More than 1100 students in the parishes of Caddo and Webster have signed up for course choice programs with a provider whose chairman with close ties to former President George W. Bush and 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
An outfit named FastPath Learning of Austin, Texas, has somehow managed to obtain student information to sign up the students without the knowledge of the student or of their parents.
If true, that’s fraud, pure and simple—and a blatant violation of the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).
And the chairman of the board for FastPath? None other than Dr. Rod Paige, former U.S. Secretary of Education during President George W. Bush’s first term and a member of Mitt Romney’s Education Policy Advisory Group during last year’s presidential campaign.
Paige, it should be noted, also once served as superintendent of Houston’s schools and during his tenure there, he became mired in an ugly scandal when it was learned that the Houston system, seventh largest in the nation, had falsified its dropout statistics.
Course Choice, which is under the supervision of Department of Education (DOE) Deputy Superintendent of Portfolio Dave “Lefty” Lefkowith, is a DOE program whereby Louisiana public school students are allowed to sign up for online computer courses offered by providers approved by DOE.
Lefkowith, who once worked with Enron and with former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, commutes from his home in Los Angeles and is paid $146,000 per year by DOE.
Tuition for the courses ranges from $700 to $1,275 each and providers get one-half of their tuition fees up front upon registering students for courses. The second half is paid when a student successfully completes a course and the course providers have full autonomy in making the determination of when—or if—a student completes a course. The incentive to the provider, of course, is to have as many students as possible “complete” the courses.
Fox, welcome to the hen house.
The tuition is free to the student with the state picking up the tab. Students also receive a free iPad upon registering. There was no word if the 1,100 students who were unknowingly registered received iPads.
Students are allowed to take up to five classes outside their home school at taxpayer expense.
Students and parents in the two parishes say they never requested nor approved the registering of the students for the courses. One student was registered for a class he had already successfully completed in the classroom—with an A grade.
State Superintendent of Education John White, asked about the apparent lack of oversight, said Course Choice providers underwent a “rigorous” four-part approval process before being allowed to offer classes and that checks and balances are in place to insure that students do not end up in an academically unsound course.
Really?
On Wednesday, White announced DOE would attempt to finance the Course Choice program through its own resources following last week’s Louisiana Supreme Court ruling upholding a lower court decision that the method of using Minimum Foundation Program funds to pay for the vouchers was unconstitutional.
White said that more than 3,000 courses have been chosen thus far at an average cost of $700 each, a total of $2.1 million. Registration will remain open through August, he said.
The revelation of the 1,100 registrations which, if true, could be construed as fraud and theft could also involve a violation of the federal Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) since FastPath would necessarily require certain student information, including names, addresses, social security numbers, etc., in order to register the students.
The question then becomes just who provided that information to FastPath? There are already questions about White’s leaking information about evaluations of three Caddo Parish elementary teachers through an intermediary to the Baton Rouge Advocate last October.
That intermediary was Rayne Martin, a former employer of DOE who currently serves as executive director of Stand for Children Louisiana.
In the wake of the flap over the negative evaluations of the teachers, the Advocate published a letter to the editor which defended the Value Added Model used by DOE to evaluate the teachers and which even cited statistics from the leaked document.
Turns out that letter was written by Monica Candal, policy and data analyst for Stand for Children Louisiana, leaving one to wonder about the connection between White and Stand for Children.
Who knew?
Louisiana Voice attempted to contact FastPath by telephone. An automated message told us to press 1 if we were a student already enrolled in FastPath or to press 2 for “all other inquiries.”
We pressed 2 and got another automated message that said, “We’re sorry we are unable to answer your call at this time.” So we called back and pressed 1 and got an automated message that said (take a deep breath and count to 10), “We’re sorry we are unable to answer your call at this time.” This was at 10:45 a.m. on Thursday, so it wasn’t because they close during lunch.
Next, we went online and clicked on “Contact us” and several boxes popped up on our computer screen asking for our name, our organization, our email address and the city and state from which we were emailing them. Strangely, it did not request our telephone number, though we would have been happy to provide that as well.
