Texas House Speaker Joe Straus has ordered hearings on school cheating in the wake of a scandal that sent El Paso's former school superintendent to prison.
Ex-superintendent Lorenzo Garcia is serving more than three years in federal prison for tampering with high-stakes tests to improve district ratings government accountability tests.
The instructions were made to the Public Education Committee. Straus spokeswoman Erin Daly says the committee is to gather information from leading authorities on how districts work, their checks and balances and the oversight authority by the Texas Education Agency.
However, the directive takes a broader scope than a narrow focus on the El Paso cheating scandal.
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Information from: El Paso Times, http://www.elpasotimes.com
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