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University High School, a correspondence school in Miami being investigated for giving fast, high grades to qualify high school athletes for college scholarships, is going out of business Dec. 31, its founder, Stanley J. Simmons, said yesterday.
"It's a disaster," Simmons, 75, said in a telephone interview from his Miami home. "I'm finishing up everything, and I'm going back into retirement."
The National Collegiate Athletic Association yesterday named 17 people to a panel to study correspondence high schools and other nontraditional routes to college athletic eligibility and scholarships. The move is a response to questions about the legitimacy of the academic credentials of some high school athletes.
Myles Brand, the N.C.A.A. president, said that he wanted the panel to propose tighter rules by the summer.
University High School offered degrees for $399 to high school athletes having grade problems, as well as to the older dropouts and the immigrants who were its main clients.
The school had no classes or instructors and operated virtually without supervision. Florida state law prohibits oversight of private schools.
The Miami-Dade state attorney's office was awaiting returns from subpoenas in its investigation of the school over possible fraud, the spokesman Ed Griffith said. It would not know if a crime was committed until it gathered more information, he added.
Elite athletes in Dade County said they received study guides with open-book tests and got quick A's and B's. The N.C.A.A. and college admissions offices accepted those grades.
Twenty-eight high school athletes sent University High School transcripts to the N.C.A.A. eligibility clearinghouse in the past few years, according to a University of Tennessee report. The New York Times identified 14 who had signed with 11 Division I football programs: Auburn, Central Florida, Colorado State, Florida, Florida State, Florida International, Rutgers, South Carolina State, South Florida, Tennessee and Temple.
Brand said in a news release yesterday that he expected the N.C.A.A. panel to focus on the process for reviewing nontraditional courses and to tighten the eligibility rules. The panel, which includes three college presidents, is expected to issue preliminary recommendations in April and a report in June for rule changes effective in 2007.
In Miami yesterday, a leasing agent said University High School had vacated its unit in an office building. The small space was available for $1,300 a month. The school name had been removed from the building directory and a sign that read "Enabling homeschoolers nationwide - University High School" had been removed from the office door.
Simmons, who founded the school in 2000, said he had sold it about 14 months ago to Michael R. Kinney, 27, of Miami, who had operated it for him for years. Simmons said Kinney defaulted on his monthly payment after The Times wrote about the school last month, prompting state investigations.
Simmons said the school was "totally mismanaged - probably more than mismanaged" - and also that Kinney was responsible for the venture to help high school athletes qualify for N.C.A.A. scholarships. "There's no way that I would consider remaining in the business," Simmons said.
Simmons wrote a letter for the remaining students, telling them to pay their fees and finish their tests before Dec. 31. The letter concluded, in all upper-case letters, "If you are serious about receiving your high school diploma, we recommend that you act now!"
Simmons, who holds a master's degree in education from the University of Michigan, taught in Miami schools and a community college before opening a series of correspondence schools beginning in 1976. He served 10 months in a federal prison camp after pleading guilty in 1989 to conspiracy to commit mail fraud, a felony, in connection with a diploma-mill university. Since then, he has operated correspondence high schools.
Kinney could not be reached and has repeatedly declined to comment. "He caused all these problems," Simmons said of Kinney.
Simmons added that the N.C.A.A. had written Kinney to say he needed to respond to N.C.A.A. questions or be dropped from the N.C.A.A. Initial-Eligibility Clearinghouse. Simmons said he had lost the letter but did not plan to respond anyway, because he was going out of business.
Diane Dickman, the N.C.A.A.'s managing director for membership services, who oversees the clearinghouse, said yesterday that similar letters have gone to three to five other correspondence high schools.
The N.C.A.A. panel was asked to focus on four subjects, of which only the first applies directly to University High School:
The N.C.A.A. criteria and the approval process for high school academic core courses. The N.C.A.A. had many specific criteria and a staff review process for courses before 2000, when it deregulated the system to allow principals to certify that their courses met broad criteria, such as access to instructors. That change coincided with the N.C.A.A.'s first allowing correspondence school credits.
