DIPLOMA MILL Ex-teacher pleads guilty to fraud

Otterbein College, near Columbus, was involved in the Florida-based program.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
A former high school teacher accused of operating a company that offered teacher certifications without proper training, including some through an Ohio college, has agreed to serve two years in prison as part of a plea agreement with prosecutors.
William McCoggle, 73, pleaded guilty to a fraud charge in Miami-Dade County Circuit Court. He will also pay up to $100,000 in restitution.
In court Friday, he apologized and promised to cooperate with investigators.
Prosecutors have said McCoggle collected more than $250,000 while running Move On Toward Education and Training, a program they called a diploma mill.
A Florida grand jury found no evidence of teachers attending classes, completing assignments or meeting with instructors. The credits given to teachers, many in the Miami-Dade area, allowed them to bump up their salaries, teach new courses or meet Florida's continuing education requirements.
The program offered certification courses in such subjects as driver's education and physical education. Several Miami-Dade County Public Schools teachers who received their training through the program were pulled from such classes shortly before the school year began.
Ohio connection
Otterbein College in suburban Columbus, which has about 3,000 students, revoked nearly 10,000 credits given to 657 teachers through the program. It was one of five schools that prosecutors say provided the course credits.
The program split tuition money with the colleges. Otterbein officials said the school will donate the $89,000 it received to a Florida charity.
Otterbein officials have said Dan Thompson, a former associate dean for academic affairs who administered the program at Otterbein, did not follow guidelines in regulating the school's involvement and did not seek proper approval for the program. Thompson died of a heart attack in March.
The college was first linked with the now-disbanded Florida program in 1996. Thompson renewed the program in 1999, and the college continued issuing credits through 2002.