Fraud: It's Another Avenue to Make Money Via Education "Reform"

Catching fraudsters.  Is the answer to give up your freedom to privacy via international databases?

Fraudsters have jumped in the education reform money making machine on the international level. From InsideHigherEd and Catch Them If You Can:

DUBLIN, Ireland -- Fraud in international higher education is a $1.5 billion to $2.5 billion business, an expert said Thursday here at the European Association for International Education annual conference.

Daniel J. Guhr, managing director for Illuminate Consulting Group, which advises governments, universities and foundations on higher education strategy, stressed that the estimate is necessarily imprecise: “Really good fraud is not visible.” But he said that the consulting group’s research does show that fraud is a pervasive problem.

Guhr provided an overview of the problem of fraud in international education. He defined fraud broadly, situating various forms of it on a spectrum of severity -- from résumé embellishment, on the low end, to full-scale identity fraud on the high end. In between, Guhr listed fake letters of recommendation (“We tell all our clients to forget letters of reference -- they’re completely useless”), plagiarism, purchased test scores (“I’m very, very worried about the validity of English language test scores coming out of certain Asian countries,” Guhr said, later citing China and Vietnam in particular), purchased transcripts, purchased degrees, fake immigration records (such as passports), and bribery of immigration officials.

Guhr said that the key driver of fraud is economic benefit -- not only to the offending student and family, but to other stakeholders as well, colleges included. Increasingly, college leaders view international students as an important source of tuition revenue. The more, the merrier.

The fraudsters have figured out what the venture capitalists and school choicers have known for quite some time: there is a lot of money to be made using taxpayer dollars and governmental mandates and regulations.  If governments are going to comply with providing their students with a "global education", then that information needs to be shared with the globe, right?

This is the mission of common core...the establishment of standards strive to be "internationally benchmarked" so theoretically, when test results come back from other countries, results for students scores are "apples to apples".  Of course, that means data bases will have to be established that will transmit student/family data not only to federal agencies and private researchers here in the US; this information will also be shared internationally.

Sweden has developed a national application system for international students designed to stop education fraud and would welcome other nations to join its efforts:

 

One message of Thursday’s session is that colleges should share information on fraud much more freely than they have to date. Guhr said that one barrier to collaboration is the NIMBY problem. “What we get still a lot of in education institutions is, 'Of course fraud is bad, but it's happening everywhere else, not in my institution.' " (For further developments in this realm, see related article.)

Rick Torres, president and CEO of the National Student Clearinghouse, attended Thursday's session. During the discussion portion, he shared his own experience with fraud detection when he worked at a credit card company. "These credit card companies, they weren't worried about their banks' reputations; they were worried about catching fraudsters," he said. "Even though they compete very heavily with each other, they actually got together every three months to discuss what was going on, where the fraud was emanating, because it impacted all of them."

If you accept the premise that fraudsters can game the system and make money (and more concerning, obtain student visas with no intention of attending school), is the answer for these educational institutions to share student/family information to catch potential fraud?  It reminds me of the TSA issue.  Because of the actions of a few, the majority are required to give up their right to privacy.

 

Freedom to privacy seems to disappearing as we (and corporations) now need protection from the reforms put forth by the reformers, politicians and federal/international agencies.   A representative from Pearson commented on this article from InsideHigherEd on the idea of "freedom":

 

Louis M M Coiffait 

Really interesting - the
Swedish solution of a standard national application process would both tackle
fraud and some of the inequality issues (advantaged learners are better able to
navigate the complex course-by-course and institution-by-institution application
system we have here in the UK).
Of course the counter-argument will be institutional
'freedom'...

What Mr. Coiffait doesn't mention is how and where "national application process information" gathered will be used...and by whom.   If it's used by Pearson to make money for Pearson I guess "freedom" is over rated and an impediment for educational "reform".

    

 

The Symbiotic Relationship of Bill Gates, Arne Duncan and Pearson...and the Takeover of American Education

Arne Duncan has embraced Bill Gates' vision of education.  Bill Gates has had a hand in crafting the common core standards and has provided grant money to advance the implementation in schools around the country.  It doesn't apparently matter to Arne Duncan these standards are unproven, untested and unconstitutional.  It also apparently doesn't matter that Mr. Gates' previous dalliances into the education arena proved unsuccessful.

Bill Gates has his vision and billions of dollars to start the wheels turning for common core and the data that accompanies the assessments critical to the common core plan.  If he can get this implemented, his companies will make even more billions of dollars once the system is operational.  He faces some hurdles such as changes in the law regarding student privacy, but Secretary Duncan is doing his best to relax privacy information the Department of Education can share with outside agencies and private companies.

If Bill Gates has the vision and the money for his educational plans, and the Department of Education is acquiescing its unconstitutional authority to set educational mandates for the states, then who or what is developing the standards and assessments to be used in the Common Core standards?  One company's name keeps popping up and there is a direct involvement with Bill Gates: Pearson.

