A layoff of 600 workers isn’t good news, usually. But if, say, they’re working the phones to scam people out of their money, it’s not such a bad thing when they lose their jobs. That’s a big part of the story behind the layoffs at the Phoenix-based Apollo Education Group, the parent company of the University of Phoenix.
The Republic has an article about the layoffs that’s full of facts and figures—drops in enrollment, revenue, and stock prices (the graphic at the top of the post shows the stock values for the past eight months)—but it misses the real story. There’s a hint of what’s going on when the story mentions who lost their jobs. It was mostly enrollment counselors, the people who call prospective students and try to talk them into signing up. The high pressure sales pitches, often filled with lies, got University of Phoenix and lots of other for profit colleges into trouble over the years. They conned students into enrolling in programs which often had little merit, and even when the coursework was potentially valuable, all too often the people who were talked into enrolling lacked the basic skills needed to benefit. As a result, students pile up costly loans they can’t pay back. And when they default, it’s usually the taxpayer who’s stuck with the bill. University of Phoenix gets almost 90 percent of its revenue from U.S. student grants and loans, and it gets its money whether or not the students pay back the loans.
An AP story, Why the gov’t let many trade schools become diploma mills, does the subject more justice.
It explains that these huge, publicly traded, so-called job training institutions didn’t even exist until after 1990 (the story doesn’t mention that Bill Clinton had a hand in beginning the growth of the system [and later became an Honorary Chancellor of one of the institutions]), but their exponential growth didn’t begin until the George W. Bush presidency.
Several consumer advocates interviewed by The Associated Press point to 2002 as the beginning of a dangerous rise of for-profit colleges. That’s when an Education Department memo written under President George W. Bush suggested colleges wouldn’t be severely penalized if they compensated college recruiters for getting students in the door. The memo became a tacit endorsement for the kinds of high-pressured sales tactics that emerged.
In other words, recruiting regulations were loosened, and the absolutely predictable profiteering and misuse of government funds began in earnest. Don’t believe for a minute this is an example of unintended consequences of government programs. ALEC wrote draft legislation supporting the colleges, and lobbyists swarmed the halls of Congress softening up elected officials. Attempts at reform were blocked again and again by Republican members of Congress. This was a money making scheme bought and paid for by the for-profit college industry and its friends.
I remember hearing the line pushed by apologists for the colleges when it was obvious to anyone who was paying attention that students were getting hurt and the government was getting fleeced. The people who wanted to close the schools’ loopholes hate the poor, the colleges’ backers said. Oh sure, it’s fine with them when wealthy kids want to better themselves by going to fancy colleges, but they don’t want to poor to have the same opportunities. That couldn’t be further from the truth, of course. The poor students were being bilked, then burdened with debts they couldn’t hope to pay. But when you’re a conservative protecting corporate interests, it never hurts to pretend you’re a champion of the poor.
If you hear corporations and conservatives say they’re only looking out for poor folks, watch out. When people wanted to rein in the subprime lending that helped bring down the economy in 2008, for instance, supporters of the lending industry that was making out like bandits said the people who wanted to tighten lending regulations just wanted to rob low income people of the right to buy into the American Dream by purchasing a home. Whenever anyone wants to raise cigarette taxes, we’re reminded by supporters of Big Tobacco that low income people smoke at a high rate, so it’s an unfair tax on the poor. School vouchers? “Education reformers” say they love vouchers because they give poor children an opportunity to escape bad “government” schools. The cause of the day changes, but the story stays the same.
This article appears in Jun 25 – Jul 1, 2015.
Where to start David?
Good night.
David:
Excellent article exposing abuses in the for-profit college industry. Thank you. I would have written an exclusively appreciative comment, if it weren’t for a remark you made in the last paragraph.
There you write, “School vouchers? ‘Education reformers’ say they love vouchers because they give poor children an opportunity to escape bad “government” schools.”
I do support our public schools and I want to seem them funded properly and less burdened with testing and punitive federal policies related to testing outcomes. I do NOT support the broad agenda of the “education reform” movement, but I do support vouchers, largely because I know families who want to place their kids in private schools, but find it difficult to do so because, though they work full time in very worthwhile professions like teaching, they cannot afford to pay tuition in the school that they feel best meets their child’s needs without utilizing vouchers and / or tax credits.
This is something that puzzles me a great deal. I know a lot of politically liberal people who have used their large incomes — or inherited wealth — to enroll their children in private schools — but they oppose people with low incomes being able to transfer their students to private schools using vouchers.
