At a news conference today, U.S. Attorney Lawrence Keefe announced the indictment of Estero, Fla. teachers Jeremy and Kathleen Jasper for an alleged teacher certification test cheating scheme. The indictment comes after a two-year investigation.
The indictment alleges that the Jaspers repeatedly took the Florida Teacher Certification Exams (FTCE) and the Florida Educational Leadership Exam (FELE) to memorize exam questions and then sell them to customers of their company, NavaEd, for a profit.
“This alleged scheme represents an insult to the vast majority of Florida’s public school teachers and administrators who studied and worked hard the right way to become certified in their profession because it provided an illegal and unethical shortcut for others,” said Keefe.
According to a news release, the Jaspers are charged with racketeering conspiracy (RICO), conspiracy to commit wire fraud, 108 counts of wire fraud, conspiracy to commit theft of trade secrets and three counts of theft of trade secrets.
The Jaspers will appear at the United States Courthouse in Tallahassee this afternoon.
Florida Couple Indicted for Teacher Certification Test Cheating Scheme added by Lexie Pitzen on
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Really? That’s a crime? The Federal Government has released all test questions for any exam for which they have licensing authority. Everything: Pilot, Aircraft Mechanic…everything. What a waste of tax payer money.
How is what they did any different from the SAT/ACT/Graduate School Entrance Tests/Licensing Test Prep courses, that have been around for fifty years? And if the point of the ed licensing test to make sure teachers know fundamental things about education, why do we care how they learned the answers, just that they have learned them (which, unless they cheated on the test itself is what they must have done to pass it).
I could see monitoring those who bought the test materials for ethics if there was anything nefarious about the teachers purchase of the materials and learning, and I could see doing some monitoring about whether the teachers involved work demonstrated competence at what they tested as competent did. But why shouldn’t there be as much right to the test prep help in education as there appears to be in all the other licensed professions? Heck, even the 100 question citizenship test questions and answers are freely available for study. And if the material is important to know to be an effective teacher, isn’t proving they do KNOW it, the point?
If the examiners have been using the same test over and over again for years, they’re the ones who ought to be brought up on charges.
Supt. Hanna and the Leon County School Board need to come forward and let us know if any LCSB teachers were involved. If so, they need to be fired. What say you Rocky?
I’m with WhiskeyTangoFoxtrot… what is being done about the “cheating teachers” and the damage they have caused the children they defrauded out of a proper education?
They need to be terminated immediately, forfeit any retirement they may have fraudulently accrued, and be held financially and criminally accountable for the damage they caused to innocent minds.
Keefe should be practicing divorce law, he sure as hell isn’t a prosecutor. Teachers getting their certification by cheating, is news and should be resolved, but it sure isn’t up there with the real criminals. His press teaser the day before his press release was ludicrous and made it clear he’s focusing on easy cases and staying clear of the hard, complex ones.
After watching him for a while, I think it’s my duty to let our U.S. Senators know we need a new U.S.Attorney.
I was hoping for something on Gillum and or Scot Maddox
It’s important because it may shed some light on why we have so many D and F schools, or why we have some teachers who seem to be intellectually deprived.
What action is planned for the teachers who cheated on the certification exam?
Is the state going to follow up and require them to be terminated or re-evaluated?
Just how is it that two people, the Jaspers, who have already passed the exam were allowed to keep taking it? What kind of security protocol is that?
What is planned for rewriting the state exam and improving security standards?
Who at FDOE is going to be held accountable for being asleep at the wheel?
And now you know why our Public Indoctrination System is turning out the defective products we deal with today… defective and fraudulent production only produces defective and fraudulent products.
Dang, and I thought he was going to announce that Andrew Gillum had personally hidden 200K PA Trump ballots inside Hunter Biden’s Laptop! It now seems obvious that Keefe is a deep state operative considering his lack of interest in uncovering the truth of the cabal of pizza basement pedophilia rings being operated by Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and AOC.
Citizen’s Arrest!
really larry? what a hummer!
Yawn…this is the big news the US ATTY Keefe sent out a press “teaser” on last night???
The fools catching little minnows and blowing his horn while he lets the sharks swim away.
Keefe sit down and shut up.
Yawn….