People would typically pay $2,500 to the scheme’s fixer, who would bribe test officials and have proxies take their certification tests, prosecutors said.

Five people have been charged in Texas with organizing and participating in an illegal cheating scheme that certified more than 200 unqualified teachers and helped the plot’s “kingpin” rake in more than $1 million, prosecutors said.

In the scheme, people would typically pay $2,500 to have proxies take certification tests for them at two testing centers in Houston. The scandal involved bribing a testing proctor to allow test applicants and their proxies to switch places, Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg said at a news conference Monday.

  • WalrusDragonOnABike [they/them]@lemmy.today
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    23 days ago

    Why would middling underperformers be willing to pay $1000’s for a job that pays worse than for the same job but paying more? You think that lady would have said “no, I don’t want this job anymore because the pay increased”?

    • luciferofastora@lemmy.zip
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      23 days ago

      The more workers you attract, the higher your standards for hiring can be. That goes for any job, including jobs of passion. If you need to fill three positions and get three applicants willing to do them for shit pay… odds are your applicants are shit too, or they’d be going for better paid positions.

      If you offer more, people with better qualifications will be interested more. You get more applicants and can be picky who you want.

      As a bonus: better paid employees have more incentive to stay and do a good job to ensure they keep their position.

    • thefartographer@lemm.ee
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      23 days ago

      I get what you’re saying, but the point of raising the pay is to push out the middling underperformers or motivate them to change. These are the same people who believe that lottery tickets are essentially investments because you gotta spend money to make money.

      When you raise your wages across the board, you expand your hiring pool and begin attracting people who have the aptitude to be a teacher and the aspiration to get paid a decent wage. Once that starts happening and you get better performing employees, the ones who want to keep their jobs need to step up if they have been underperforming. If they don’t, you replace them, plain and simple.

    • Deceptichum@quokk.au
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      23 days ago

      Because the the desperation for these shit employees wouldn’t be there if career educators were able to actually afford living and staying in the sector.

      Low pay means low supply means high demand means low professionalism.