As more Miami-Dade County teachers continue to be linked to an alleged course credit-buying scam, limitations on state and district record-keeping are causing delays and roadblocks in the investigation, The Miami Herald has learned.
Investigators believe at least five colleges and universities were connected to the retired teacher charged with selling the sham credits, but only two of those schools have provided a list of teachers.
Neither the district nor the Florida Department of Education has a database that indicates where teachers earn continuing-education credits.
Consequently, it may be years before the district can identify teachers who claimed credits from the other three schools unless those schools voluntarily provide lists.
"The picture is entirely murky about those other institutions," said Joseph Garcia, spokesman for Superintendent Rudy Crew.
The nexus between the universities and the teachers was William McCoggle, a retired Palmetto Senior High teacher who ran a company called Moving On Toward Education and Training.
He was indicted last month and pleaded guilty to charges of organized fraud and grand theft.
Investigators from the Miami-Dade state attorney's office and the former school district inspector general said at least one of MOTET's deals - a partnership with Eastern Oklahoma State College - was a fraud, with no classes, no homework, and no tests for the 106 district employees who received credits.
Eastern Oklahoma revoked the credits and disavowed the MOTET deal.
A second school, Otterbein College in Westerville, Ohio, similarly rescinded credits for nearly 700 people, mostly district employees, and gave Crew a list of their names.
The superintendent has promised to fire any teacher who knowingly defrauded the district.
But the other three schools - Bethel College in McKenzie, Tenn., Phillips University in Enid, Okla., and St. Gregory's University in Shawnee, Okla. - have not responded to Crew's request for information about district employees who received credits through MOTET.
Without the schools' help, the only way to identify teachers for investigation is by manually reviewing the personnel files of all 19,000 teachers.
"They are not alone," said Pam Stewart, Florida's deputy chancellor for K-12 education. "I don't think any district in the state has this as a database."
Such a database, Stewart said, would not have prevented a scam like the one McCoggle is accused of running because the colleges are all accredited schools.
In fact, she said Florida likely has teachers who honestly earned credits from those colleges without using McCoggle as a middleman.
But once suspicious programs are identified, a database would allow authorities to instantly generate a list of teachers who claimed those credits.
Instead, it took weeks to get the lists from Eastern Oklahoma and Otterbein, and the rest of the names might never be released.
"In this day and age it's kind of a no-brainer," Garcia said.
Stewart said the state had no plans to create a database - "I don't think that would help us in any way," she said - but Garcia said Miami-Dade might. "It would certainly make it easier when this kind of a situation arose," Garcia said.
"You would be able to act more quickly to investigate and possibly discipline teachers."
A database would also be hard to maintain, Stewart said.
Teachers can use a combination of classes from various accredited colleges, as well as professional-development seminars overseen by the school district.
Even if Miami-Dade does create a database, it would probably be limited to future recertifications.
If Bethel, Phillips and St. Gregory's do not provide lists, Garcia said the district will use a backup plan that could take years.
As teachers renew their licenses, which they must do every five years, the district will review their previous renewal as well. That plan would audit about 4,100 teachers per year, and could give a years-long pass to anyone who recently renews their license with sham credits.
Crew's other hope is that McCoggle eventually agrees to a plea deal that would include his providing enrollment lists and other details about MOTET's programs.
McCoggle's attorney, Yale Freeman, did not return calls Wednesday.
(c) 2005, The Miami Herald.
Distributed by KRT.
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