Cheating Teachers In Connecticut Must Tutor, Lose Some Pay As Punishment

Twelve teachers who were involved in a Connecticut test tampering scandal are losing 20 days pay and must serve 25 hours of community service by tutoring students after school, the Republican American reports.

"We welcome the teachers back and we want to encourage them to be the professionals that they are and to assist the youngsters in every way possible to succeed," Waterbury Public Schools Superintendent David L. Snead said Friday, according to the Republican American. "The punishment is the punishment and it's over. And we are going to treat it like that. It's over."

Nine of those teachers return to classrooms Tuesday, and Snead is asking that the teachers be allowed to keep their licenses.

The consequences stem from an investigation launched in August by Connecticut's Department of Education that placed 17 Hopeville Elementary School employees on paid leave to examine allegations of test tampering on this year's Connecticut Mastery Tests, WNPR reported. The investigation uncovered irregularities in test scores and answer sheets -- resulting in large performance gains and yielded some of the state's top scores.

Around 160 students had to re-take the exam in September.

Last month, officials concluded that Hopeville Principal Maria Moulthrop and reading teacher Margaret Perugini had led cheating efforts at the school, the Associated Press reported. The superintendent sought to dismiss both educators, but Perugini announced her retirement last week rather than face termination proceedings, and Moulthrop is appealing possible dismissal.

The consequences for accused teachers announced this week are divergent from Connecticut acting Commissioner of Education George Coleman's August call for firing all employees involved in cheating on standardized tests, as well as mandating that they pay for the costs of the investigation, hiring substitutes and re-testing, the Connecticut Post reported.

The cheating revelations in Connecticut were just part of a wave of teacher cheating scandals that spanned school districts from Washington, D.C. to Pennsylvania and sparked national debate.

Comments

[rickroland]

07:22 AM on 10/12/2011

That's it? Tutor and lose some pay? Are you kidding me? They betrayed entire classes of students by cheating, for crying out loud! They are paid by the state, they are civil servants (whether they agree with that viewpoint or not) and they utterly failed to uphold the trust that was placed in them. Anyone of them that actively cheated, should be canned and part of their punishment should be to tutor, at their own expense, each and every child they failed to teach as a result of their cheating. Once each and every child has been tutored to fully get the materials they should have gotten, only then should consideration be given to re-instating them as teachers.

[fortyfiveseventy]

07:14 AM on 10/12/2011

What an outrage that these teachers were not fired. Unbelievable. THAT'S UNIONS FOR YA!

[CrawfishFestival]

07:38 AM on 10/12/2011

I was thinking the same thing - "fortyfiveseventy"!

It is an OUTRAGE - that UNIONS are Organized Crime Syndicates - and are affecting our education system - with dishonest people/teachers "educating" children.

But, the cheating parties are really a criminal conspiracy that the unions are obviously inciting - since it occurred nationwide - and every one of the teachers doing it belongs to unions.

****

If my kids were in the schools in Wisconsin, and were transported to a union protest - without my knowledge or consent - by their teacher - following the instructions of their union bosses, I would have filed criminal charges = kidnapping charges and child endangerment, etc. - personally against their teacher - and the teachers union.

[montanasian]

10:20 PM on 10/11/2011

It should be called "No teacher left behind" . Where oh where has my accountability gone, oh where, oh where could it be. Oh yeah, teachers union coufers." But we are all about the Kids"?

[dcmsideshow]

08:45 PM on 10/11/2011

Every time my hometown is in the news, it's for something horrible...ugh.

I can understand why they felt the pressure to cheat...but how dumb do you have to be to actually do it? I taught for several years, and despite the pressure, I never felt compelled to actually cheat. You know who they cheated? The kids. That's why as a teacher, you don't do it.

[wstrvlr]

04:43 PM on 10/11/2011

After reading many of the comments here I won't feel bad at all with what I'm going to say next. These cheating teachers should have lost ALL their teacher retirement, all certifications, licenses to teach & publically humiliated by wearing a placard all around their town & the school they worked for that says, " I was caught cheating on test scores at such & such school at such & such town!" & not allowed to ever hold any job that requires honesty & morals. I guess the only job they would be fit for, having said that, is to enter politics!

[proggirl]

11:06 AM on 10/12/2011

Read Hawthorne much? How, how Revolutionary War era of you.

[fpwillson]

04:36 PM on 10/11/2011

Boy, that's a great lesson for the kids. (NOT).
Do something terribly immoral, and what do you get? A few thousand dollars as a fine and you now have to do something you were paid to do anyway (teach kids [tutor]). I say fire all their a$ses and give them 60 days in the pen. Then you don't have to bother taking away their licenses, as they'll be unable to teach because they are ex-cons. Lots of good young teachers out there just looking for a job. Bah, Humbug.

[mreagle50]

03:26 PM on 10/11/2011

They all should have been fired.

[sibyl9]

02:06 PM on 10/11/2011

No punishment for the administrators who put them up to this?

[Greg34]

02:02 PM on 10/11/2011

These teachers should be fired and stripped of their pension and all future benefits.

[Marx Twain]

01:39 PM on 10/11/2011

So in other words, these 12 teachers will face more collective punishment than the entire financial sector did for wrecking the world economy. Freedom from justice is yet another privledge of the 1%.

[Kalie]

11:45 PM on 10/10/2011

Cheating teachers lose 20 days pay and have to tutor? You should lose your certification and retirement like Texas. Sorry, Connecticut, you are way to nice, but not good to your students.

[raggedhand]

10:34 PM on 10/10/2011

In Texas, if you're a teacher caught cheating on the state tests (TAKS) then you lose your certification and your retirement.

I've read some comments here that "well, students cheat, why not teachers?" That's the dumbest thing I've heard all day.

There are students that cheat, that's well known, but teachers are held to a higher standard. We're supposed to be examples for our students. I'm a teacher and I give high-stakes tests every year and I wouldn't cheat to save my soul and I have very little sympathy for cheating teachers. Just because lying, cheating and stealing happen on Wall Street (another excuse/example given in posts here) doesn't give me license to do the same thing.

[fpwillson]

04:38 PM on 10/11/2011

F&F'd just because you are a good person.

[burtongrl]

10:32 PM on 10/10/2011

Wow that's a great lesson for the students...it's ok class, it's ok to cheat

[FunctionOfTheCrisp]

05:12 PM on 10/10/2011

Still waiting for fraud prosecutions.

[myraysosunshine]

05:11 PM on 10/10/2011

These teachers should have been fired. I hope the parents who have children in these teachers classrooms demand their children be moved to a reputable teacher's classroom.