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The Big Idea Behind Race to the Top

By dianeravitch
July 15, 2015 //
73

Have you every wondered what “Race to the Top” was supposed to accomplish? Did it mean that we would be first in the world if we opened more privately managed charter schools, closed down more public schools (especially in Black and Brown communities), evaluated all teachers by test scores, and adopted the Common Core standards? If so, that clearly didn’t happen. Did it mean that the states who followed Arne Duncan’s instructions most faithfully would surge to the top of the NAEP tables? That didn’t happen either.

 

Be it noted that a “Race to the Top” is a bizarre metaphor for education in a democratic society. In any race, only a few reach the top, while most are left behind in the dust. That would seem to be a repudiation of the principle of equality of educational opportunity. For sure, it throws the goal of equity away.

 

For those who want to know what Race to the Top was really about, we have it straight from the horse’s mouth. Joanne Weiss wrote an article in 2011 that laid out the big idea that animated the nearly $5 billion program. Weiss was selected by Arne Duncan to run RTTT. Previously she had been CEO of the NewSchools Venture Fund, an organization dedicated to supporting and funding charter schools and charter chains. After the RTTT was completed, Weiss became Duncan’s chief of staff. You can’t get much closer to the action than Weiss was.

 

Weiss’s article was published on the Harvard Business Review blog. She called it “The Innovation Mismatch: “Smart Capital” and Education Innovation.”  The problem she identified as most crucial in American education was the mismatch between capital and the culture of the consumers. There was little incentive to innovate when the market was so fragmented.

 

She wrote:

 

The capital markets that fund education innovation — both for-profit and nonprofit — are largely broken. When for-profit investors fund technology solutions, they naturally seek good returns on their investments. To deliver those returns, developers cater to the largest possible market: large urban and suburban K-12 districts.
Unfortunately, these districts are notoriously weak consumers. They often buy technology and pursue innovation based on relationships and networking, rather than based on effectiveness. Given the relative dearth of valid, reliable measures of student achievement, few innovative programs can demonstrate their efficacy – so why not select solutions sold by someone you’ve worked with for years, or buy the products that come with the best give-aways, or purchase from the company everyone has heard of? The result is a large-scale market of technological mediocrity. High-quality solutions do not rise to the top – and effectiveness is neither recognized nor rewarded.

 

To make the market attractive to innovators–both for-profit and non-profit–the market needed to be consolidated. There were too many “homegrown, fragmented, one-off programs.” The question was how to scale up the marketplace for innovation, and Race to the Top was the answer.

 

Technological innovation in education need not stay forever young. And one important change in the market for education technology is likely to accelerate its maturation markedly within the next several years. For the first time, 42 states and the District of Columbia have adopted rigorous common standards, and 44 states are working together in two consortia to create a new generation of assessments that will genuinely assess college and career-readiness.

 

The development of common standards and shared assessments radically alters the market for innovation in curriculum development, professional development, and formative assessments. Previously, these markets operated on a state-by-state basis, and often on a district-by-district basis. But the adoption of common standards and shared assessments means that education entrepreneurs will enjoy national markets where the best products can be taken to scale.

 

Thus, with almost every state using common standards and common tests, and with a massive data warehouse to track student and teacher progress, entrepreneurs would be attracted to work in a national marketplace, where their products would reach a national consumer base. This was the promise of Race to the Top and Common Core. It would enable entrepreneurs to market their products more efficiently and with greater success.

 

This idea was a first for the U.S. Department of Education. Never before was a major program launched by the federal government with the specific purpose of creating a national marketplace for entrepreneurs to hawk their wares to the schools.

 

 

 

 

Categories Education Industry, For-Profit

The Corporate Assault on Education: MUST-READ!

By dianeravitch
July 14, 2015 //
37

This is an incredible article. Please read it.

Kristen Steele’s article is titled “Education: the Next Corporate Frontier: Exposing Power and Evil in a Neoliberal World.”

Steele is an environmental activist who realized that the push for corporate profits has invaded education, as it has so many other sectors of the global economy.