The following note was typed into the message box:
“This is for Compliance Officer David Callaway:
How did FastPath obtain the information (names, schools, home addresses, phone numbers, social security numbers, etc.) on the 1100 students in Caddo and Webster parishes who were signed up for your Course Choice courses without, the students and parents claim, their knowledge or consent?
It would appear that you would have to be in possession of certain information in order to enroll these students and I simply want to know who provided that data to you.
Thanks.”
A few minutes after we sent the message, we received a computer-generated message in our email in-box that said, “Thanks for contacting us! We’ll get back to you soon.”
Does anyone care to take odds on whether or not we’ll ever hear back from them?
The leaks would seem to validate concerns about a recent agreement, since cancelled because of a public outcry, to furnish personal information on some 700,000 Louisiana school children to a data bank run by White’s former boss Joel Klein, now with inBloom, a data storage company (or data “parking garage,” to use White’s terminology) run by NewsCorp CEO Rupert Murdoch.
inBloom had offered no guarantees that the data could not be accessed by hackers and in fact, an unrelated privacy breach on Bloomberg News occurred when reporters extracted subscribers’ private information to break news stories. That breach would seem to lend credence to security concerns about inBloom.
Recent stories by LouisianaVoice have prompted a witch hunt at DOE in an effort to determine the source of recent stories. Personal printers have been removed so that documents must now be printed at a central location more easily monitored. IT personnel have been called in to review emails.
It seems to us, security—and Louisiana taxpayers—would somehow be better served through efforts to attempt to learn who provided FastPath with personal data on 1,100 students signed up for courses without their knowledge or consent.
This is theft. Without question this is theft. This MUST be brought before the applicable Grand Juries. Please make certain that the US Attorney and the EBR, Caddo, and Webster Parish DA’s are aware of this. I will be more than happy to hand-deliver this and earlier Advocate articles to the respective legal system authorities.
More than theft, this is messing with the Feds and Fed regulations.
Oh John…John, is that bus over there warming up for you? Not to worry cuz you’ll be thrown underneath it.
Reblogged this on Crazy Crawfish's Blog and commented:
I wonder if White realizes we have TFA contacts too? He keeps holding “secret” meetings with them thinking that protects him. Silly rabbit, cliques are for kids.
This probably mean that Jindal will appoint Dr. Paige after he Teagues White?
The CNSI debacle at DHH seemed hard to top, but this one certainly seems to be trying.
Never a dull moment with this administration eh? Shame they’re all negative.
Any updates on Greenstein and CNSI scandal?
Nope. Once the feds get involved, media access is pretty much shut down.
Mr. Aswell,
I appreciate your call and the opportunity to set the record straight.
First, we hope you will make clear to your readers that we do not possess ANY student information from any source. We are simply promoting our program to parents of eligible students by going to geographic areas within the attendance zones of failing schools.
Our mission is close the achievement gap; we give first priority to serving students in F schools because they need the most support. Our program is popular because our results are consistent and outstanding. Our students typically advance one grade level or more on standardized tests of reading and math.
Second, we have a strict protocol that all of our representatives follow, and they are paid a flat hourly rate for their work. As part of this protocol, parents are ALWAYS present during enrollment. All of our representatives wear identifying badges and we will take immediate action to address all legitimate concerns. Parents enroll in significant numbers because our program works. Over 95% of parents report an increase in their child’s grades in multiple subjects.
Third, before a student’s enrollment is completed, it is approved by a guidance counselor to ensure it is academically appropriate.
Fourth, while we do use technology in our courses, we neither promise nor provide students with a tablet computer simply for completing a course registration.
Fifth, we do not receive full tuition for our students from the state unless our program results in significant gains on the LEAP / iLEAP. We are confident in the effectiveness of our courses and we believe this “pay for results” concept is an outstanding idea.
Thank you again for contacting me.