Time limits on core courses. Dickman said some athletes took a 13th year of school before entering a university.
The adequacy of core courses at preparatory schools. Dickman said these were schools with actual classes aimed at elite football and basketball players.
The requirements for reporting ACT and SAT scores to the N.C.A.A.
Kevin Lennon, the N.C.A.A. vice president for membership services, will be the chairman of the panel. Its members, announced yesterday, are Mike Alden, the athletic director at Missouri; Dick Baddour, the athletic director at North Carolina; Thurston Banks, a faculty athletic representative at Tennessee Tech; Drew Bogner, the president at Molloy College; Jim Castaneda, a faculty athletic representative at Rice; Jim Haney, the executive director of the National Association of Basketball Coaches; Jay Helman, the president of Western State College; Carol Iwaoka, an associate commissioner of the Big Ten Conference; Robert Kanaby, the director of the National Federation of State High School Associations; Judith E. Leonard, the vice president for legal affairs and general counsel at Arizona; Mary Lisko, a faculty athletic representative at Augusta State; Bernie Machen, the president of the University of Florida; Dan Ross, the commissioner of the Ohio High School Athletic Association; Greg Sankey, an associate commissioner of the Southeastern Conference; Calvin R. Symons, the director of the N.C.A.A. Initial-Eligibility Clearinghouse; Grant Teaff, the executive director of the American Football Coaches Association; and Charlie Whitcomb, the vice provost for academic administration and personnel at San Jose State.
Sankey had helped SEC officials prepare a Nov. 2 letter to Brand warning that the legitimacy of some nontraditional high schools was "a matter of national consequence." Yesterday, Sankey said that the letter was prompted by concerns within the conference about University High School, but that the issue was broader.
"We obviously saw the correspondence work as a problem that drew a lot of attention this year, but there have also been these persistent conversations about what are the strategies to get around fulfilling the expectations of the N.C.A.A.," he said.
"I'm hopeful there will be a pretty broad discussion about some of the weaknesses or gaps in our current structure and work to close those, so we can move closer to assuring every student-athlete really does the work expected of him to be prepared for college."
Source: AP
"It's a disaster," Simmons, 75, said in a telephone interview from his Miami home. "I'm finishing up everything, and I'm going back into retirement."
The National Collegiate Athletic Association yesterday named 17 people to a panel to study correspondence high schools and other nontraditional routes to college athletic eligibility and scholarships. The move is a response to questions about the legitimacy of the academic credentials of some high school athletes.
Myles Brand, the N.C.A.A. president, said that he wanted the panel to propose tighter rules by the summer.
University High School offered degrees for $399 to high school athletes having grade problems, as well as to the older dropouts and the immigrants who were its main clients.
The school had no classes or instructors and operated virtually without supervision. Florida state law prohibits oversight of private schools.
The Miami-Dade state attorney's office was awaiting returns from subpoenas in its investigation of the school over possible fraud, the spokesman Ed Griffith said. It would not know if a crime was committed until it gathered more information, he added.
Elite athletes in Dade County said they received study guides with open-book tests and got quick A's and B's. The N.C.A.A. and college admissions offices accepted those grades.
Twenty-eight high school athletes sent University High School transcripts to the N.C.A.A. eligibility clearinghouse in the past few years, according to a University of Tennessee report. The New York Times identified 14 who had signed with 11 Division I football programs: Auburn, Central Florida, Colorado State, Florida, Florida State, Florida International, Rutgers, South Carolina State, South Florida, Tennessee and Temple.
Brand said in a news release yesterday that he expected the N.C.A.A. panel to focus on the process for reviewing nontraditional courses and to tighten the eligibility rules. The panel, which includes three college presidents, is expected to issue preliminary recommendations in April and a report in June for rule changes effective in 2007.
In Miami yesterday, a leasing agent said University High School had vacated its unit in an office building. The small space was available for $1,300 a month. The school name had been removed from the building directory and a sign that read "Enabling homeschoolers nationwide - University High School" had been removed from the office door.
