Posted on 11/09/2004 8:00:21 AM PST by truth49
SEATTLE -- A KIRO Team 7 Investigation exposes Washington teachers who buy illegitimate college degrees.
They can profit. You pay!
Worse yet, Investigative Reporter Chris Halsne discovers a loophole that technically makes this legal.
The state Superintendent's office gladly approves automatic pay increases for teachers who complete their masters or doctorate. I've discovered, however, the state does not routinely check to see if the degrees are from real or certified universities.
We tracked down some educators who are either getting more money, or more respect, than they deserve.
Dr. Kevin Evoy is principal at Thurgood Marshall Middle School in Olympia. His advanced education degree from Berne University in beautiful St. Kitts, Virgin Islands helps his reputation, his job standing and his pay.
The trouble for him is that KIRO Team 7 Investigators discovered the doctorate is a bit fishy. Federal officials tell KIRO Team 7 Investigators this "college" isn't much more than a beachfront Internet course located on the shores of a Caribbean Island.
Halsne: "Did you go to classes down there in St. Kitts?" Evoy: "Yeah" Halsne: "How many? How long were you down there?" Evoy: "Uh, a month. Correspondence, Internet and all that stuff for a couple years."
But Evoy didn't just use the degree to further his knowledge. He submitted his illegitimate doctorate to the state, so he could get thousands of dollars in extra pay.
"If I had ambitions of using a PhD to further my career, that's not why I did it and that's not my ambition. But I understand someone else in my position, that using it that way might be a lot more disappointed than I am," Evoy said.
Evoy is now paying that money back -- money he wasn't entitled to.
The Evergreen Freedom Foundation is a non-profit tax watchdog group in Olympia. Volunteers there hand-searched higher ed degrees at about 25 percent of Washington's school districts. Just that sampling produced seven suspicious degrees, degrees that appeared to be from unaccredited colleges or illegal diploma mills.
"These teachers are cheating taxpayers and students by claiming an education that they don't have," said Sarah Carrico, a researcher at the Evergreen Freedom Foundation.
KIRO Team 7 Investigators expanded Evergreen's research to identify illegitimate degrees for Principal Evoy, including a teacher in Zillah and a counselor in Bremerton.
Staff at one middle school call him "Dr." Lawrence Brown, but we discovered he didn't really earn a doctorate in anything. School personnel files say Brown received his advanced degree from LaSalle University in Louisiana. We know that's a well-known fake diploma factory.
Brown: "It's out of business." Halsne: "It's a paper mill, not legitimate. We're doing a story about step pay increases and how you can increase your profits..." Brown: "You know what? I've got to go. Talk to me another time. I'm totally open to that. "
We had a feeling our "later" interview wouldn't happen and we were right.
Halsne: "We want to talk to you about this." Teacher: "Sure." (Slams door, revs engine and drives away.)
KIRO Team 7 Investigators tracked down other educators all over the state using questionable advanced degrees.
How do they get away with it? Most school districts don't authenticate degrees, saying the state Superintendents Office (or OSPI) should. OSPI doesn't check, saying the state Auditor should -- and on and on with no agency claiming responsibility for the task.
That inefficiency helps three employees in the little school district of Wilbur to claim they have advanced degrees when they really don't.
This is "Dr." Chuck Wyborney, an advanced English teacher in Wilbur.
We discovered his degree was purchased from a well-known paper mill. Its founder is actually in prison for selling fake college degrees.
Halsne: "The law clearly says it has to be an accredited university for it to count, but nobody is checking." Wyborney: "Um-hmm. As far as we knew, until you just shared that with me, that this was an accredited kind of program. So I don't know."
Wyborney says he thought it was a real degree even though he never attended any classes.
Taxpayers can loose big money from phony degrees. OSPI hands out incentive raises, some totaling $10,000 a year, for teachers who earn masters and doctorates.
"It needs to be considered that teachers not get paid just on the fact that they have a degree and seniority," said Sarah Carrico. "They need to be paid based on student achievement and their personal excellence, not just a degree hanging on the wall."
In Oregon and Michigan, it's illegal to earn extra money for an unaccredited college degree. It's not a crime here in Washington.
Education reformers say until that changes, teachers like Lawrence Brown have every incentive to cut corners and add "doctor" to the front of their names.
The list of teachers with illegitimate degrees could be significantly more than we just reported.
Seventy-five percent of Washington School districts ignored a formal request to provide the data for us to check them out. You can help solve this problem by checking the Web site for the Office of Degree Authorization with the state of Oregon. In Oregon, it's illegal to profit from a fake degree.
If you know a teacher who claims to have a degree from one of these institutions, let us know. We'll investigate.
Have you noticed that the more "credentialed" teachers become, the more they are indoctrinated into liberalism? What they need to do is hire teachers who are experts in their respective subjects, not education majors. Let's get a math major teaching math or a biologist teaching biology. The whole "accreditation" thing is bogus. It means that they've been certified as true blue NEA members with the proper political orientation and believers in the religion of political correctness.
No criminal charges for defrauding the state...If I get caught hunting or fishing with a fake license what happens?
How about law suits from all the students whose education from a fake is also fake
Paging Johnnie Edwards....
I've a problem with the teachers and others (as mentioned in this article) who profits from taxpayers expense.
Kerry voters all.
Teachers do get performance reviews, but I'm sure if you think it's that cushy, you could find a school to hire you, assuming you have some sort of college degree.
I've worked in industry and in public schools, and let me assure you that working in industry is easier and pays better.
"First, God created idiots. That was just for practice. Then He created school boards."
--Mark Twain
Worked years at a Washington School district personnel office. Not once did we check credentials. This report is not a surprise to me at all. In fact, they should dig further.
There was either a VP or President of a Community College is Central Michigan that had been hired and was employed in that position for like +10 years.
He had nothing more than an Associates Degree.
Shows you just how much all that formal education is really needed for those Positions.
Sorry, he had presented himself as someone that had either a Phd or Masters in Ed.
Any of those phony paper mills are indeed some of the biggest scams around, kind of like those "name a star for someone" scams too.
Unfortunately, in some places, Republicans are among those diminishing the quality of teacher qualifications by just requiring passing a simple test to qualify as a teacher. In other places, the government is funding institutions that do not require hardly any qualifications at all to be a teacher. Both of these practices and those mentioned in the article should be discontinued.
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