Forget It Jake, It's Baltimore

Hey, remember the story of the Baltimore high school athletics director who used AI to fake his principals voice, and almost got him fired for racist comments? Turns out there's even more, from John Sexton at Hat Hair, Baltimore Teacher Accused of AI Hate Hoax Also Allegedly Faked Most of His Resume

Not only did Darien (allegedly) fake the audio he also faked most of his own resume. Actually, he submitted two different resumes under two slightly different names. An investigation by the Baltimore Banner found more than a dozen claims in those resumes were not true. 

The résumés were submitted, the source said, alongside a document claiming Darien held a “preliminary single subject teaching credential” from California. But the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing said he had applied for a teaching certificate that was never granted.

Before Darien became Pikesville’s athletic director, where he made over $76,500,he was at Randallstown High School for several weeks last spring as a social studies teacher, a job that requires a Maryland teaching certificate. He didn’t have that either, a spokesperson for the Maryland State Department of Education said in an email. He didn’t even have a conditional certification, a temporary credential for teachers who are pursuing licensure while teaching. It’s unclear whether Darien ever claimed to have a Maryland teaching certificate.

The master’s degree Darien claimed he earned from Southern New Hampshire University in 2013 doesn’t exist.The institution said Darien enrolled online in 2016 but never participated in any courses and was withdrawn from the program later that year.

And Langston University officials told The Banner he didn’t graduate from the institution, where he claimed he earned his bachelor’s degree in history education and amaster’s degree in educational leadership...

Darien listed membership in at least two professional associations that have no record him. On one résumé he claimed to have held a high school football coaching job in Texas at the same time the other résumé said he was a dean of student engagement at a college in Indiana.

There's more but you get the idea. Darien was the George Santos of Baltimore County Public Schools.

The school system said they ran all the usual checks on Darien including doing a background check and checking his references before giving him a job, but it's hard to see how that could be true. Anyone can make up information on a resume but clearly Darien's claims didn't stand up to any actual scrutiny.

All of which leads to an obvious question. If Darien could pull this off, how many others currently working in Baltimore County Public Schools were hired based on fake qualifications? Given the state of many Baltimore schools, how would anyone even know?

I suspect the problem is far more common than commonly realized. Once some one figures out that references are rarely checked in detail, what motive is there to go through the expensive and time consuming process to get properly credentialed?