Dozens of schools bent rules for online classes, credit recovery

NY Post ^ | August 26, 2016 | Yoav Gonen

[EinNYC]

Some top-rated schools were among 36 that the Department of Education found bent the rules on “credit recovery” and online courses — potentially giving their students an undeserved leg up, The Post has learned.

They include the NYC iSchool in Soho, which was offering online courses that weren’t “aligned to DOE expectations,” and six so-called “consortium” schools whose students are exempt from the requirement that they pass all five Regents exams to graduate.

[EinNYC]

This kind of absolute corruption is what I've been telling FReepers about for a long time. Nice to see the media finally caught up and actually reported some. In their efforts to push kids through the system, never mind if they actually acquire any skills or learning, schools invest in computer software like Castle Learning, where students read a few paragraphs online, click on A-B-C-D answers and are deemed "educated". They can actually make up missing class or failing classes with this nonsense. There are also fake courses made up and coded as "review" classes wherein they can get credit for courses in a parody of an actual course. I've also personally seen guidance counselors give credit twice for a single course in 2 different categories. The whole system is a morass of fraud, corruption, cheating students out of an actual education, substitution of Commie Core garbage for actual teaching, harassing older teachers who still remember what real teaching is to leave the system either by retirement or by being put up on false charges, etc. It is a disgrace.

[Daffynition]

Well, to have 16-17 y/os in your sixth grade is a bit unnerving. The only good thing was, they left school every day at 1:00 to see their parole officers ...so we had them for only a half-day.

Oh the good times and ankle bracelets. I don’t miss them at all.

[WENDLE]

College is the greatest fraud ever perpetrated on the American people.It is a crime what they are doing. The utter “stupidity” of graduates is astounding. The bloated tuition and government grants are a racket. My best guess is it lasts for two more years . The main thing is to NEVER forgive these student loans. The whole thing was a fraud on taxpayers and a wind fall for lazy “ students’ that don’t have a clue about WWII. — NOT A DAMNED CLUE!!. I want that money paid back — every damned dime or we take it from your social security and every tax refund forever!! I want a lien on their houses!!

[MacMattico]

I’m in NY State but not NYC. I see this in our suburban school district. My daughter was in an honors curriculum and was never allowed to take reputable, respected online courses to graduate, but students that were considered “at risk” or who had failed a class or several were put into a computer lab and said to be taking “credit recovery” courses online which amounted to reading and taking multiple choice questions. When you passed a section you moved on. There is no way they could be receiving the required instruction or lab work required in a normal classroom. In the worst cases I saw (still see) those that are considered “troubled” or “at risk” come in to school at 3:15 and leave by 5:00 only working on the computer. Some how this translates to the required courses needed and they graduate. I do not know how this is possible when some of these students failed most of 9th grade and NY State requires 4 years of Social Studies, 4 years of English, 3 of Math, 3 of Science, 1 of Art or Music and 1 of a foreign language plus electives to equal at least 18 full year course credits. Oh and 4 years of physical education— I do not know how that’s done on a computer. This is the minimal Regents level degree for NYS and required by all except the profoundly disabled to graduate from a NYS high school. It’s just not possible to accomplish from 3:15-5:00 on a computer when you couldn’t pass it in the normal class day. I have seen and heard students telling others it’s “so much easier” and “you can sleep almost all day and show up to school at 3:15”.

[kearnyirish2]

A big racket with online colleges is having teachers get online degrees without any work to drive up their union wages.

[WENDLE]

This entire college and university scam is about to take a bad fall. I paid for mine— I will not pay for theirs. You have no right to a degree in sociology or cultural studies on my dime!!

[kearnyirish2]

Here in NJ colleges can’t attract American students, so they recruit overseas. Very efficient - we’re training the Asians that are our white-collar replacements in the same areas where they’ll be working...

Colleges, like businesses, are not “American”.