You probably know some folks like this, too. Could you give us your perspective – how do these folks justify denying low SES families the same privilege they themselves enjoy because of their high income and / or their wealth (the privilege of enrolling their children in the schools they feel best meet their needs) ?
A little known fact is that the Arizona Board of Regents told the three State Universities that University of Phoenix should be their role model. Instead of “losing money” for the state, the universities could become cash cows. And now, they could be under investigation by the selfsame state!
The vast majority of vouchers aren’t for poo people, it’s used richer people to subsidize their private school choice. As Diane R says, “we are all for people making private “choices”, but the government does not have to subsidize private choices.”
What is this article about?
Vouchers are often wanted by people( not necessarily poor) who want to send their children to religious schools and don’t want to pay for them. A household with 2 people working and one in education, could possibly pay if they didn’t see this as a golden opportunity or even if they couldn’t get their children to religious ed. after school. Those in favor of vouchers and say they for the poor are not correct. Like charter schools in general, the truly poor people stay in their neighborhood schools and often are not able to get their children to their ‘school of choice’ . They may have only one parent or maybe 2 but have no way of getting them to these schools regularly because of work or even illness. It is a sneaky way IMHO to get taxpayers to pay for religious ed. This can be done after school and not on the taxpayers’ nickle.
Charter schools are often misusing funds(remember, under the corporate umbrella there is very little accountability of funds) and now they want to do so with religious education as the carrot . Please don’t be mislead by the apparent,’ It is only fair that your children should go to their school of choice’ bait. It is just another way to get schools for profit by corporations with no busing or special education. Many children go to religious schools who are not wealthy and their parents really want it, so they find the money.
….greed and Republicans, but I repeat myself..
Guardians — you talk a party line that seems to me to have little to do with the actual situations of families struggling to get their kids educated in Arizona.
I raised over $100K in tax credits at a private (not religious) school. The money went into the financial aid fund and was allocated based on demonstrated economic need.
Were there some families in that school who abused tax credits by using STO’s that allowed people with no demonstrated financial need to exchange credits with other families, giving each other tuition reductions that they didn’t really need? You bet. But that has to do with poor legislation and / or poor enforcement at the level of the state legislature.
It does NOT mean that those of us who paid full tuition ourselves and gave (and recruited) tax credits that went into the financial aid fund to meet demonstrated need were doing anything wrong. I know several cases of kids who were struggling in their neighborhood public schools whose lives were turned around by this school and its excellent faculty. Some of them would not have been able to attend without the financial aid that tax credits made possible.
So argue against the abuse of vouchers and tax credits, if you like, but if you have any concern for social justice and the common good, don’t argue against the use of vouchers to meet demonstrated economic need in families where parents are desperate to find a school that will work for their child.
As for the rights of minorities — why is there a decades old, unresolved desegregation case against TUSD? Are there issues with the way the district has handled its ELL programs? Let’s say one of the families in a west side TUSD school where the classroom is staffed by a rotating crew of subs who don’t have teaching certification would like to use the financial aid programs enabled by tax credits to transfer their children to the school run by the parish they attend, where the all the classrooms have permanent, fully certified teachers? You think that should be prevented? You think their children should be educated in a classroom with no permanent, certified teacher just because it’s a “public” school and therefore “politically correct” according to the ideological program you buy into?
“for profit” education-what could possibly go wrong? Oh yeah, who cares about the student, as long as our bottom line looks good. A scam visited upon us once again by “big business”, while our legislature refuses to fund JTED and our state community college programs!
..Arizona is heaven for corporate profiteers seeking to provide services that in a proper society should be borne, without the profit component, and which assures maltreatment of the “beneficiaries” as every dollar not spent for needed services drops to the bottom line. Similar to the for profit health insurance model that we are so familiar with. Private prisons and education profiteers do well because Arizonas’ GOP politicians are so cheaply bought.
Social Justice , all I can is I am glad it works for you. However our public schools have been underfunded for years and years. So all schools would have very qualified certified teachers if funding were not cut and cut and cut. So please you are using the crime of inadequately paying teachers by the state, and using it against a school system which works extremely hard for all children. Teachers are leaving by droves because they are tired of not being paid well, and for continual justification for giving tax cuts to the wealthy as an economic necessity instead of actually viewing children as the most important resource we have. Many are also sick at heart when they see the outlines( which are very real) for how many prisons should be built based on 3rd grade reading scores. Not only does our country imprison more people since the George W. Bush years (which privatization of began with Jeb in Florida) than any other developed country, it is at least by 10 times more. Arizona is also one of the leaders in that also. In summary, in AZ, the tax cuts for the wealthy, education for profit, and prisons for profit are the priority. I am not surprised they are leaving Arizona by droves.
