Teachers Caught Lying
Hundreds Involved in Scam
By Daniel Muniz

Former high school teacher, William McCoggle, owned and operated the sham company, Move On Toward Education and Training (MOTET). Affiliated with accredited higher learning institutions like Ohio’s Otterbein College as well as four other universities, McCoggle’s bogus enterprise offered Continuing Education classes to teachers who lived in states or school districts that required such courses for maintaining their teaching certifications. The classes also allowed the educators to get raises and to teach other subjects.

The way the scam worked is that by signing up and paying the fee for the class, absolutely no coursework, instruction time, tests, or homework was involved. The teachers would simply receive a transcript claiming that they were awarded credit for a class that they really didn’t take.

And the transcript would easily satisfy the requirements of the school districts, especially since the credit was awarded from real colleges even though the actual coursework would be provided by a third party.

At that point, everybody was happy.

Duplicitous teachers could handily maintain their teaching licenses without exerting any effort or work on their part while angling for a raise at their school districts. As a result, hundreds of teachers signed up for this bogus program knowing full well that absolutely no effort would be required from them to obtain credit.

McCoggle’s phony company made lots of easy money from disingenuous educators because he didn’t provide any educational coursework; just the worthless transcript demonstrating that the non-existent classes were taken. Since 1983, McCoggle had taught over 20 years in Miami-Dade County schools before recently retiring and creating his phony company.

And the five universities that acted as the conduit for the counterfeit transcripts also benefited in their share of the fees from the booming number of enrollees. In their eyes, it was a win-win situation because they didn’t provide any of the classes and did none of the work. They simply awarded the credit.

However, the web of deception came to an abrupt end. McCoggle cut a deal with prosecutors to pay up to $100,000 in restitution and he also made an agreement to serve two years in prison when he plead guilty to fraud.

Otterbein College then revoked almost 10,000 Continuing Education credits that were awarded to 657 educators.

Consequently, several hundred teachers are now being investigated by their school districts. Naturally, some districts and school board officials were embarrassed and infuriated by the duplicity of their own faculty.

In Florida, the Miami-Dade County School Board fired six teachers and also agreed to accept 26 resignations.

Not surprisingly, a number of students and parents protested the school board’s decision. In a way, it is rather ironic and perverse that the teachers were defended for behavior that would have resulted in immediate suspensions and expulsions if students had attempted a similar ruse.

Some sympathizers of the Miami-Dade County teachers avoided the nefarious deeds altogether by insisting that the educators should at least finish out the school year in order to prevent any disruption of the academic program. One sympathetic school board member, Evelyn Greer, who voted against the firings, went as far to say:

Too bad that the sympathizers of the miscreant teachers were not baffled by irresponsible behavior such as lying, falsifying academic records with counterfeit documents, and stealing from the taxpayers. Those are outrageous reprehensible actions committed by people who are supposed to represent positive values to the students that they teach.

Allowing the teachers to keep their jobs just to prevent any interruptions of the school year just smacks of expediency while ignoring the blatantly inappropriate behavior.

The bottom line is that the teachers knew what they were doing and they knew it was wrong. They knew that the Continuing Education credits were a sham and that the entire program was a lie. And they also knew that this lie would allow them to satisfy their employment requirements while enabling them to acquire raises, which comes from taxpayer money.

The teachers simply circumvented the rules in their deceit and took an unnecessary risk that cost them their jobs.

Some people may claim that this is just another reason to pay teachers more money. Even if that is the case, lying and falsifying documentation is not the way to get more money, especially by professionals in the education field.

However, there is still plenty of blame to go around.

William McCoggle deserves to go to prison and to lose the money he generated. His scam also added a new chapter to his retirement after two decades of teaching.

In addition, this scam also tarnished the reputations of accredited universities although they should have investigated this program more thoroughly and at least monitored it from time to time to verify that it was really doing what it claimed to do.

But ultimately, McCoggle directly played a role in educators losing their jobs, and possibly their careers, although it is still up to the teacher to decide right from wrong. Perhaps school districts should do more to increase awareness of such shenanigans but eventually it boils down to personal responsibility to follow the rules. And that is the same for any job in any profession.

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