How many teachers in Texas public schools cheated on their certification tests? The answer is as many as 400 or possibly even more. The whole scheme was run by a small crew of teachers/administrators operating in Houston. 

Prosecutors said longtime Booker T. Washington High School boys basketball coach Vincent Grayson led a cheating ring in which people typically paid about $2,500 for help fraudulently obtaining a teacher license. As many as 400 people might have illegally obtained a teacher certification in Texas since 2020 through the cheating ring, which netted the organizers about $1 million, prosecutors said.

The scheme involved conspirators taking and administering tests on behalf of aspiring certified teachers, prosecutors said. Investigators believe the hundreds of participants are spread throughout the state, with some likely still in classrooms. The licenses likely helped school employees get promotions, earn higher salaries and keep their teaching jobs, prosecutors said.

Two other administrators, one principal and one assistant principal, were also involved.

The two other HISD employees charged in the case are Washington High Assistant Principal Nicholas Newton and Yates High School employee LaShonda Roberts. Prosecutors said Roberts is an assistant principal at Yates High, though district payroll records show her working as a special education chair at the campus as of early September.

Prosecutors said Newton took exams for aspiring certified teachers, while Roberts “recruited and referred” an estimated 90 teachers and collected about $267,000 in payments. Newton, who was paid over $188,000 for his role as a test taker, was “caught red-handed taking tests for two teachers at once and gave a full confession,” prosecutors said.

Grayson reportedly made over a million on his side-hustle. The whole thing fell apart when a former cheater confessed.

A former coach applying to be a police officer in a different part of Texas “had an attack of conscience” and came forward, Ogg said.

The tip and the ensuing investigation led authorities to an email address, a Zelle account, a CashApp account, a phone number and eventually the identifications of some of the defendants, investigators said.

That tip helped explain a strange pattern noticed by state officials.

Prosecutors said their investigation started in mid-2023 when the Texas Education Agency received a tip about testing irregularities at the Houston Training & Education Center. State education officials and the testing company Pearson noticed applicants who had previously failed their teacher certification exams were driving from Dallas, Fort Worth and other far-away areas to take their tests in Houston.

“They then drove sometimes four or more hours to the Houston area and suddenly were passing the tests with flying colors,” Michael Levine, the felony chief in the District Attorney’s Office Public Corruption Division, said Monday.

The last link in the chain was one of the officials monitoring the testing who got a kickback every time he looked the other way on the cheating.

Grayson then bribed Gilford Mason, who was the certifying official at the Houston Training and Education Center, Levine alleged. He'd pay her about 20% of the $2,500 to allow the cheating, Levine said.

Grayson would instruct candidates when and where to appear for the test.

“They would come, show ID, sign in and leave. A few minutes later, Nicholas Newton, the proxy tester, would sit in their seat, take and pass the test that they felt they could not,” Levine said.

So, again, based on the amount of cash this brought in, there were probably at least 400 teachers involved and unfortunately some of them were real dirtbags.

Ogg said the teachers believed to have cheated include at least “two sexual predators, who once falsely certified, had access through their employment, to underage kids on campus and off.” One has been charged with indecency with a child and another with online solicitation, she said.

Hopefully they'll track down the cheaters and make sure they never work in a school again. This whole story makes me wonder if similar schemes are being run by administrators in other states. One million dollars is a lot of temptation.