Thread: Man accused of orchestrating teacher certification examination scheme

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:

• Indictment against Clarence Mumford (PDF)
• News release from U.S. Attorney's Office (PDF)
• Man accused of orchestrating teacher certification examination - WLOX.com - The News for South Mississippi

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

Feds: Teachers embroiled in test-taking fraud

11:01AM EST November 25. 2012 -

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — It was a brazen and surprisingly long-lived scheme, authorities said, to help aspiring public school teachers cheat on the tests they must pass to prove they are qualified to lead their classrooms.

For 15 years, teachers in three Southern states paid Clarence Mumford Sr. — himself a longtime educator — to send someone else to take the tests in their place, authorities said. Each time, Mumford received a fee of between $1,500 and $3,000 to send one of his test ringers with fake identification to the Praxis exam. In return, his customers got a passing grade and began their careers as cheaters, according to federal prosecutors in Memphis.

Authorities say the scheme affected hundreds — if not thousands — of public school students who ended up being taught by unqualified instructors.

Mumford faces more than 60 fraud and conspiracy charges that claim he created fake driver's licenses with the information of a teacher or an aspiring teacher and attached the photograph of a test-taker. Prospective teachers are accused of giving Mumford their Social Security numbers for him to make the fake identities.

The hired-test takers went to testing centers, showed the proctor the fake license, and passed the certification exam, prosecutors say. Then, the aspiring teacher used the test score to secure a job with a public school district, the indictment alleges. Fourteen people have been charged with mail and Social Security fraud, and four people have pleaded guilty to charges associated with the scheme.

Mumford "obtained tens of thousands of dollars" during the alleged conspiracy, which prosecutors say lasted from 1995 to 2010 in Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee.

Among those charged is former University of Tennessee and NFL wide receiver Cedrick Wilson, who is accused of employing a test-taker for a Praxis physical education exam. He was charged in late October with four counts of Social Security and mail fraud. He has pleaded not guilty and is out of jail on a $10,000 bond. He has been suspended by the Memphis City Schools system.

If convicted, Mumford could face between two and 20 years in prison on each count. The teachers face between two and 20 years in prison on each count if convicted.

Lawyers for Mumford and Wilson did not return calls for comment
.
Prosecutors and standardized test experts say students were hurt the most by the scheme because they were being taught by unqualified teachers. It also sheds some light on the nature of cheating and the lengths people go to in order to get ahead.

"As technology keeps advancing, there are more and more ways to cheat on tests of this kind," said Neal Kingston, director of the Center for Educational Testing and Evaluation at the University of Kansas. "There's a never-ending war between those who try to maintain standards and those who are looking out for their own interests."

Cheating on standardized tests is not new, and it can be as simple as looking at the other person's test sheet. The Internet and cell phones have made it easier for students to cheat in a variety of ways. In the past few years, investigations into cheating on standardized tests for K-12 students have surfaced in Atlanta, New York and El Paso, Texas.

Still, most of the recent test-taking scandals involved students taking tests, not people taking teacher certification exams. Cheating scams involving teacher certification tests are more unusual, said Robert Schaeffer, public education director for the National Center for Fair & Open Testing.

Schaeffer notes that a large-scale scandal involving teacher certification tests was discovered in 2000, also in the South. In that case, 52 teachers were charged with paying up to $1,000 apiece to a former Educational Testing Services proctor to ensure a passing grade on teacher certification tests.

Teachers from Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Tennessee and Mississippi took tests through Philander Smith College in Little Rock, Ark., in 1998. The college was not accused of wrongdoing.

Educational Testing Services also writes and administers the Praxis examinations involved in the Memphis case. ETS spokesman Tom Ewing said the company discovered the cheating in June 2009, conducted an investigation and canceled scores. The company began meeting with authorities to turn over the information in late 2009, Ewing said.

"These cases are rare, but we consider them to be very serious and something we have to guard against happening for all the honest test-takers, students and teachers," Ewing said.

Ewing said ETS observes test-takers and reviews test scores to try to root out cheaters. ETS also has received anonymous tips that have led them to cheaters, Ewing said.

Prosecutors in the Mumford case say he, the teachers and test-takers used the Internet and the U.S. Postal Service to register and pay for the tests, and to receive payment. The indictment does not say how much he allegedly paid the test-takers.

