A former Texas education official will oversee a state-ordered investigation of the El Paso school district amid a cheating scandal.
El Paso school trustees last week approved a nearly $580,000 contract with Weaver, the Texas company where Adam Jones is director of state government services. Mr. Jones is a former deputy commissioner with the state education department.
The vote to hire an investigator came after protesters called for removal of the school board over the test-score scam.
Former Superintendent Lorenzo Garcia in June pleaded guilty to fraud for inflating state and federal accountability scores. Last month, he was sentenced to more than three years in prison. Mr. Garcia was also fined $56,600, the amount of the personal bonus he received when the district appeared to be performing better because of the manipulations, and ordered him to pay $180,000 for the contract fraud.