She begins:

“I’m no education expert. Having worked in the environmental and new economy fields for the last two decades, my main concern when it comes to schooling has been what children learn. Along with most activists I know, I’d like to see kids get outdoors more, learn about the intricacies of ecosystems, understand the urgency of climate change, experience growing their own food, and acquire the knowledge and understanding essential to becoming environmentally-conscious citizens. I’d like school reform to be a part of rebuilding vibrant local economies and sustainable communities. This is what I thought was at the heart of the struggle for better education. But there’s a battle being waged on a different front. One that will overwhelm and undo any improvements we’ve made if social and environmental activists don’t join in the fight.

“Over the last thirty years or so, private corporations have been steadily taking over school systems all around the world. Going hand in hand with “free” trade and development, the privatization of education is simply another step towards corporate control of the entire economy. If you’re tuned in to education news in the US, you may be familiar with the public school closures in Chicago, the so-called Recovery School District in New Orleans, and the proposed budget cuts in Milwaukee that have brought parents, students and teachers into the streets. But few of us hear about how students in Chile have been protesting for nearly a decade against rampant privatization that has increased economic inequality. Or how the UK government recently passed an education act allowing the conversion of all state schools into privately run “academies”. Or how Structural Adjustment Programs and development aid have paved the way for privatization of schools acrossAfrica, which has resulted in reduced enrollment of girls and exclusion of the poorest children. Or how similar takeovers are happening in Canada, Sweden, New Zealand, India, and many other countries.

“Privatization exists in different forms, including vouchers, public private partnerships, low-fee private schools, and charter schools. Whatever it’s called, it amounts to the same thing: private corporations gaining control of and profiting from an essential public function. In every country, the identical argument is used: public schools are failing, reform is needed and big business will do it best, providing choice and efficiency. If the statistics don’t match the argument, they are concealed or doctored to fit.

“Privatization in education is eerily reminiscent of every other sector that has come under corporate control; many of the justifications and methods are exactly the same. Just as in agriculture, technology is touted as creating “efficiency.” Just as in healthcare, we’re presented with the illusion of “consumer choice.” Just as in global trade, corporations are deregulated and given generous subsidies. Just as in manufacturing, skilled employees are displaced by underpaid workers with no job security. Just as in energy, the profit motive trumps the wellbeing of people and planet. Just as in politics, legislation is influenced by rich private interests. In none of these sectors has corporate control brought about increased wellbeing for any but the richest segment of society. Why will education be any different?”

Read the rest.

Send this article to your friends, your elected officials, members of your state and local school boards, journalists, anyone else you can think of. It is that important.

Groups like Democrats for Education Reform, Education Reform Now, Students First, Campbell Brown’s The 74, and foundations like Gates, Walton, Broad, Dell, Arnold, Helmsley, and dozens more are leading this mass takeover of a crucial public institution.

Categories Charter Schools, Closing schools, Corporate Reform, Education Industry, For-Profit, Privatization, Scandals Fraud and Hoaxes

Who Killed PARCC? Parents. Who Will Kill the For-Profit Charters?

By dianeravitch
July 11, 2015 //
6

Bill Phillis of the Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy calls on parents to mobilize against the politically charter operators:

 

Lesson learned: Parents parked PARCC and when they learn about the failed charter school experiment they will can charters

Regardless of the merits/lack of merits of PARCC, public school parents sent the message to state officials that PARCC was not good public policy. Hence, PARCC was kicked out of Ohio.

That testing debacle was too controversial for most lobbyists to touch; but parents took it on.

Public school personnel and advocates must inform their respective communities about the horrific failure of the charter school experiment; the one that rips one billion dollars annually from school districts. When parents become informed they will send the message to state officials to can charters.

It is apparent that the for-profit charter lobby is operating the charter train. House leadership derailed HB 2, as amended by the Senate, until September. It may never be put back on track.

It should be noted that according to a July 1 Columbus Dispatch article, ECOT founder William Lager gave $400,000 in direct campaign contributions in the last election cycle. “That does not include any money that he may have given to non-profit political organizations set up by House and Senate leaders.”

