Gary Rubinstein has followed the progress of the schools that claim that 100% of their graduates were accepted into four-year universities. What he usually finds is very high rates of attrition. But in the case of YES Prep, he found something more. Students are not allowed to graduate high school unless they have already been accepted into a four-year university. Voila! Success!

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Propaganda

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drext727 says:

May 14, 2018 at 10:21 am

Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education and commented:

Here is a link to the Texas Education Agency annual report on YES Prep and their performance on the state exams 16-17.
https://rptsvr1.tea.texas.gov/perfreport/tapr/2017/index.html
On the left margin, click “District Report”
Enter “Yes” in the search box
Select “Yes Prep Public Schools in Harris County”
Click “View Report”

Their performance is really very mediocre.

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- dianeravitch says:
  
  May 14, 2018 at 11:00 am
  
  When Ed Fuller was at the University of Texas, he followed charter schools in the state. He has moved to Penn State now. Many of the students who graduated from these miraculous charters did not last long in college.
  
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Susan Lee Schwartz says:

May 14, 2018 at 10:26 am

The NY Times, at last is following the fraud… the FRONT PAGE ( on the left column) headline in my print copy, today, says “U.S. UNDERCUTS FRAUD INQUIRIES INTO FOR PROFITS” but the digital headline is
Education Department Unwinds Unit Investigating Fraud at For-Profits

It begins:
“Members of a special team at the Education Department that had been investigating widespread abuses by for-profit colleges have been marginalized, reassigned or instructed to focus on other matters, according to current and former employees.

“The unwinding of the team has effectively killed investigations into possibly fraudulent activities at several large for-profit colleges where top hires of Betsy DeVos, the education secretary, had previously worked.

“During the final months of the Obama administration, the team had expanded to include a dozen or so lawyers and investigators who were looking into advertising, recruitment practices and job placement claims at several institutions, including DeVry Education Group.

“The investigation into DeVry ground to a halt early last year. Later, in the summer, Ms. DeVos named Julian Schmoke, a former dean at DeVry, as the team’s new supervisor.

“Now only three employees work on the team, and their mission has been scaled back to focus on processing student loan forgiveness applications and looking at smaller compliance cases, said the current and former employees, including former members of the team, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they feared retaliation from the department.

“In addition to DeVry, now known as Adtalem Global Education, investigations into Bridgepoint Education and Career Education Corporation, which also operate large for-profit colleges, went dark.

AND ENDS:
“After Mr. Trump’s victory, some employees openly worried about the fate of the investigative unit, and policies quickly changed with the new administration, according to the current and former employees.
Communication with outside groups now required special approval, including with state attorneys general, who had been partners in identifying cases, and federal agencies like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which had been aggressively monitoring a number of for-profit colleges. Without permission, team members could not contact schools or other parties to request documents, an essential part of making a case, which effectively halted investigative work.”

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- Lisa M says:
  
  May 14, 2018 at 10:53 am
  
  I agree with you that this is wrong and I’m glad that it’s being exposed, but I don’t understand the amount of people who fell for this scam to begin with? Is there no “Buyer Beware” when people are shopping for an education or vocational school?
  
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  - carolinesf says:
    
    May 14, 2018 at 12:19 pm
    
    No, there isn’t.
    
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Michael Fiorillo says:

May 14, 2018 at 10:27 am

Gary states that the student-parent rule book at YES states that admission to a four-year college is a requirement for graduation: how can that possibly be legal?

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- carolinesf says:
  
  May 14, 2018 at 10:45 am
  
  I’ve heard of a lot of charters doing that (requiring “admission” to a college before the student is allowed to graduate. How can that possibly be legal, Michael Fiorillo? What is this “legal” of which you speak? Charters can do any damn thing they please; they’re above the law.
  
  There are many four-year colleges that will accept anyone who commits to pay. Not just the scammy for-profits, either. There are some nice and reasonably reputable Jesuit (or maybe not all Jesuit, but Catholic) colleges here in the San Francisco Bay Area that seem to accept basically anyone. I’m not sure how that works, but I’ve seen it. They may claim to accept only a percentage of applicants, but I’ve seen otherwise with my own eyes. (Dominican and Notre Dame de Namurs are two of them.) You can believe the charters with this requirement are well aware of that and have a list. That doesn’t mean the student ever goes to the college, of course.
  
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  - Lisa M says:
    
    May 14, 2018 at 11:01 am
    
    I tell this to the teachers of my HS student as they are pushing the AP classes/tests. At parent/teacher conferences, I’ve been hit with the “No college will look at her or accept her if she doesn’t take AP classes and test”. My reply is that there are many 4 yr colleges that will take our money in lieu of data from fake classes and test scores. I also inform them of Fairtest and how it publishes all the colleges that are test free or test optional. Usually shuts the teacher up……immediately!…and then the rest of the conference is them trying to get me to leave.
    
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- Michael Fiorillo says:
  
  May 14, 2018 at 12:30 pm
  
  Indeed, carolinesf, please excuse my naivete… it’s just that, even after all these years of observing charter scams and their all-around viciousness, I’m still shocked by their impunity.
  
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  - carolinesf says:
    
    May 14, 2018 at 12:43 pm
    
    Most of my posts in any blog thread about charters are this: Other poster: How can the charter do that (fill-in-the-blank brazenly illegal action, blatant sleazy con or inhumane atrocity)?! Me: Charters are above the law and can do anything they want.
    
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speduktr says:

May 14, 2018 at 10:28 am

The ever changing narrative. When test scores don’t show your genius at educating students, well then, rig the graduation requirements. No college acceptance? No graduation!

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Lisa M says:

May 14, 2018 at 10:41 am

So what happens to the students who don’t graduate? Do they expel those student? Do they keep those students for another year of school? I would like to know if any student has ever been in this situation and the outcome.