Simmons, who founded the school in 2000, said he had sold it about 14 months ago to Michael R. Kinney, 27, of Miami, who had operated it for him for years. Simmons said Kinney defaulted on his monthly payment after The Times wrote about the school last month, prompting state investigations.
Simmons said the school was "totally mismanaged - probably more than mismanaged" - and also that Kinney was responsible for the venture to help high school athletes qualify for N.C.A.A. scholarships. "There's no way that I would consider remaining in the business," Simmons said.
Simmons wrote a letter for the remaining students, telling them to pay their fees and finish their tests before Dec. 31. The letter concluded, in all upper-case letters, "If you are serious about receiving your high school diploma, we recommend that you act now!"
Simmons, who holds a master's degree in education from the University of Michigan, taught in Miami schools and a community college before opening a series of correspondence schools beginning in 1976. He served 10 months in a federal prison camp after pleading guilty in 1989 to conspiracy to commit mail fraud, a felony, in connection with a diploma-mill university. Since then, he has operated correspondence high schools.
Kinney could not be reached and has repeatedly declined to comment. "He caused all these problems," Simmons said of Kinney.
Simmons added that the N.C.A.A. had written Kinney to say he needed to respond to N.C.A.A. questions or be dropped from the N.C.A.A. Initial-Eligibility Clearinghouse. Simmons said he had lost the letter but did not plan to respond anyway, because he was going out of business.
Diane Dickman, the N.C.A.A.'s managing director for membership services, who oversees the clearinghouse, said yesterday that similar letters have gone to three to five other correspondence high schools.
The N.C.A.A. panel was asked to focus on four subjects, of which only the first applies directly to University High School:
The N.C.A.A. criteria and the approval process for high school academic core courses. The N.C.A.A. had many specific criteria and a staff review process for courses before 2000, when it deregulated the system to allow principals to certify that their courses met broad criteria, such as access to instructors. That change coincided with the N.C.A.A.'s first allowing correspondence school credits.
Time limits on core courses. Dickman said some athletes took a 13th year of school before entering a university.
The adequacy of core courses at preparatory schools. Dickman said these were schools with actual classes aimed at elite football and basketball players.
The requirements for reporting ACT and SAT scores to the N.C.A.A.
Kevin Lennon, the N.C.A.A. vice president for membership services, will be the chairman of the panel. Its members, announced yesterday, are Mike Alden, the athletic director at Missouri; Dick Baddour, the athletic director at North Carolina; Thurston Banks, a faculty athletic representative at Tennessee Tech; Drew Bogner, the president at Molloy College; Jim Castaneda, a faculty athletic representative at Rice; Jim Haney, the executive director of the National Association of Basketball Coaches; Jay Helman, the president of Western State College; Carol Iwaoka, an associate commissioner of the Big Ten Conference; Robert Kanaby, the director of the National Federation of State High School Associations; Judith E. Leonard, the vice president for legal affairs and general counsel at Arizona; Mary Lisko, a faculty athletic representative at Augusta State; Bernie Machen, the president of the University of Florida; Dan Ross, the commissioner of the Ohio High School Athletic Association; Greg Sankey, an associate commissioner of the Southeastern Conference; Calvin R. Symons, the director of the N.C.A.A. Initial-Eligibility Clearinghouse; Grant Teaff, the executive director of the American Football Coaches Association; and Charlie Whitcomb, the vice provost for academic administration and personnel at San Jose State.
Sankey had helped SEC officials prepare a Nov. 2 letter to Brand warning that the legitimacy of some nontraditional high schools was "a matter of national consequence." Yesterday, Sankey said that the letter was prompted by concerns within the conference about University High School, but that the issue was broader.
"We obviously saw the correspondence work as a problem that drew a lot of attention this year, but there have also been these persistent conversations about what are the strategies to get around fulfilling the expectations of the N.C.A.A.," he said.
"I'm hopeful there will be a pretty broad discussion about some of the weaknesses or gaps in our current structure and work to close those, so we can move closer to assuring every student-athlete really does the work expected of him to be prepared for college."
Source: AP