Thank you,
David Callaway | Chief Compliance Officer
FastPath Learning
Office : 512.419.7983 | Office Fax : 310.496.2826
Direct Fax : 772.264.8081 |
Northpoint Centre II
6850 Austin Centre Boulevard, Suite 320,
Austin, TX 78731
“Make it Happen, with Integrity”
Comments readers? Counselors? Principals? School superintendents? We would love feedback on Mr. Callaway’s statement.
—Tom Aswell
I checked their website last night and they were advertising for a recruiter for Monroe. And when you check the Louisiana Secretary of State’s Commercial Section records FastPath Learning, LLC doesn’t list any officers/directors/partners/etc., only the Louisiana agent for service. On the company site, Rod Paige is shown as Chairman of the advisory committee whatever that might be.
Show us the data!
“95 per cent of parents report an increase in grades”…this is supposed to impress us? What are the actual gains in terms of standardized achievement test scores??
What is the process that would allow a federal agency to become aware of possible issues? What would trigger an investigation on their part?
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/corruption
Why thank you LuLu! I am not sure if these particular issues relate to the FBI’s initiatives at first glance, but making a request of them surely would not hurt!
A parent of a student who did not sign up complaining to law enforcement about id theft. Or better yet, a group of parents. But to the feds, not state law enforcement or local D.A.
Try researching a company called tutors with computers and a company called read and succeed. Fastpath is the same company, just a different name and is a scam of state dollars. They have been doing this all over the country.
Is this not the same type of company with an ad promising up to $75k to high-performing sales reps? It seems as if one of the right candidates found 75,000 reasons to get a head start. I don’t understand why these program models can’t be brought into our schools. Who ever heard of ripping apart a community in the name of differentiation?
Dave Callaway: “Over 95% of parents report an increase in their child’s grades in multiple subjects.”
—-
Anecdotal evidence is no evidence.
Upon receiving that communication from Mr. Callaway, I immediately sent him an email asking him to quantify that claim with written documentation.
I have not heard back from him.
I laughed out loud…..did you catch their slogan……what a hoot!
“Make it Happen, with Integrity”
You really can’t make this up…..edufrauds selling educrap.
[…] of the state’s investigative bloggers discovered that some 1,100 students had enrolled– without their knowledge— in an online course offered by a Texas […]
White insists that the student data he was providing to inBloom and others existed only in a cloud and was not accessible without the district or state authorization (never mind parental approval). The story is that the data would instruct sellers of educational materials/programs WHEN a teacher or parent REQUESTED it for the child – not that the vendor would be given the information so it could SEEK OUT the child. Now we have proof that it in fact is turned over to humans and those humans actually make contact with children. Super Scarey that they went door to door and with no credentials or prior warning to parents. Gheeeezzzz!
Gettin’ sloppy here John?
http://www.wwltv.com/news/local/Audit-DOE-skipped-steps-in-monitoring-charters-208164521.html
At least Jindal and Co. are showing first hand what happens when you hand your government over to the almighty-profit-seeking so-called “jobs creators.” It’s all about themselves.
[…] The Course Choice program is fraught with fraud which will cost Louisiana millions of dollars annually as it stands now […]
[…] the case of Course Choice, the severely unregulated nature of the program does not even ensure that students would actually attend the courses. Vendors […]
Do your work. If that is such a great deal for that company why are they not around? You act like they were taking kickbacks. Most if these parents probably wouldn’t have any idea they signed up when someone came to their door.
Trust me. I did my homework on this. You may wish to do your own research. The company isn’t around because after my stories, all the enrollments were pulled because of the questionable tactics. This company has problems everywhere it has gone and its leader was forced to resign from the Bush administration because of cheating in the Houston district while he was superintendent there. All the information is out there for anyone to research, which I did and you obviously did not. As for the company taking kickbacks, why should it? The tuition it was charging made kickbacks unnecessary–and students were not even required to complete the courses for the company to collect. Your rambling comment is like a drunk driving at night with his headlights turned off.
[…] the case of Course Choice, the severely unregulated nature of the program does not even ensure that students would actually attend the courses. Vendors […]