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- carolinesf says:
  
  May 14, 2018 at 10:47 am
  
  Presumably they just make the student apply to one of the colleges that will accept anyone. There are a number of them here in the San Francisco Bay Area. That doesn’t mean the student will enroll.
  
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  - dianeravitch says:
    
    May 14, 2018 at 10:56 am
    
    There are four-year “universities” that accept anyone. In Mark Hall’s documentary about the Gulen charters, he shows a “four-year college” in Houston created by the Gulen schools, and everyone is accepted there. So the Gulen schools also have a 100% college acceptance rate.
    
    Why doesn’t the media check before reporting?
    
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  - carolinesf says:
    
    May 14, 2018 at 12:22 pm
    
    Why the media doesn’t check: Savvy, seasoned education reporters know this stuff is hooey, but at least the ones I know view their role as ignoring the hooey rather than debunking it. The “reform” sector PR machinery, which is massive and highly efficient, is really good at targeting newbie reporters or else reporters and columnists who are not newbies but are not at all versed in education. Those folks truly don’t know such scams could happen. The entire notion that there would be scams and hustles and juked stats in education doesn’t penetrate to them. Plus there are the unprincipled ones who, in a struggling industry (media, I mean), are angling for juicy jobs in the lucrative education “reform” sector, and have no scruples about slanting their coverage.
    
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  - NYC public school parent says:
    
    May 14, 2018 at 2:01 pm
    
    carolinesf,
    
    Your comments about education reporters ring so true. And I have often noticed your good posts debunking some of the myths. Thank you.
    
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  - carolinesf says:
    
    May 14, 2018 at 2:33 pm
    
    Thanks!
    
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  - SomeDAM Poet says:
    
    May 14, 2018 at 3:01 pm
    
    Yes, I had the same thought before I saw your reply.
    
    Yes Prep would be crazy not to make the students apply to at least one automatic acceptance university because it would affect their graduation rate.
    
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retired teacher says:

May 14, 2018 at 10:41 am

The biggest accomplishment of “reform” is that they continue to lie, cheat and steal, and they get media attention for it. All the so-called miracles turn out to be some type of misreporting, fudging of data and ignoring copious amounts of attrition. “Reform” is a house of cards built by the elite to fool the rest of us into turning over large amounts of cash to them. This is all part of the “great public education heist.”

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- SomeDAM Poet says:
  
  May 14, 2018 at 2:58 pm
  
  “Reform” is basically a very clever marketing scheme hatched in an advertising agency and paid for by Bill Gates, the Walton’s and other deep pocketed individuals.
  
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Chiara says:

May 14, 2018 at 11:13 am

How can that be allowable for a “public” school? Doesn’t the state have graduation requirements that apply to charter schools?

Can they just add anything?

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- carolinesf says:
  
  May 14, 2018 at 12:23 pm
  
  Charter schools can do anything they want. No oversight. No accountability. They’re above the law.
  
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Chiara says:

May 14, 2018 at 11:19 am

This is amusing to read from a public school standpoint because one the things ed reformers have “accomplished” in Ohio is they change the high school graduation requirements seemingly in a completely arbitrary manner depending on what Jeb Bush decrees in any particular year.

It’s a mess. No one has any idea why they keep changing them and what the objective is. I don’t think they know. But. sadly, Ohio lawmakers have decided they are obligated to follow every crack pot idea or fad that the huge ed reform lobbying arm churns out.

It’s completely incoherent, so we get a faction pursuing “not everyone has to go to college” standards and then a competing ed reform faction pursuing college for everyone.

Public school students and families have absolutely no input into any of this- it is conducted at ed reform policy conferences where no public school representatives are invited.

Having a kid in a public school now means you are subject to the internal battles within ed reform lobbying factions. We are the LAST people consulted.

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- Lisa M says:
  
  May 14, 2018 at 12:01 pm
  
  We are not consulted at all.
  
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lance hill says:

May 14, 2018 at 12:04 pm

The same was true in New Orleans after the Invasion of The School Snatchers. I met an Americorp volunteer who said her only job was to place students in colleges with low or no test admission requirements. These could be out-of-state and with prohibitive tuition. Also, one untold story was the charters use of Americorp volunteers as the actual teachers in the classroom when TFA kids could not manage the job.

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Jeannie Kaplan says:

May 14, 2018 at 1:20 pm

Wow! This could explain why Denver’s DSSTs have had 100% college acceptances since its first graduating class in 2009 through this year. This statistic always made me uncomfortable. Not one kid was not accepted! The charter’s credibility would have seemed more plausible if at least one kid didn’t make it. But Gary’s explanation makes perfect sense. I will have to investigate further. Even with 100% acceptances the charter chain still has an overall graduation rate of 61% from 2009-2018 based on freshmen starting, seniors graduating.

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SomeDAM Poet says:

May 14, 2018 at 2:54 pm

There are some universities for which the assurance from a high school that a student is “slated to fulfill graduation requirements” is the ONLY requirement for acceptance and it would be very easy for guidance counselors at YEs Prep to ensure that every potential graduate applied to at least one of those “automatic acceptance” schools.

That way they could ensure that the “acceptance into 4 year university requirement” did not reduce the grad rate at all.

At a bare minimum, It’s probably a safe bet that Yes Prep does not allow students to restrict their college application list to only Ivy league schools or other colleges with low acceptance rates. That would unnecessarily cause the school’s graduation rate to plummet precipitously.

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Lloyd Lofthouse says:

May 14, 2018 at 3:06 pm

So, any student at YES PREP quickly learns to play the game so they can graduate from high school, but doesn’t want to go to college, fills out applications for a local community college, is accepted, graduates from high school but never attends that college.

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