 

William Phillis
Ohio E & A

ohioeanda@sbcglobal.net |

Ohio E & A | 100 S. 3rd Street | Columbus | OH | 43215

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Education Industry, For-Profit, Ohio, Scandals Fraud and Hoaxes

Alan Singer on the Global Reach of Pearson and the Resistance Against It

By dianeravitch
July 10, 2015 //
18

Alan Singer attended a conference in Madrid, where he delivered a paper called “Hacking Away at the Pearson Octopus.” He writes that the movement to break Pearson’s stranglehold on education is indeed global.

 

In April, protesters from teacher unions and global justice groups stormed the gates at Pearson’s annual general meeting held in London. Protesters accused Pearson of turning education into a commodity and profiting from low-fee private schools in poverty-stricken regions of Africa and India. They claimed is making millions by privatizing education in the global south. Pearson’s Chief Executive Officer John Fallon, forced to respond to dissidents, declared his enthusiastic “support free public education for every child around the world.” However he did not offer to provide Pearson’s educational services for free….

 

A joint letter from Great Britain’s National Union of Teachers (NUT) and the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) and the organization Global Justice Now, declared “From fuelling the obsessive testing regimes that are the backbone of the ‘test and punish’ efforts in the global north, to supporting the predatory, ‘low-fee’ for-profit private schools in the global south, Pearson’s brand has become synonymous with profiteering and the destruction of public education.”

 

ATL general secretary Mary Bousted said: “School curricula should not be patented and charged for. Tests should not distort what is taught and how it is assessed. Unfortunately, as the profit motive embeds itself in education systems around the world, these fundamental principles come under ever greater threat leading to greater inequality and exclusion for the most disadvantaged children and young people.” Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, added the voice of American teachers to the protest movement. “We fight this kind of profit making to get kids a good education and fight for governments which gives students a high quality education…..’

 

According to Kishore Singh of India who works for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights:

“At the beginning of the new millennium, the international community made a commitment to achieve universal primary education for all boys and girls. Today, 15 years later, we find huge gaps between these commitments and reality. Across the world, 58 million children still don’t have access to schools, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and south Asia. Millions more fail to graduate, or fail to learn what they need to participate in society meaningfully. Capitalising on the inability of governments to cope with rising demands on public learning, private education providers are mushrooming. I see this not as progress, but as an indictment of governments that have failed to meet their obligation to provide universal, free and high-quality education for all. Education is not a privilege of the rich and well-to-do; it is the inalienable right of every child. The state must discharge its responsibility as guarantor and regulator of education as a fundamental human entitlement and as a public cause. The provision of basic education, free of cost, is not only a core obligation of states but also a moral imperative.”

 

Singer repeats:

 
“The provision of basic education, free of cost, is not only a core obligation of states but also a moral imperative.” A very good reason to hack away at the Pearson octopus.

 

 

 

 

Categories Education Industry, For-Profit, International, Pearson, Resistance

Report: More than $200 Million in Charter School Waste, Fraud, and Mismanagement is “Tip of the Iceberg”

By dianeravitch
July 8, 2015 //
20

The Center for Popular Democracy and the Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools reviewed reports of financial abuses by charter schools and concluded that more than $200 million in state and federal funds have been squandered. They examined records in only 15 states and estimate that what they discovered is only “the tip of the iceberg.” Most financial scandals and frauds come to light only after a whistle-blower speaks out or a state agency audits charter schools or an enterprising journalist digs into charter records. Many state laws governing charter schools confuse “flexibility” with a lack of oversight. Charter schools receive public money yet have gone to court to prevent public audits by state officials.

 

The report says that “According to standard forensic auditing methodologies, the deficiencies in charter oversight throughout the country suggest that federal, state, and local governments stand to lose more than $1.4 billion in 2015. The vast majority of the fraud perpetrated by charter officials will go undetected because the federal government, the states, and local charter authorizers lack the oversight necessary to detect the fraud.”

 

The report is alarming. Even more alarming is that the Obama administration intends to increase charter school funding by nearly 50% despite the absence of adequate supervision and oversight to prevent fraud.

 

Legitimate charter schools, serving students with high needs, should be first to expose the hucksters.