The end goal is privatization of all education. And for every story like yours there are many of abuse. Reread David’s article. The whole point which you feel doesn’t apply to you, is, you privatize education, you will get abuse. Our public schools were very good and there has been a lobby for years and years to destroy them. Many people talk about ‘when public schools were funded and good’. TUSD deseg order is extremely complicated and there are many watching over ever single thing that is being done. So please, unless you are part of the solution there, don’t even address it. Charter schools aren’t even monitored for deseg issues.
There are many in this town who are very open about wanting their special interest religious school paid for with tax payer money. So many do not realize how many charter schools are under corporations and there are more than just a few who abuse tax payer money by making a profit and not putting more money back into the schools. David S has written about a few. Diane Douglas appears to be learning about them and we shall see what she is able to do.
I have said it before and I will continue to say it. If parents want more choices, they can shop all over Arizona . I also have said, if a charter school follows the rules and uses taxpayer money well, I say keep them open and put them under the same scrutiny as public schools (including deseg concerns). For profit charter schools should not be allowed because it is started and funded by the taxpayers. The push for vouchers is and could be opening a door for even more abuse and use for religious schools. Religious education with taxpayer money was banned a long time ago and privatization proponents have reined in parents who want religious schools paid for and told them a way will be found(and in some situations already have been found) to fund religious education.
You have one situation. Hopefully since it works so well for you, you will stay open even if many charters have to close because of abuse. My goal is to watch education and help clean it up because my concern is children, always. I am a mother and a grandmother and I want an educated world for them. I am tired of people abusing money meant for them and using it in ways never intended for their own greed.
David is correct that institutions like the University of Phoenix are irresponsible and should be shut down.
Education should never be a for-profit endeavor, but some people in this comment stream are making generalizations that don’t reflect the complexity of the school systems that operate outside the mainline-district-public-school system and public-land-grant-university system. Many “private” schools are non-profits. Some charters are also non-profits. Among the non-profit privates and non-profit charters, some are responsible and do a lot of good for children.
The education scene is complex, and “good guys” and “bad guys” cannot be as easily identified along purely ideological (or political party) lines as some people would like to believe. It’s not just “education reformers” that support vouchers, and vouchers are not always used in ways that are irresponsible.
The mainline-district-public-school system cannot serve the needs of every child, and we need to support access to responsible, well-regulated alternatives for those who need it, while eliminating for-profit operations and the abuse of vouchers.
Public schools are not “for profit?” They sure as heck are. They just waste so much they don’t show one.
I remind the naysayers here there is a charter school on Davis~Monthan because TUSD refused to reopen it. I am a strong opponent of “for profit” education but you might ask the families on D~M how they feel about it. I even posed to David the opportunity to “put his money where his mouth is “to seek “small school” status at D~M and he demured in favor of what he thinks he does best right here.
A view from the inside (many years ago):
As one of the original faculty member from 1983-2003, I saw a lot of good, well-meaning students pass through the classroom doors. However, the last 10 years (1993-03) there also saw a decline in the quality and ages of the students. The U of Phx model was originally based on work experience + schooling, but when you have 19-year-olds whose only employment has been the USAF, it was a challenge to get the students to relate to the material. I finally threw in the towel–was tired of correcting grammar and spelling and dealing with the students’ absolute lack of critical thinking skills. U of Phx essentially devalued its own product.
Borman school on Davis- Monthan is still open and a TUSD school. That is the 2nd time I have seen that in a post and so I searched the web and called to make sure and it never closed and there are no plans to. ???? I do not see the post here that said it was closed but it was on my thread under this article so here is the link: http://edweb.tusd1.org/Borman/
I stand corrected…..I think.
It looks like the old Borman school is the new Sonoran Science Academy and the “Borman” name has been moved to another site on D~M. I don’t have time to chase this down right now but there was only ONE elementary school in the old base housing area but the expansion of homes on base eems to mean there is now more than one school. However, my main point is that Sonoran took over a school that TUSD had chosen to let close.
Harold R Simpson, Smith Elementary School closed on the base in 2007 — there were 2 elementary schools and the other wasn’t necessary. They thought about making Smith into a middle school but it was more cost efficient to bus them to existing middle schools. That is the building the charter school is in … just FYI.
Okay, thanks Guardian. I know the base pretty well but obviously not THAT well. I just remember the noise over TUSD not supporting the school and the base going out for a contract with the charters. Yeah, it’s a small community but part of the military contract with the families is the school on base. I spoke with a student who goes there from off base and he prefers it. They are attracting more students of retirees from off base. Doesn’t speak well for TUSD but that’s the military, expecting a standard the same as theirs.
