be the watchdog for this kind of stuff was in on it? Who watches the watchers, right?

Oh ho ho! Looks like NAACP, Al Green, SJL, Sly, State Representative Armando Walle, State Representative Jarvis Johnson, State Senator Carol Alvarado, teachers union, former trustees and HCDP are all wrong again on the state's coming in to clean up the truck stop toilet bowl that is HISD.

You can bet there are other schemes going on that have a lot of campus administrators butts puckering right now. Maybe not a teacher certification racket, but grade fixing or some such nonsense.

All these people know is corruption, greed and indoctrination.

Not sure why it even matters. Once vouchers are instituted, no teacher certification will be needed. Private schools can already hire anyone to teach with no requirement for degree or certification, and when all of education is privatized it will only get easier to hire non-certified teachers.

Booma94 said:

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Not sure why it even matters. Once vouchers are instituted, no teacher certification will be needed. Private schools can already hire anyone to teach with no requirement for degree or certification, and when all of education is privatized it will only get easier to hire non-certified teachers.

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Way to miss the forest for the trees.

With vouchers and so forth schools have to compete and when a school has lesser teachers that school will loose student enrollment. And never mind that this story makes note of the reason a number of those teachers had to fake certification was due to inability to pass a background check because of varying status levels of sex offender records. Those background checks are not just required by public schools but also charter and private schools.

Booma94 said:

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Not sure why it even matters. Once vouchers are instituted, no teacher certification will be needed. Private schools can already hire anyone to teach with no requirement for degree or certification, and when all of education is privatized it will only get easier to hire non-certified teachers.

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That's not how any of this works.

Most schools are certified and belong to various certifying institutions. Many more than 1 at the same time. Each institution requires a very thorough vetting process that takes place every 3-5 years with multiple representatives on site that put together action plans that have to be completed.

There's always varying degrees in every situation. But having been on the board of a parochial school on the value cost end of the spectrum in Houston, the quality of the administration, staff, and curriculum was leaps and bounds from anything the State can enforce. And that was reinforced any time an HISD student that was supposedly top of their class tested and joined our school when their parents finally faced reality.

Booma94 said:

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Serotonin said:

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Booma94 said:

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Not sure why it even matters. Once vouchers are instituted, no teacher certification will be needed. Private schools can already hire anyone to teach with no requirement for degree or certification, and when all of education is privatized it will only get easier to hire non-certified teachers.

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I blue starred this post as a hopeful description of the future of education. Now I realize that you might be saying this like it's a bad thing.

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So you want people teaching to be LESS qualified. Got it.

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Most teaching positions don't actually require a degree in the subject they're teaching just an education degree.

So a person who has a PhD in biology but isn't certified as a teacher is considered less qualified than somebody with a BS in education and certification in biology.

AgLA06 said:

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Booma94 said:

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Not sure why it even matters. Once vouchers are instituted, no teacher certification will be needed. Private schools can already hire anyone to teach with no requirement for degree or certification, and when all of education is privatized it will only get easier to hire non-certified teachers.

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That's not how any of this works.

Most schools are certified and belong to various certifying institutions. Many more than 1 at the same time. Each institution requires a very thorough vetting process that takes place every 3-5 years with multiple representatives on site that put together action plans that have to be completed.

There's always varying degrees in every situation. But having been on the board of a parochial school on the value cost end of the spectrum in Houston, the quality of the administration, staff, and curriculum was leaps and bounds from anything the State can enforce. And that was reinforced any time an HISD student that was supposedly top of their class tested and joined our school when their parents finally faced reality.

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Ah, the argument of anecdotal information. Because your school does it this way, they all must do it this way.

The fact is once vouchers are approved, fly-by-night, for-profit, pop-up schools will not be uncommon- look around Los Angeles in California. There are 'academies' in many strip malls- and not the kind that sell sporting goods. They are glorified daycare facilities that are paid for with vouchers scholarships. There's little accountability, no guidelines, and no state input into curriculum. These grifters will be as common as parochial schools and will only serve to get free government money.

So all of the voucher proponents that think that things will improve when the state forfeits control are in for a rude awakening. There will be as many grifters as legitimate school. There will be some schools set up by foreign influence that teach their own beliefs but paid for with our tax dollars and because there's no guidelines nothing can be done about it. Ahmed's Death to America Academy paid for with American tax dollars would not be outside the realm of possibility.

