DALLAS  Eager to hire teachers for bilingual education programs, the Dallas public school system assigned fake Social Security numbers to newly hired foreigners so it could get them on the payroll quickly, an internal investigation found.

The district continued the practice for years, the investigation found, even after it was admonished by a state agency. It was only halted this summer.

“The inappropriate procedure of assigning false SSNs has been systemic,” investigators with the school district’s Office of Professional Responsibility wrote in a report on the matter dated Sept. 25.

The Dallas Morning News ran an article on Friday after obtaining the report, marked “highly confidential,” through a records request.