I’m not too surprised that the UoP model was prone to being corrupted, but I have to echo ‘Bobster’s comments. I got my M.Ed from UoP in the early 2000s and still consider it the most concentrated and valuable formal educational experience of my life. I was in the first group of students in the M.Ed program in Tucson. We were very few, but the best part of the program was that most of us were already teaching in schools, and we were encouraged by our instructors to discuss and problem-solve each others’ actual difficulties in reaching students. It was really surprisingly valuable. While UoP was relatively expensive, it was the only option at that time with night classes that allowed us to continue teaching during the day. I can’t remember the name of the woman who ran the program, but there is no question in my mind that her only priority was developing excellent educators for students in Arizona. It sounds like our program was an exception to the typical UoP experience, and it’s a shame the model has been ruined by chasing easy dollars.
Guardians –
I did not see your long post, which responds directly to one of mine, before I wrote my last post. There are a few points in what you wrote that need to be addressed:
“our public schools have been underfunded for years and years. So all schools would have very qualified certified teachers if funding were not cut and cut and cut. So please you are using the crime of inadequately paying teachers by the state, and using it against a school system which works extremely hard for all children. Teachers are leaving by droves because they are tired of not being paid well, and for continual justification for giving tax cuts to the wealthy as an economic necessity instead of actually viewing children as the most important resource we have.”
So you advocate that today, in the here-and-now, we force poor children to enroll in a starved and malfunctioning school system — by eliminating tax credits and destroying the financial aid programs that allow these children to enroll in a system that works — because according to your assertions, the public school system used to work when it was better funded and it’s not the public school system’s fault that districts like TUSD are so low functioning now? Sorry, I don’t think that’s a realistic (or humane) policy agenda.
“TUSD deseg order is extremely complicated and there are many watching over ever single thing that is being done. So please, unless you are part of the solution there, don’t even address it.”
I do know quite a bit about the desegregation order and the USP, having observed closely the way it is being implemented on one site and knowing others who track closely how it is being implemented on other sites. I am aware, among other things, of TUSD’s failure to ask that desegregation funds be applied in certain areas where experts in the field of desegregation policy know they will actually benefit the students they are supposed to benefit, and the district’s constant failures of proper process in interacting with the plaintiffs and special master. Why do many Hispanic activists have such a negative view of the current board majority and administration? If you’re so interested in countering Ducey’s agenda, I suggest you look into the influence someone like the current president of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce wields in TUSD. She is one of Ducey’s allies and advisors. Or, try this: use the video archive on the TUSD website to watch all of Sylvia Campoy’s presentations to the board. Ask yourself: if you took a survey of all the Hispanic families living within the boundaries of TUSD, how many of them would want their ability to access tax credits to enroll their children in Catholic schools cut off? The Catholic schools I know are better integrated and more affirming of Hispanic values and cultural traditions than the TUSD schools I know.
The bottom line? When it comes to “cleaning up education,” the devil is in the details. Party lines and ideological agendas that don’t take into account what is actually happening “on the ground” in our schools and in the lives of our children don’t help. If your concern “is for the children,” start taking a closer look at their actual circumstances and think a bit harder about which policies can plausibly be argued to serve their best interests.
Social Justice the only thing I want to say is there are many good schools in TUSD and other public schools. No it is not the size it was. But if you want to, there is open enrollment and you will find them. I know so many good schools and teachers who are excellent and work very very hard.
I didn’t ever say the system was bad. I said it was greatly underfunded and TUSD does not have enough teachers as a result. You drew your own conclusion, or maybe think all schools are short teachers. Many schools have enough and those that don’t, have very creative hardworking teachers who team so kids get the best possible education in all the classes.
I am ending because there is nothing more to say. I wish you well. I just wish you didn’t buy only the bad hype. So much is good about public education. My children went to TUSD and my grands do now. The good is definitely there and I am glad my children had such a rich education with diversity of all kinds as well as programs that meet the needs (or really try to) of all. I am also very glad my grandchildren are in public ed. Some here and others are in another city in AZ. Sounds like you have what you want so I wish you well.
People like Ann-Eve Pedersen would have a lot more success marshaling broad support for increased funding to public schools if they could uncouple that idea — which is a very valid one — from these ideas, which are not valid:
– the notion that high functioning non-profit charters and non-profit privates need to be deprived of the tax credit-sourced financial aid programs that enable middle class and low-SES families to attend them without undergoing unreasonable sacrifices, in a context in which the cost of college education has increased so radically.
