Education
Lucrative market exists for military exam answers
Alan Wirzbicki and Kevin Baron of The Boston Globe exposed a lucrative black market that exists for professional certification exams. The Globe found that “pirated answers to hundreds of professional qualifying exams, in fields ranging from school-bus driving to medical technicians, are openly available, sometimes for as little as $4 each, from a thriving network…
Read MoreIllinois lags in tracking teachers’ misconduct
Scott Reeder, writing for Quad-CitiesOnline.com, found that Illinois ranked 49th in a nationwide analysis of disciplinary actions against teachers. The state has no system in place to investigate or flag teachers accused of misconduct. To determine how Illinois compares to other states, Small Newspaper Group obtained information on 20,000 cases of teacher licensure discipline from…
Read MoreDiscipline system for teachers, staff flawed in Ohio schools
The Columbus Dispatch delves into Ohio’s flawed system of disciplining and tracking teachers, coaches, aides, counselors and administrators. The Web site for The ABCs of Betrayal includes asearchable database of Ohio educators disciplined since 2000. The 10-month investigation found educators remained in the classroom despite misconduct such as theft, assault and abuse of children.
Read MoreCredit card promotions profitable for two Iowa universities
Clark Kauffman of the Des Moines Register reported in a two-part series that Iowa’s two largest public universities are aggressively marketing credit cards to their students as part of an arrangement that generates millions of dollars for the schools’ privately run alumni organizations. Records obtained by the Register showed that while the schools and their…
Read MoreContributions call school board president’s ethics into question
James Pressley, school board president in Pleasantville, N.J., sought money from community businesses who were seeking contracts from the school board. John Froojian, of the Press of Atlantic City, reports that money was solicited for the James A. Pressley Scholarship and Community Youth Build Foundation, although neither the IRS nor the New Jersey Consumer Affairs…
Read MoreAbuses at Texas state schools go unpunished
A Dallas Morning News investigation into disciplinary records of employees at state schools for the mentally retarded “ found hundreds of cases of abuse at the hands of those charged with caring for the mentally retarded
Read MoreCheating on standardized tests rampant in some Texas schools
The Dallas Morning News worked with a Canadian professor and found that test scores of more than 50,000 students over two years show evidence of cheating. Joshua Benton and Holly K. Hacker report that their in-depth data analysis contradicts claims by the Texas Education Agency which said cheating was “extraordinarily rare and that the agency…
Read MoreSt. Louis-area school district faculty travel bills found to be exorbitant
A St. Louis Post-Dispatch review of Riverview Gardens School District documents revealed a pattern of travel spending normally seen in districts twice its size. “Since 2003, Riverview has sent almost 600 teachers, staff members, principals, administrators and board members on more than 100 trips, to at least 60 cities, from Lake of the Ozarks to…
Read MoreSpecial-ed missteps contribute to violence in Philadelphia schools
A two-part investigation by Martha Woodall and Susan Snyder of The Philadelphia Inquirer, part of a continuing series on violence against teachers, revealed the lapses in the district
Read MoreSeries a look at Tarrant County (TX) schools
In its series “Measuring Up,” the Fort Worth Star-Telegram looked at the area’s public schools to see how they were performing. Using school test scores and other data, they identified key trends, including: which schools are doing better or worse than expected on state assessments; a large percentage of students requiring remedial help once in…
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