Educator/Plagiarist loses job - $272,000 /yr

Yes - repeated plagiarism cost Chris Spence his job as Director of Education at the Toronto District School Board. What a highly cerebral decision -- to plagiarize (more than once) and jeopardize his $272,000 a year job -- or not? In his earlier days in education, Spence was considered a role-model for at-risk youth. Yeah -- right! :sad:

TDSB

And here's another writer's opinion, entitled "Bad Teacher - Starring Chris Spence:

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/1313469--salutin-bad-teacher-starring-chris-spence

Johann

 

It continually sickens me to see frauds get high-ranking/high-paying jobs, while people who are the real deal wind up as lowly supervisors at self-service gas stations, and that's if they're lucky, smh.

 

It sickens me that public service comes at such high salaries. These posts should be voluntary or paid by stipend, not at 272K salary levels. Whatever happened to "Ask not what your country can do for you"?

 

Um, don't we have a VP who was caught plagiarizing? Or am I thinking of another politician?

-Matt

 

For reference, in the Toronto District School Board the "Director of Education" is the chief executive officer. The board has about 290 000 students, and a budget exceeding 2.5 billion dollars Canadian (or U.S.).

 

Where there's smoke, etc.: The initial plagiarism allegations, which seem to have hit the media last week, concerned newspaper op-eds and Spence's blog on the school board website. Now the University of Toronto is investigating possible plagiarism in his 1996 doctoral dissertation.

 

Fareed Zakaria plagiarized a bunch of times too. Maybe this is the new norm?

 

It sure is, Jonathan - I was about to post a link to that article! From what the newspapers have to say, it would appear that several unacknowledged passages have turned up in Spence's diss. already, according to some who claim to have read it.

As far as this being the "new norm" - I hope not. There are comments in some of the articles cited that plagiarism has grown along with the Internet. Maybe it has. We've had the "Baron zu Googleberg" in Germany whose doctorate was rescinded and various other Euro-politicos have suffered similar self-induced embarrassments. I'm not surprised to read such allegations against an American journalist. Fareed Zakaria got away recently with an "explanation" and a short suspension. I think Mr. Zakaria was lucky and I hope he learns from this latest incident. He's pretty smart; I believe he might.

Good thing such shenanigans aren't tolerated on DI. IIRC, someone was banned not long ago for posting a Harvard-originated piece as his own work. Rightly so, as I see it.

Another regrettable part of this fiasco - the Toronto District School Board, with all its resources and (supposed) acumen, spends over a year recruiting a new Director of Education. And the best mind they can find for $272K/yr. is this plagiarist/egomaniac, Spence? :sad:

Johann

 

Who might that be?

 

Joe Biden presidential campaign, 1988 (Wikipedia)

 

Publisher to investigate ‘troubling’ plagiarism allegations against former TDSB director Chris Spence (Megan O'Toole, Posted Toronto, National Post, January 20, 2013)

 

I am often frustrated about my new adopted home, but this story is inspiring, in that the cheat actually lost his job. Back in the old country (Ukraine), the Speaker of the Parliament got caught plagiarizing a newspaper opinion piece. Not only the sneaky bastard regained his position twice since, he also reached the position of Vice President of the National Academy of Sciences! (NASU is a very big deal. Full membership comes with rather nice monthly stipend for life, and a VP qualifies for a higher stipend). Not mentioning the current Minister for Education, one of the worst people in the world. Both his doctoral degrees were gained with numerous rules broken, and the dissertations are not available from libraries (speculated to never actually exist). Finally, the subliterate crook of a President posesses the higher doctorate and a Professorship, and both his dissertations are widely believed to be ghostwritten.
You guys in North America should realize how good you have it.

 

Chris Spence’s Books Are Riddled With Probable Plagiarism, Too (Steve Kupferman, Torontoist, January 23, 2013)

 

Twice. Once in law school at Syracuse, again during a stump speech while running for the presidential nomination in the democratic party primary. In the second instance he stole a large portion of his speech verbatim from a British labor party politician.

 

Chris Spence breaks silence on plagiarism scandal (Kristin Rushowy and Louise Brown, Toronto Star, published to the web July 25, 2013)