 

Regulations exist for a reason: to protect children and the public from fraudulent, unqualified, and incompetent operators who will prey upon them and profit because of the absence of oversight. How long will the public continue to tolerate this laissez faire approach to an industry that siphons money away from public schools without any accountability?

 

 

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, For-Profit, Scandals Fraud and Hoaxes

A Field Guide to the Education Industry

By dianeravitch
July 7, 2015 //
29

Here is the handbook of the for-profit education industry (although it does advise you to drop the label “for-profit”).

 

Here are some basic facts that it recites. The world spends many billions on education. The United States spends close to $2 trillion on education, nearly $900 billion on K-12.

 

This is a huge market for investors seeking to make a profit.

 

And then it launches into spin about how terrible the American public education system is, never mentioning that our students (white, Black, Hispanic, and Asian) now have the highest test scores ever on NAEP, the highest graduation rates in history (for all groups), and the lowest dropout rates (for all groups). It is the usual “sky-is-falling” hokum, all intended to persuade the public to turn their public schools over to hedge fund managers and equity investors and hucksters who know nothing at all about education.

 

There is also no mention of the many scandals that have surrounded the charter industry, as fly-by-night operators cash in on a newly deregulated industry.

 

The main point, the same point that Michael Moe of GSV Investors has been making for nearly 20 years, is that the education industry offers the opportunity to clean up for the canny investor and entrepreneur, by siphoning off taxpayer funds that were supposed to go to children and classrooms.

 

If you love Teach for America, charter schools, consultants, for-profit schools and colleges, online universities, and technology, you will love this report. If you loved No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, and “Waiting for Superman,” you will love this report.

 

If you think that corporate reform is a pox on American education, read it and arm yourself for the battles ahead.

 

 

 

 

Categories Education Industry, Education Reform, For-Profit, On-Line Education, Teach for America TFA, Technology, Computers

Ohio: Time to End Charter Corruption!

By dianeravitch
July 6, 2015 //
4

Bill Phillis is a watchdog for Ohio public schools. He is a man of great integrity who cares passionately about fair and equitable funding of the schools. He was Deputy State Superintendent many years ago and is now a fighting septugenarian, with no goal but the public interest. He created and leads the Ohio Coalition for Equity and Adequacy.

Here is his reaction to the collapse of charter school reform a few days ago:

“An initiative petition for a law or a constitutional amendment will be necessary to hold the charter industry accountable or phase it out

“High hopes were dashed by the refusal of House leadership to schedule HB 2 for a vote on June 30th. Democrats and Republicans, charter proponents and charter opponents were in support of HB 2 as amended by the Senate. Had the bill been scheduled it would most likely have passed; hence House leadership kept it off the House floor.

“This lack of House action on HB 2 demonstrates the absolute legislative control the for-profit sector of the charter school industry has on charter policy in Ohio. It matters not that the industry is laced with fraud, corruption and education malpractice. It matters not that Ohio is the butt of jokes regarding its deregulated, injudicious charter policy. Maybe Senate leadership permitted the Senate amendments with a nod from the House that the bill as amended would not pass in House. Who knows?

“When will Ohio taxpayers rise up to demand accountability of their legislators and the Governor? Until state officials are held accountable, charters will extract a billion dollars annually from school districts. Much of this money flows to for-profit management companies which is used for campaign contributions, cozy business arrangements, marketing and of course, PROFITS. When one thinks Statehouse turpitude can’t get worse, it does. Citizens must rectify this matter by by-passing the legislature and Governor with an initiative petition.”

William Phillis
Ohio E & A

ohioeanda@sbcglobal.net |

Ohio E & A | 100 S. 3rd Street | Columbus | OH | 43215

Categories Charter Schools, Education Industry, For-Profit, Ohio

Pearson’s Plans to Dominate the Global Education Market

By dianeravitch
July 6, 2015 //
19

This report is a fascinating and scary analysis of Pearson’s ambitious efforts to create a demand for their products around the world and to satisfy that demand while making profits.

