Teachers Caught In Diploma Mill Scam

from the studied-up? dept

Nice to know the sort of example teachers at a school district in Georgia are setting for their students. Six teachers in a single district (and five others in the state) have been discovered with "advanced degrees" that they bought online from a diploma mill "university" that gives out masters and PhD. degrees based on "life experience". The teachers in question all received raises for these degrees, which more than paid for the cost of buying the degrees. Seems like it might make it a tiny bit more difficult for those teachers to have any moral leg to stand on should they try to prevent any of their students from cheating.
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  • identicon
    Rootman, 24 Mar 2004 @ 12:26pm

    Can you blame them?

    All the teachers I know are grossly underpaid for the amount of education they had to go through to get where they are.

    Can you blame them for taking "an edge"? Most of the probably do have the "life experience" that would merit such a degree. They are in a brutal catch22, overworked they can't take the time to get the degree's needed, underpaid they can't afford them.

    But alas cheating is cheating and cheaters get punished when caught.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 24 Mar 2004 @ 12:54pm

      Re: Can you blame them?

      Rootman, it's almost a moral question to disagree with you, as you did hit the nail on the head. I think, though, that the playing field needs to be level, and that all teachers need to have the same experience for the same degrees, and only through actual work should they have received those degrees and received those raises.
      My own case in point, I have a close friend who will be heading up a private school of her own before her 30th birthday. She's not from this country, but was imported. Her own simple BEd degree shows just how under-trained our teaching staff is, as she already had double the amount of experience that a domestic teacher has in her position. She absolutely deserves this post, as she definitely shows much greater talent than other candidates for the principal job.
      So, while I am harping on the Level Playing Field thing, I'm also halfway in agreement because her foreign BEd is worth far more than any domestic one, just based on the years and courses required to obtain it.
      See? Difficult to disagree. Why can she not say "I have a Canadian BEd" and why does that not garner more respect than any other BEd?
      Difficult.

      link to this | view in chronology ]


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