It was embarrassing enough when the Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently withdrew its defective “undercover study” issued last summer as part of the Obama Education Department’s campaign against for-profit colleges. Readers will recall how the GAO sent undercover “students” to several schools to capture information as evidence for the Education Department and a Senate committee. This was all part of their larger effort to justify the proposed “Gainful Employment” rule targeting for-profit career colleges that provide critical training and education to struggling Americans. Worse, this came on the heels of a letter from Senators Tom Coburn (R – Oklahoma) and Richard Burr (R – North Carolina) seeking investigation into allegations of insider trading within the Education Department relating to its campaign to cripple career colleges.
Now comes a report providing greater detail on just how malignant that the defective GAO “undercover” report was. According to Frederick Hess and Andrew Kelly, fully 16 of the report’s 28 findings required revision. Tellingly, every single one of those “findings” skewed the same direction – casting for-profit career colleges negatively. The statistical likelihood of all 16 randomly tilting the same way, according to Mr. Hess and Mr. Kelly, is 1 in 65,536.
That doesn’t suggest extreme coincidence. It suggests intentional malfeasance.
Amid persistent unemployment and intense global competition, for-profit colleges provide important alternatives for education and job skills. That is why CFIF has formally petitioned Chairman-Elect Darrell Issa (R – California) of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to investigate this matter. It is also important that supporters and activists across the nation contact their Senators and Representatives to help stop the Obama Administration’s unjustifiable scheme.
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