It is called “Pearson and PALF. The Mutating Giant,” and it was written by Carolina Jünemann and Stephen Ball. It shines a much needed light on the international ambitions of the privatization movement and the commercializing of education as a consumer good. It is worth your time to read this important report. Arm yourself with knowledge and information.

It begins:

Education is big business. There are global, national and local businesses all seeking to profit from education and educational services. Increasingly, business, education policy and what it means to be educated are intimately intertwined.

Pearson is the world’s largest edu-business. Over the last 10 years Pearson has been involved in a process of re-invention, leading to its re-branding in 2014 as a ‘learning’ company with a vision, summed up in the strapline ‘always learning’, and with the aim of contributing to “the very highest standards in education around the world.”

This transition has at least two aspects to it. The first relates to Pearson’s repositioning of the brand as a social purpose company, one which portrays itself as having a positive, and measurable, impact on society, that of “help(ing) more people make measurable progress in their lives through learning”. The other relates to Pearson seeking to position itself as an increasingly powerful global policy actor in education – “to playing an active role in helping shape and inform the global debate around education and learning policy” (2012 annual report p. 39). But as Pearson is contributing to the global education policy debate, it is also reconfiguring the education policy problems that will then generate new markets for its products and services in the form of educational ‘solutions’.

In 2012, Michael Barber Pearson’s Chief Education Adviser, previously Head of the UK’s Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit (2001-2005) launched PALF (the Pearson Affordable Learning Fund) as a for-profit venture fund to support and encourage the development and expansion of affordable learning school chains in developing countries.

The creation of PALF is an integral part of the repositioning of Pearson as a global company rather than one focused strongly on European and the US markets. It fits into Pearson’s business strategy of venturing into new markets (geographical) and uncovering new market opportunities, in this case, a new market segment (socio-economic), moving the company away from its traditional position as mid-market and high-end operator in education. PALF has been created to develop an unconventional market niche – the need and ambition of the poor in developing countries to give their children a good education.

The main focus of investment in PALF’s first phase of activity was for-profit Low Fee Private School (LFPS) chains. PALF’s first investment was in Omega Schools, a chain of Low Fee Private Schools operating in Ghana. Another is Affordable Private Education Centres (APEC), a chain of low-cost secondary schools in the Philippines. A third investment within the LFPS chain sector in 2014 is eAdvance, a company that manages the first South African blended learning low fee school chain called Spark schools.

However, PALF’s initial focus on Low Fee Private School chains has been inhibited by the absence of appropriate investment opportunities – sustainable, innovative businesses that could provide the expected financial returns. This has resulted in a recent shift in PALF’s scope to include a more general mix of investments and a broader focus on commercial education ‘solutions’ that, as Pearson explains, “might involve new business models, investing in new technology, or testing innovative partnerships or distribution channels” (Pearson plc, 2014, p. 56).

As part of this change of focus, in March 2014 PALF made an equity investment in Zaya Learning Labs and another in Avanti Learning Centres, a provider of college entrance exam preparation for students of low-income families through a pedagogic approach based on peer-to-peer learning and self-study, both in India. This kind of investment, as those in Ed-tech more generally, also facilitate, and illustrate, the increased used of non-teacher based or blended learning pedagogies.

An important aspect of PALF’s outcomes driven ‘demonstration’ work is related to the role of technology as an enabler of scale through delivery cost savings, that is, by reducing the reliance on qualified teachers as the primary medium of instruction. There are complex and over-lapping profit opportunities in the technology – teaching equation. This has profound implications for the role of teachers. The commitments and functions of the teacher are increasingly narrowed to include only those deemed necessary for enhancing performance and outcomes, at the same time as teachers are residualised and ‘de-professionalised’.

Categories For-Profit, International, Pearson

Edward F. Berger: The War Against Our Public Schools and Their Teachers Is an Assault on Our Democracy

By dianeravitch
July 4, 2015 //
12

I usually devote days like July 4 to appropriate pieces, such as poems and songs celebrating our nation and its freedoms.