An experienced educator, Mumford was working for Memphis City Schools when the alleged scam took place. Authorities say Mumford defrauded the three states by making the fake driver's licenses.

"What happens at many testing centers is that a whole bunch of test-takers show up simultaneously, early on a Saturday morning, and the proctors give only a cursory look to the identification," Schaeffer said. "It's not like going through airport security where a guy holds up a magnifying glass and puts our license under ultraviolet light to make sure it has not been tampered with."

Mumford was fired after news of the investigation came out, and others, like Wilson, have been suspended. But at least three teachers implicated in the scandal remain employed with their school district.

Kingston, the university professor, said prospective teachers may not be confident in their knowledge base to pass the test. Or, the cheaters may believe they are smart enough to pass on their own but also know they are poor test takers.
Kingston said his research has shown that cheating on exams is getting more prevalent.

"The propensity to cheat on exams both through college and for licensure and certification exams seems to be increasing over time," said Kingston. "People often don't see it as something wrong."

The pressure of passing the test could make people do things they normally would not do. And it could take a while for authorities and test-taking services to catch up with the cheaters.

"When people come up with a new method for cheating, it takes some time for folks to figure it out, partly because this has been an understudied area in the field of assessment," Kingston said.

Nina Monfredo, a 23-year-old history teacher at Power Center Academy in Memphis, has taken Praxis exams for history, geography, middle school content, and secondary teaching and learning.

Monfredo, who passed all her tests and is not involved in the fraud case, said the exams she took were relatively easy for someone who has a high school education. She said some people use study aids to prepare, but she didn't. And she didn't feel much pressure because it was her understanding that she could take the test again if she did not pass.

"If you feel like you can't pass and you hire someone it means you really didn't know what you were doing," she said. "I think it would be easier to just learn what's on the test."

Feds: Teachers embroiled in test-taking fraud

NFL Player Indicted on Four Counts in Teacher Testing Scandal

CEDRICK WILSON INDICTED ON FOUR COUNTS IN TEACHER TESTING SCANDAL

Memphis, TN – Cedrick Wilson, 33, of Memphis, Tennessee has been indicted in a four count indictment charging a conspiracy to violate the laws of the United States, wire fraud and social security fraud, announced United States Attorney for the Western District of Tennessee, Edward L. Stanton III.

The indictment is related to the teacher certification fraud scheme masterminded by Clarence Mumford, Sr., 58, of Memphis. According to earlier indictments, Mumford, Sr. was the ringleader of a group of individuals whom Mumford, Sr. paid to take teacher certification examinations on behalf of teachers and hopeful teachers in Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi.
The examinations were PRAXIS examinations written and administered under the auspices of Educational Testing Services ("ETS"). Teachers and hopeful teachers were required to pass these examinations by the state departments of education to obtain licenses or to obtain endorsements to their existing teacher's licenses.

According to the indictment announced today, Wilson conspired with Mumford to have two PRAXIS Physical Education examinations taken by one of Mumford's test-takers on April 25, 2009.

The test-taker used Wilson's social security number while posing as Wilson to take the examinations. Wilson then submitted an application to the Memphis City Schools in January 2010, citing those examinations in an attempt to obtain employment with the Memphis City Schools.

Wilson is the 14th person to be indicted as part of this conspiracy since July of this year. In addition to the 14 indictments, four others have pleaded guilty to crimes associated with the scandal.

He previously played wide receiver at the University of Tennessee from 1997-2000, and also played football for seven years professionally with the San Francisco 49ers and the Pittsburgh Steelers.

“While Mr. Wilson’s status as a former professional athlete afforded him a unique opportunity to be a mentor to students, his actions, as described in today’s indictment, should serve as a stark reminder that no one is above the law,” said U.S. Attorney Stanton. “Such conduct undermines the great work that dedicated teachers perform each day, and does a disservice to our schools and our schoolchildren.”

This investigation is being conducted by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and the United States Secret Service. Assistant U.S. Attorney John Fabian represents the government.

The charges and allegations contained in the indictment are merely accusations, and the defendants are considered innocent unless and until proven guilty.

NFL Player Indicted on Four Counts in Teacher Testing Scandal