What is Pearson?  From its website:

Pearson is the global leader in integrated education and technology publishing, offering educational products for children, schools, universities, adults, and corporations. To purchase any of these products online, please visit one of our e-commerce sites below.

Like Bill Gates , Pearson operates a business (Pearson Textbooks) and a foundation (Pearson Foundation).  With the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Pearson Foundation has had  significant input into crafting the Common Core standards for public educated students.  From May 2011:


Two education foundations said Wednesday they are working to develop 24 new online reading and math courses that will be aligned with the common core national standards. The courses will be developed by the Pearson Foundation — associated with the major textbook company — and will include video, social media, games and other digital materials. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will provide $3 million for four of the courses to be offered free to schools. The initiative appears to be the most ambitious effort so far to align textbooks — online or otherwise — with the new standards and may position Pearson as a leader in the market.  (emphasis added)

That last sentence says it all and folks who have been following this trail of Gates and Pearson taking over education have been joking that buying Pearson stock would be a wise bet and make you quite wealthy.  The Gates and Pearson Foundations "donate" courses to schools, hook them into using them since they are aligned with the new assessments, and then the schools will have to pay for them in the future.  It's similar to unfunded mandates set forth by the Department of Education.  The states and schools have to pay for the mandates from the Department of Education crafted by Bill Gates and Pearson.  


Pearson won't make money just in the Common Core standards in the United States.  The mantra in the Department of Education is "globally competitive, globally competitive, globally competitive".  All of the current (and recent past) educational jargon is wrapped up in global terms.  Think outside our borders.  Pearson  certainly thinks globally:

BEIJING, Dec 5, 2011 (GlobeNewswire via COMTEX) -- Global Education & Technology Group Ltd. GEDU -0.28% ("Global Education" or the "Company"), the largest test preparation provider for the International English Language Testing System ("IELTS") and a leading provider of educational courses and related services in China, today announced that it has issued a definitive proxy statement in connection with the Company's merger agreement with Pearson plc ("Pearson"). Such proxy materials will be mailed to all shareholders and holders of American Depositary Shares ("ADSs") representing the Company's ordinary shares. 

Global Education and Pearson entered into a definitive merger agreement on November 19 under which Pearson would acquire Global Education for $2.7515 per ordinary share (or $11.006 per ADS, each representing four ordinary shares) in cash.

If the merger is completed, the Company will continue its operations as a privately held company and will be beneficially owned by Pearson, and as the result of the merger, the ADSs will no longer be listed on the NASDAQ Global Select Market. 

Pearson is driving assessments in the United States and now China. Pearson is based in Britain and also provides testing in other countries:

Our regional operations in Germany, Spain, France, Netherlands, Italy, Switzerland and Poland have developed dynamic local language programmes and are market leaders in their own right.  

Here's more about Pearson's voracious appetite for educational companies:

Pearson Plc, the owner of the Financial Times newspaper, said it agreed to buy education- technology company Schoolnet for $230 million in cash.

Schoolnet, which uses data to boost learning at schools, is based in New York and serves more than 5 million students from pre-kindergarten age through to 12th grade in the U.S., Pearson said today. Through partnerships with districts and states, Schoolnet covers a third of the country’s largest cities.

Pearson, which also owns the book publisher Penguin, received about 80 percent of its earnings from education in 2010 and has been expanding through so-called bolt-on acquisitions with proceeds from last year’s sale of Interactive Data Corp. in the U.S. for $3.4 billion. Pearson, based in London, has made nine acquisitions or offers for education companies in the past 12 months in countries including the U.K., India, South Africa and the U.S.

 

We'll be writing more in the future about Pearson's national and international grab of educational power.  Think about Gates and Pearson and their takeover of America's educational system.  Why do we even need the Department of Education?  It seems to be a puppet organization for Gates and Pearson to make even a larger fortune with no competition.  The symbiotic relationship between Gates, Pearson and the Department of Education headed by Duncan will allegedly turnaround the Department's wretched track record and vault American student scores and make students internationally competitive.  What is a symbiotic relationship?

A symbiotic relationship is a relationship between two entities which is mutually beneficial for the participants of the relationship. Thus there is a positive-sum gain from cooperation. This is a term commonly used in biology to explain the relationship between two entities that need each other to survive and prosper.

The Department of Education provides the legal symbiotic structure for Gates and Pearson.  Private corporations are developing (and the Department of Education is mandating) educational programs taxpayers are required to support.  It's nifty for Gates and Pearson, an easy job for Federal bureaucrats providing government job security and a complete travesty for taxpayers.  You are paying into a system in which you have no voice.  These companies are not elected and not answerable to any constituents except their stockholders.

You are paying into a system of crony capitalism based on unproven assessments and results that will make private corporations billions of dollars with taxpayer money.  And remember, it's all for the children.