Education Briefs
At least five people have been charged in a “million-dollar” teacher cheating scandal in the Houston, Texas Independent School District (ISD). KHOU-TV.com reported that Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg filed charges in October in the alleged “massive teacher certification 
cheating ring that led to unqualified teachers in classrooms not only in the Houston area but across the state.” Two of those accused of paying for fake teacher certifications “ended up being charged with crimes against children.” Ogg said one was charged with “indecency with a child” and another with “online solicitation of a minor.” The prosecutor in the case, Mike Levine, said the “ring’s kingpin,” 57-year-old Vincent Grayson, head basketball coach at Booker T. Washington High School in the Houston ISD, “made more than $1 million” in the fraudulent certification scheme. Investigators said the scheme worked by having a “proxy test taker” pass the certification test and then give the certificate to a recipient who paid $2,500 and up for the piece of paper. Also charged is Tywana Gilford Mason, a “test proctor,” who helped ensure the proxy scheme went undetected. A second test proctor was charged for taking bribes to ignore the fraudulent test takers during the exams. Investigators found that Houston ISD assistant principal, LaShonda Roberts, recruited “nearly 100 teachers to participate in the fraudulent scheme.” The Houston ISD acknowledged the employee arrests in a statement and promised that any teachers “who passed their certification exams fraudulently,” would be terminated.
A proposed new rule in Oregon follows guidelines established by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), and will require both public and private insurers to cover sex-change surgeries and cross-sex hormones for all ages. The Washington Free Beacon reported that health insurers who refuse to cover such procedures, even for children, will “risk losing their state licenses.” Oregon’s Department of Consumer and Business Services used WPATH’s “latest standards of care,” 
which call “transgender genital surgeries and other procedures ‘medically necessary,’” to formulate the policy change. The Beacon noted that the new rule “stems from a 2023 law that made Oregon one of several so-called trans sanctuaries, guaranteeing that minors could receive puberty blockers and chemical or surgical sex changes.” Set to take effect in 2025, the new policy will dictate to insurance companies operating in the state what they are required to cover and “how they provide that coverage.” While not the first state to require insurance carriers to cover transgender procedures, Oregon is the first to follow WPATH’s standards in a statewide rule. Thus, the transgender madness continues to expand, even in the wake of a recent troubling report by the nonprofit medical watchdog group Do No Harm, which shows that 14,000 children have undergone body-changing sex transition procedures in recent years. (See Education Reporter, October 2024, with more to come on this subject.)
The National Association of Scholars (NAS) issued a press release officially welcoming Linda McMahon’s nomination to serve as education secretary in the new Trump Administration. The press release calls for the Senate to confirm McMahon for the position, citing “her character, experience, and commitment to reform,” all of which the NAS believes “make her an excellent choice to lead the coming era of education renaissance.” While McMahon is hardly a household name in education circles and her 
critics are busy disparaging her qualifications, NAS notes that she “is best known in education policy as a champion of school choice.” While conceding that choice is not, by itself, a cure for “the grievous deficiencies in American education,” it is “a powerful step in the right direction.” NAS does not speculate on whether the DOE will be eliminated, but insists it at least be vastly simplified, and the press release urges McMahon to “secure Congressional cooperation” to that end. NAS writes: “We do not know McMahon’s own intentions, but we suspect that she would like to begin by reforming the Education Department thoroughly, so as to allow President Trump to decide whether a slimmed down and depoliticized [DOE] can serve the public welfare.” In addition to a complete overhaul of the DOE, including removal of its “administrative and regulatory structure that promote the radical politicization of schools and colleges,” the NAS recommends a “thorough overhaul of the Office for Civil Rights (OCR),” which it says “has been used to impose discriminatory race and sex policies on education institutions.” The NAS plans to present McMahon with its research roadmap for reforming the DOE, “titled Waste Land: The Education Department’s Profligacy, Mediocrity, and Radicalism,” which they hope she will use as a help during her tenure.
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