– the notion that there’s not much wrong with TUSD and everyone who sees the many problems and speaks about them honestly needs to be silenced because their honesty is “not good for our schools and the children they serve.”
You can’t tell people who have seen and experienced high functioning public school systems in blue states where public education is BOTH adequately funded and adequately professionalized, with attention to professional protocols and sound practices in public institution governance and administration, that there’s nothing wrong with TUSD. They won’t buy it, because it’s patently false — and they won’t buy political and policy agendas that present that idea together with other ideas that could be considered valid if they were separated from all the B.S. that people like Pedersen and Safier commonly stir into the same policy stew with them.
If you want to succeed in increasing funding to our public schools, clean up your policy agenda and your talking points. Supporting public schools has broad support, as it should. Undermining beneficial non-profit schools and locking the poor into low-functioning public schools and / or asserting that these schools are not low-functioning, when it’s plain to everyone that they are — those ideas do not have broad support, nor should they.
I’ve been reading the arguments in these comments and enjoying them. I just want to correct one statement in Clean Up’s comment just before this one. Charter schools don’t take part in “tax credit-sourced financial aid programs.” Charters, like district schools, are tuition free, paid for out of state funds. That’s true whether they are for-profit or non-profit. So no one is deprived of going to a charter school because of not being able to afford tuition. There are other potential financial barriers — charters usually don’t furnish transportation or free lunches — but not tuition.
Only private schools participate in the tuition tax credit and “Empowerment scholarship” programs. That doesn’t negate Clean Up’s arguments. It simply focuses them where they belong.
That’s right, David. I noticed that error in my post as well, after I posted it. Thank you for correcting it.
Tax credits (when they are used as they should be) fund need-based financial aid programs in non-profit private schools that charge tuition. The Catholic system, Tucson Hebrew Academy, “independent” schools like The Gregory School, Green Fields, Tucson Waldorf and St. Michael’s try to use tax credits this way, though some people who enroll kids in these schools use rogue STO’s to exchange credits when they don’t qualify for financial aid. This is an abuse of the proper purpose of tax credits that should, in my opinion, be eliminated through changes in legislation and / or better enforcement.
Our tax dollars fund charters directly, and charters do not charge tuition. I believe I have heard various people in the progressive camp argue that charters like Basis that do not provide the same special education services that district public schools do should not be able to fund their operations with tax dollars. These arguments, like the argument that all tax credits and vouchers should be eliminated because “those dollars belong in our public school system” are not, in my opinion, valid. I don’t like the Basis model, but the charter system should be allowed to provide alternative schools that serve various kinds of needs not met in district public schools. We need to make sure that everyone’s needs are well met somewhere in the system, but I don’t see why every school that uses tax dollars should have to meet the full range of needs in the population.
In the “best of all possible worlds,” which is clearly not the one we are living in here in Arizona, I would like to see parallel systems, like some we see in Canada and various European countries: a well-funded, high functioning, fully funded public system, and a decently regulated and overseen alternative system that is publicly funded (responsible charters) and /or publicly subsidized (some tax dollars used to support financial aid programs in responsible non-profit privates). It bothers me when people tie funding and supporting the district public school system together with undermining and de-funding responsible alternatives. It shouldn’t be “either / or.” It should be “both / and.” What we need to eliminate are “schools” that are irresponsible, exploitative, paying unreasonable salaries to administrators, and not meeting children’s needs — and those kinds of operations need to be eliminated or reformed in every sector — public district, private, charter.
In sum: you and Ms. Pedersen could broaden your base of support for increasing funding to public schools if you could stop attacking the alternative system. Give it up: we absolutely need well-funded, high functioning district schools, but there are at this point too many people benefiting from the responsible actors in the alternative sector: you will never get consensus behind going back to a system where district schools had a complete monopoly on the use of education tax dollars, nor will those of us who’ve seen TUSD “up close and personal” agree with the assertion that is not in need of reform.
Here is what I love; there is a Carrington College ad (online University) as well as an ad for TD’s Showclub East (a strip club). These ads are paying the bills at Tucson Weekly. In addition, both ads are on an article that is simply regurgitating the same information from other articles, almost a decade ago.
The line, “when it was obvious to anyone who was paying attention that students were getting hurt” is a poor example of journalism. Obviously, the data is from other, similar articles. There are thousands of successful students; none of which are mentioned or interviewed, which simply discredits the opportunity they received.
Last point, University of Phoenix forced public schools to change their models to ensure they gave opportunity to working adults. They scoffed at the online model, now tell me a school that doesn’t have one…
Public schools participate in the tax credits, but I think it’s for extra curricular activities. Like history, math and science. lol