TarponChaser said:

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Booma94 said:

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Serotonin said:

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Booma94 said:

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Not sure why it even matters. Once vouchers are instituted, no teacher certification will be needed. Private schools can already hire anyone to teach with no requirement for degree or certification, and when all of education is privatized it will only get easier to hire non-certified teachers.

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I blue starred this post as a hopeful description of the future of education. Now I realize that you might be saying this like it's a bad thing.

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So you want people teaching to be LESS qualified. Got it.

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Most teaching positions don't actually require a degree in the subject they're teaching just an education degree.

So a person who has a PhD in biology but isn't certified as a teacher is considered less qualified than somebody with a BS in education and certification in biology.

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Having a PhD in Biology doesn't mean you can handle a class of 35 teenagers or that you can teach in a way that takes a complicated subject and makes it relevant and get students to retain it.

There are tons of brilliant people who show up in public schools and get eaten alive because they have no teaching skills outside of knowing their subject matter. They don't usually stick around very long.

Booker T Washington HS was supposed to be shut down completely because enrollment had dropped to around 400 students, but SJL and Ellis pitched a fit that any decision to close the school was racist. As a result, HISD spent big millions to completely rebuild the entire school.

You sure about this?

"look around Los Angeles in voucher-friendly California."


Quick internet search:

California does not currently offer vouchers or tuition tax credits for private school choice. Propositions to amend the state constitution to allow school vouchers were defeated by large margins in 1993 and 2010.

AgLiving06 said:

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Booma94 said:

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TarponChaser said:

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Most teaching positions don't actually require a degree in the subject they're teaching just an education degree.

So a person who has a PhD in biology but isn't certified as a teacher is considered less qualified than somebody with a BS in education and certification in biology.

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They require a degree, not necessarily in education.

And those people are not less qualified, but are potentially less prepared. I've known some pretty smart people with some advanced degrees that couldn't cut it as teachers because they lacked the necessary preparation.

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So where we land is the necessity of defining what "qualified" means.

Because we all know there are a lot of teachers who aren't qualified in the least to teach anything, yet there they are, and there are certainly private schools with extremely good teachers that aren't "qualified" by HISD standards.

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Exactly.

Booma94 said:

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Serotonin said:

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Booma94 said:

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Not sure why it even matters. Once vouchers are instituted, no teacher certification will be needed. Private schools can already hire anyone to teach with no requirement for degree or certification, and when all of education is privatized it will only get easier to hire non-certified teachers.

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I blue starred this post as a hopeful description of the future of education. Now I realize that you might be saying this like it's a bad thing.

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So you want people teaching to be LESS qualified. Got it.

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I am against unnecessary bureaucracy and administrative process.

My wife went through the teacher certification program here in Texas and it is every bit the joke one would imagine.

Do these certifications correlate with actual teacher effectiveness 5 or 10 years down the line? Holding other variables equal do schools with fully certified staff perform better than those without?

I will admit the certification is good at two things: keeping motivated new competition out of the teaching pool and creating a cottage industry of grift where companies make thousands off of prospective teachers.

Booma94 said:

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Not sure why it even matters. Once vouchers are instituted, no teacher certification will be needed. Private schools can already hire anyone to teach with no requirement for degree or certification, and when all of education is privatized it will only get easier to hire non-certified teachers.

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Let's assume for a minute that this is true (it's not, but we'll roll with it).

The part you are conveniently omitting is that it will also only get easier to fire non-performing teachers or those that otherwise have issues that would warrant termination, but the bloated and self protectionist system that is HISD (or most ISD's in general) prevent that from happening.

Booma94 said:

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AgLA06 said:

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Booma94 said:

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Not sure why it even matters. Once vouchers are instituted, no teacher certification will be needed. Private schools can already hire anyone to teach with no requirement for degree or certification, and when all of education is privatized it will only get easier to hire non-certified teachers.

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That's not how any of this works.

Most schools are certified and belong to various certifying institutions. Many more than 1 at the same time. Each institution requires a very thorough vetting process that takes place every 3-5 years with multiple representatives on site that put together action plans that have to be completed.