 

But I am not feeling especially celebratory today. In many respects, it appears that our politics is rushing headlong back to the 1920s or even the 1890s, when polite society diverted its eyes from unpleasant facts like hunger, homelessness, and other signs of human distress. Our politicians must worry constantly about raising enough money for the next election, so they listen more attentively to those who have the most to contribute to their campaign, rather than to voters. Voters can always be hoodwinked by a slick media buy.

 

We must not despair because despair is a certain path to defeat. We must rededicate ourselves on this day to saving our democracy, to restoring the belief that America is meant to be “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” We can’t compete with the billionaires’ cash for votes, but we can build organizations to inform and mobilize public opinion to take our government away from the plutocrats. I, for one, do not want to sit idly by as income inequality and wealth inequality grows. I commend to you the book The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger, by Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson. A short description on amazon.com, “Almost every modern social problem-poor health, violence, lack of community life, teen pregnancy, mental illness-is more likely to occur in a less-equal society.”

 

If you look back over American history, you will see swings of the pendulum, from eras where there was a strong sense of social responsibility to eras of selfish individualism. We are now at the far end of the pendulum swing, with our elites pushing hard to persuade the public that selfish individualism and consumerism is true Americanism: every person for him- or herself! Let the hungry fend for themselves, it is their own fault that they are hungry.

 

We can sit back and watch as the social safety net is shredded, or we can resist. We can sit back and allow our public schools to be taken over by entrepreneurs, religious groups, and privateers, or we can resist.

 

I say resist.

 

Here is a wonderful post by Edward F. Berger, a blogger in Arizona who is leading the charge against corporate reform in that benighted state, where the profit-making entrepreneurs have grown fat by taking over public schools and draining their funds for their own profit.

 

He asks the following questions and urges his fellow Arizonans to organize and resist the destruction of the public square and the corporate takeover of public education:

 

 

Edward R. Murrow once said: “I am in a financial morass from which I am unable to extricate myself.” Many States are in a political morass as a result of a planned assault on America. The question is, how do we extricate ourselves? In Arizona, one of the most corrupt states, leaders are emerging who know how. They use facts and data, and social media to bypass the in-pocket Press.

 

Is there anyone who believes that the misuse of hundreds of millions of dollars of public taxpayer money in Arizona is an unexpected consequence of so-called education reform?

 

If so, they most likely profit at the expense of the children and families from whom this money is stolen.

 

If so, they are part of a radical and nation-killing movement based on feudal ideology and pure greed.

 

If so, they are part of a State Legislature that intentionally forbids charter school accountability and protects those who are given our tax dollars and use them for their own profits, kids-be-damned.

 

If so, they have written laws that allow pirates to create closed and unaccountable “schools” that rake in millions of public tax dollars via side-deals and Real Estate deals. They eliminate students that they can’t benefit from. They kick out children that don’t serve their needs and send them back into the public schools humiliated, damaged, and often broken.

 

If so, they are Legislators who do not believe in the separation of Church and State.

 

If so, they are part of political organizations that supports the privatizers and radical right-wing, and ignore the damages to their community and to children and families.

 

If so, they support privatization and profiteering from dollars citizens pay to educate children. They privatize any-and-all functions of government where there is profit to be gleaned. Prisons and schools for example.

 

Is there anyone in Arizona who believes that the extreme right-wing, working for ALEC-Koch-Goldwater Institute-John Birch Society bosses has not intentionally, decade after decade, placed totally unqualified non-educators in the position of Superintendent of Public Instruction, thus undermining public education from inside?

 

Those who wield these powers have used every opportunity to destroy the teaching profession, our community schools, and now our Universities.

 

Is there anyone in Arizona who doesn’t know that a Right To Work State is a trick to extract more profit from battered workers and to curtail information the public needs by not letting workers organize and speak out?

 

Is there an educated citizen of Arizona who is not convinced that the Democratic process of Representative Government has been defeated through the control of primary elections and the selection of those who will get massive financial support: Those candidates they allow to run and win? That those who wield power have effectively discouraged people from voting?

 

Be sure to read his conclusion.

 

And when you are done, join The Network for Public Education, which is supporting resistance across the nation.

Categories Arizona, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Democracy, Education Industry, For-Profit, Vouchers

The Biggest Fraud in Higher Education: Whose Fault?

