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An investigation at Baltimore city school found that administrators schemed to inflate enrollment, pressured teachers to change grades and scheduled students into classes that didn’t exist. Over a three-year period, about 100 students remained on the rolls but didn’t attend the school. The school operated evening and summer courses designed to allow students to make up credits, but the courses didn’t meet standards. In some cases, unqualified teachers were assigned to teach the classes, and in other cases, staff members were named as teachers of record for a class they never taught.

School officials in the city of Athens and Limestone County have conspired to obtain more public funding by claiming to enrol full-time private students in the system's virtual schools. The two school districts were improperly paid around $7 million in state education funding for the 2016-17 and 2017-18 school years. By November 2017, more than 500 private school students were fraudulently enrolled in Athens Renaissance schools and over 50 students in Conecuh County.

Two teachers are accused of using their test prep business to help people cheat on the state's teacher certification exams. The charges include 108 counts of wire fraud and three counts of theft of trade secrets. According to the US Attorney’s office, the couple took the Florida Education Leadership Exam and Florida Teacher Certification Exams several times, and along with other employees memorized the questions and answers in order to design a study guide.

The Florida Department of Education revealed that the Sarasota County School District falsified records and placed students on alternate assessment to avoid state testing or accountability in order to benefit financially. Investigators found that 27 of 66 sampled students’ files did not include sufficient documentation to demonstrate that they were placed correctly.

A study conducted by Visual Objects revealed that 52% of students anticipate widespread cheating and breaches of academic integrity while experiencing distance learning. Upholding academic standards have been replaced with an unethical pursuit of higher grades at the cost of true education and personal character. At Staples High School, for example, teachers may give the same test to students – with half of the class in person, and the other half participating via Zoom. When assessments are announced, many online students use various tools to cheat on tests. Photomath, a popular mobile app that completes math problems by scanning photos, has experienced heightened usage during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The founder and director of the St. Louis College Prep Charter School pleaded guilty to three counts of wire fraud connected to a scheme to defraud and obtain education funds from the State of Missouri. From 2011 through 2018, he inflated student attendance numbers by falsely claiming regular school days and hours as summer school or remedial hours, siphoning $2,400,000 from a finite pool of education dollars.

An audit reveals that Indiana Virtual School and Indiana Virtual Pathways Academy wrongly received $68.7 million in state payments by improperly claiming students as enrolled between 2011 and 2019 even though they had no online course activity. The two schools operated under shared administration and declared 7,200 students last year. However, they closed last summer after national officials cut off funding.

Several students anonymously admitted to using online private messaging and videoconferencing apps like Discord and FaceTime to collaborate with a group of 10 to 15 peers during the Advanced Placement government test while another student provided secondhand accounts of the group's calls during tests. According to the students, there was nothing to prevent them from collaborating and it was the least secure test they had ever taken.

Despite the efforts of teachers to prevent the use of phones during tests, students confess they are willing to do anything to “make the grade,” including cheating, lying, taking shortcuts, and hiding cheat sheets. For language tests, Google Translate has become a major tool for students wanting to cheat.