There's always varying degrees in every situation. But having been on the board of a parochial school on the value cost end of the spectrum in Houston, the quality of the administration, staff, and curriculum was leaps and bounds from anything the State can enforce. And that was reinforced any time an HISD student that was supposedly top of their class tested and joined our school when their parents finally faced reality.

---

Ah, the argument of anecdotal information. Because your school does it this way, they all must do it this way.

The fact is once vouchers are approved, fly-by-night, for-profit, pop-up schools will not be uncommon- look around Los Angeles in California. There are 'academies' in many strip malls- and not the kind that sell sporting goods. They are glorified daycare facilities that are paid for with vouchers scholarships. There's little accountability, no guidelines, and no state input into curriculum. These grifters will be as common as parochial schools and will only serve to get free government money.

So all of the voucher proponents that think that things will improve when the state forfeits control are in for a rude awakening. There will be as many grifters as legitimate school. There will be some schools set up by foreign influence that teach their own beliefs but paid for with our tax dollars and because there's no guidelines nothing can be done about it. Ahmed's Death to America Academy paid for with American tax dollars would not be outside the realm of possibility.

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I'll take "things that won't actually happen for $1000, Alex".

The flip side, which you are also forgetting to discuss (like in your other nonsensical post) is this - tell me what about the current setup of our education system makes you think it is super duper awesome, efficient, productive and why a pure monopolistic system is somehow good in education, but illegal in any other sector?

There is only one reason any school system is scared of the prospect of competiton. I'll let you guess what it is.

WES2006AG said:

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TarponChaser said:

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Booma94 said:

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Serotonin said:

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Booma94 said:

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Not sure why it even matters. Once vouchers are instituted, no teacher certification will be needed. Private schools can already hire anyone to teach with no requirement for degree or certification, and when all of education is privatized it will only get easier to hire non-certified teachers.

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I blue starred this post as a hopeful description of the future of education. Now I realize that you might be saying this like it's a bad thing.

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So you want people teaching to be LESS qualified. Got it.

---

Most teaching positions don't actually require a degree in the subject they're teaching just an education degree.

So a person who has a PhD in biology but isn't certified as a teacher is considered less qualified than somebody with a BS in education and certification in biology.

---

Having a PhD in Biology doesn't mean you can handle a class of 35 teenagers or that you can teach in a way that takes a complicated subject and makes it relevant and get students to retain it.

There are tons of brilliant people who show up in public schools and get eaten alive because they have no teaching skills outside of knowing their subject matter. They don't usually stick around very long.

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...then they don't stick around for long.

Having a certification (that may or may not be legit anyway) doesn't mean you can handle a class of 35 teenagers or that you can teach in a way that takes a complicated subject and makes it relevant and gets studens to retain it.

Bottom line - some people can teach, others cannot. Certification or not is irrelevant to that capacity.

Serotonin said:

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Booma94 said:

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Serotonin said:

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Booma94 said:

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Not sure why it even matters. Once vouchers are instituted, no teacher certification will be needed. Private schools can already hire anyone to teach with no requirement for degree or certification, and when all of education is privatized it will only get easier to hire non-certified teachers.

---

I blue starred this post as a hopeful description of the future of education. Now I realize that you might be saying this like it's a bad thing.

---

So you want people teaching to be LESS qualified. Got it.

---

I am against unnecessary bureaucracy and administrative process.

My wife went through the teacher certification program here in Texas and it is every bit the joke one would imagine.

Do these certifications correlate with actual teacher effectiveness 5 or 10 years down the line? Holding other variables equal do schools with fully certified staff perform better than those without?

I will admit the certification is good at two things: keeping motivated new competition out of the teaching pool and creating a cottage industry of grift where companies make thousands off of prospective teachers.

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Same with my wife. Getting her cert only happened because it was a requirement, and there was nothing she learned in the process that made her a better instructor. It was little more than a box that needed to be checked within a certain time frame to continue her employment.

If this teaching certification is so vital and important, why is it that college professors and adjunct professors, TA's, grad students, etc. are not required to obtain it prior to being able to lecture and administer classes?

I'm not against the certificaton as a whole, I just know from experience that it isn't some magic super duper tool that makes all teachers awesome or any nonsense like that.

Part of the irony in all of this is that our education system is failing bad enough that it cannot even produce people capable of meeting the requirements to teach under that education system in the first place.

(criminal past notwithstanding). It is a pretty damning indictment of just how bad the current system is across the board.