By dianeravitch
July 3, 2015 //
18

The biggest scam in higher education was perpetrated by Corinthian Colleges, a for-profit corporation that once enrolled more than 120,000 students at 120 campuses. Corinthian collapsed recently, leaving tens of thousands of students saddled with debt and worthless degrees.

 

The recruiters focused on minorities, the poor, and veterans, making false promises about future employment and costs. The bottom line was always the same: profits. Not education.

 

The linked article is the inside story of the decline and fall of Corinthian, its predatory practices, its lies to students, and the inaction of the DOE.

 

“In lawsuits, official complaints to state and federal regulators, sworn declarations submitted in Corinthian’s bankruptcy proceeding, and conversations with The Huffington Post, dozens of former Corinthian students and several former Corinthian employees said that Corinthian drowned students in debt and sent them off with meaningless diplomas that did not help — and sometimes even harmed — their job prospects. It illegally padded job placement statistics and gave students college credit for “externships” at fast-food restaurants. It charged students up to 10 times what a comparable community college degree would cost. More than 1 in 4 Corinthian graduates defaulted on their student loans, according to Education Department data. And for years, the Education Department not only failed to recognize the depths of the abuse, but effectively funded Corinthian’s business model, sending the company billions of dollars in financial aid to help cover students’ bills.”

 

Why did the U.S. Department of Education allow this fraud to continue for so long? One might well ask why the U.S. Department of Education has been silent about the growth of predatory for-profit K-12 schools, both virtual and brick-and-mortar. For the first time in history, the U.S. ED just doesn’t see privatization and profit-making as a problem.

 

“In 2008, Tasha Courtright visited the Everest College campus in Ontario, California, with a friend. She was not looking to pursue higher education. “The recruiter said, ‘How about you? Do you want to go to school?’” Courtright recalled.

 

“I said I can’t afford it, I can’t do loans,” she remembered, noting that she was working a minimum-wage job at a gas station when Corinthian first recruited her. “They said, ‘Let us do the numbers.’ They said I qualified for Cal Grants and Pell Grants, and I wouldn’t have to pay anything.”

 

“The recruiter called Courtright repeatedly for two days, pressuring her to make a decision. “They said classes were starting and ‘If you don’t do it now, you never will.’ So I went down again and signed up.” Courtright spent four years at Everest, earning a bachelor’s degree in applied business management. She said recruiters promised she wouldn’t pay a dime; she ended up with $41,000 in student debt.

 

“High-pressure sales tactics like that were deliberately targeted at vulnerable demographic groups, including single mothers and the unemployed, according to Lueck, the former Corinthian manager. Recruits were often the first in their families to attend college. Almost anyone could qualify.

 

“Laurie McDonnell, a librarian at the Everest-Ontario Metro campus, resigned after learning that her school had enrolled a man who read at a third-grade level.

 

“The goal was simple: profits. Smaller chains like Lincoln Tech or DeVry used to dominate the for-profit college industry. But toward the end of the last decade, larger, publicly traded companies took over. By 2009, three-quarters of all U.S. students enrolled in for-profit colleges were at schools owned by a corporate conglomerate or private equity firm. Goldman Sachs owns around 40 percent of Education Management Corporation, another operator of for-profit colleges.

 

“Many for-profit college companies own multiple university brands. Corinthian, which traded on Nasdaq, ran Everest, Wyotech and Heald Colleges. The consolidation of the industry changed how for-profit schools operated, argues Elizabeth Baylor, senior investigator on a landmark 2012 Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee study of for-profits. “Student success was not the primary focus of the entity. It was returning investor value,” Baylor, who now works at the Center for American Progress, told HuffPost.

 

“One-quarter of the average for-profit college budget goes to marketing and recruitment, Baylor said. The goal is to capture and retain students, and squeeze as much money out of them as possible. The 2012 Senate report found that Corinthian’s students defaulted on their loans at a rate that was “by far the highest of any publicly traded company” that investigators scrutinized.”

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, For-Profit, Higher Education, Scandals Fraud and Hoaxes, U.S. Department of Education
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