This originally broke in July but there are no articles about it in the forum that I can find. I have a feeling this is going on all over the country. No wonder the kids are getting shortchanged on education. Crooks and thieves. Check your children's teacher's credentials!!JMO

Man accused of orchestrating teacher certification examination scheme

Jul 10, 2012 5:05 PM CDTBy WMCTV.com Staff

MEMPHIS, TN -(WMC-TV) – One man has been indicted on 45 counts of conspiracy to violate United States laws in connection to a teacher certification scam that involved at least 50 teachers and aspiring teachers in Tennessee, Mississippi, and Arkansas.

According to U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Tennessee Edward L. Stanton, Clarence Mumford, 58, of Memphis was charging teachers money and in return, finding other people to pose as them to take their teacher certification examinations.

Aspiring teachers are required to pass the PRAXIS examinations in order to obtain a teaching license.

According to theindictment, the scam began in 1995 and went on until March 2010.

Mumford is accused of charging teachers and aspiring teachers between $1,500 and $3,000 per test. As part of the operation, Mumford would get the teachers' identifications, as well as I.D. from the people actually taking the tests.

He made fake I.D.'s that were used by the test-takers to gain admission into the exams.

Mumford reportedly made tens of thousands of dollars from the 15 year operation.

"In an area that should be sacrosanct - the education of our children – Mumford has created an atmosphere in which teachers who are not only unqualified, but who have also gained credentials by fraud, stand in front of our children every day," said U.S. Attorney Edward L. Stanton in a written statement.

The investigation into Mumford's scheme was conducted by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and the United States Secret Service.

His charges consist of mail fraud, wire fraud, social security fraud, aggravated identity theft, and fraud in connection with identification documents.

Mumford is currently a counselor in Hughes, AR. He receives retirement from Memphis City Schools.
He was released on his on recognizance.

Read the official indictment and news release about this test-taking scheme:






ON AUGUST 25, 2012

2 more face charges in teacher licensing scam

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Two more people face charges of participating in a scam where stand-ins were hired to take teacher licensing exams.


Federal prosecutors in Memphis on Thursday announced charges against 28-year-old Clarence Mumford Jr., of Memphis. He is accused of paying someone else to take his exam and then using that exam to obtain a teaching license.


Forty-year-old Dante Dowers, of Belle Glade, Fla., is accused as acting as a middle man who obtained a prospective teacher's driver's license, Social Security number and $3,580 payment for an exam that someone else took.


Prosecutors claim that Mumford's father, 58-year-old Clarence Mumford Sr., was the ringleader of the scam, which involved teachers in Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi. He was indicted last month on fraud and identity theft charges.
Read more: News briefs from around Tennessee at 2:58 a.m. EDT - SFGate


SEPTEMBER 11 2012

Guilty Plea Raises Questions in Test Cheating Scandal

By Bill Dries

A multi-state teacher test cheating scandal had been a federal court case with a lot of criminal counts and a lot of initials of paid test-takers for teachers until last week.

That’s when one of those referred to by his initials in the 49-count fraud and identity theft case pleaded guilty in Memphis federal court. The plea is connected to the fraud case that emerged in July with the indictment of former Memphis City Schools assistant principal Clarence Mumford. It offers more detail about an alleged scheme that U.S. Attorney Ed Stanton has said involved “more than 50” teachers in the three-state Memphis area.

It also raises questions about whether there are similar schemes unconnected to Mumford.

John Bowen, a substitute teacher who worked at Humes Junior High School when Mumford was assistant principal there in the mid-1990s, pleaded guilty Friday, Sept. 7, to conspiracy to commit fraud count.

“Such criminal conduct cannot and will not be tolerated by those entrusted to teach and serve in our school systems,” Stanton said in a written statement following Friday’s guilty plea by Bowen.

Bowen pleaded guilty in a criminal information, a guilty plea that is done at the same time that a defendant is formally charged.

The information says Bowen took “dozens of tests” for would-be teachers and was paid $200 per test when the scheme allegedly started in the mid-90s with a pay hike to $800 per test later in the 15-year span alleged by federal prosecutors.

In court Friday, Bowen indicated he began taking the exams in the names of other teachers and would-be teachers in 1990, four years before the separate indictment naming Mumford as the ringleader indicates Mumford began the scheme. Bowen said in court that he didn’t meet Mumford until the 1994-1995 school year at Humes.

Bowen told U.S. District Court Judge John Fowlkes that Educational Testing Service monitors began their private investigation in June 2009 when a monitor spotted Bowen taking a test during an afternoon session at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro. It was the same day that the same monitor saw him taking a test for someone else during the morning session.

According to Bowen, there were several other test-takers also paid by Bowen who were at the Jonesboro testing sessions even as he was caught.

Bowen even took the PRAXIS exam three times for women between March 2008 and April 2009. The women, identified in the information by initials, gave their driver’s licenses to Mumford. Mumford allegedly altered the women’s licenses to make their names appear to be that of a man and added Bowen’s photograph and other identifying information.

Bowen is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 7 by Fowlkes. He is free on his own recognizance at least until the sentencing date.

Educational Testing Service sent the results of its private investigation to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and that state criminal investigation was forwarded to federal prosecutors in Memphis about a year ago. The U.S. Secret Service was the federal agency that worked on the case that the U.S. Attorney’s office acknowledged last week involved dozens of interviews as well as bank, phone and testing records.

The superseding indictment in the case returned Aug. 24 by a federal grand jury added defendants Clarence Mumford Jr. and Dante Dowers to the case that a month earlier named only the elder Mumford as a defendant.

The updated charges identified four “Memphis City Schools employees and/or former employees” who were part of the test-taking scheme by initials only. They were listed as co-conspirators who were paid specifically to take tests for teachers and aspiring teachers.

Among them was someone identified as JB. The others are FK, CS and SS.

Dowers, of Belle Glade, Fla., is named in the superseding indictment as someone who received blank money orders from those who wanted someone to take the PRAXIS exam for them and who forwarded identifying information to Mumford.

The younger Mumford registered online to take the PRAXIS exam in January 2008 at the University of Mississippi in Oxford. The test-taker identified in the indictment as JB allegedly took the PRAXIS exam for the younger Mumford at Ole Miss that month.

Mumford Jr. was already a teacher in the Memphis City Schools system on an alternative license he obtained in late 2008. With certification that he had passed the PRAXIS “principles of learning and teaching” exam at Ole Miss, Mumford got a transitional license to teach and then an apprentice license and finally a professional license in August 2011.

Guilty Plea Raises Questions in Test Cheating Scandal - Memphis Daily News


TODAY

10 indicted in teacher licensing cheating scam

People paid to take teacher certification exams for others, prosecutors say


MEMPHIS, Tenn. —Federal prosecutors in Memphis have announced that 10 more people have been indicted in a scheme to hire others to take teacher certification tests in Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi.

The additional defendants announced Wednesday stem from a 45-count indictment returned by a grand jury in July that charged Clarence Mumford Sr. of Memphis with fraud and identity theft. He is accused of being the ringleader of a group of individuals who were paid to take teacher certification examinations on behalf of aspiring teachers dating back to 1995.
A total of 13 people face charges in the case. John Bowen of Memphis pleaded guilty earlier this month to charges related to the scheme. He was caught at Arkansas State University taking two tests under two different names on the same day.

Read more: 10 indicted in teacher licensing cheating scam | Mississippi News - WAPT Home