Fraud or no?

Monday’s OC Reg story about the curious way that Saddleback College receives state funds for Emeritus (for-the-elderly) PE courses (Is college cheating state for seniors’ fitness classes?) has legs, I guess. As of this morning, the story, which was occasioned by the persistent complaints of Laguna Woods Woods resident Doug Goforth, has attracted 64 comments, almost all of them indignant and angry. That’s not counting comments that the follow-up piece, including a brief response from Saddleback College’s Jennie McCue, has attracted.

On the other hand, only five comments were posted in the last two days, and so reader interest is flagging.

"They're free, Pops!"

In that follow-up piece (which appeared only hours after Monday’s initial article), the college had been asked to respond to Mr. Goforth’s claims, and McCue did so, but her remarks did not respond to important aspects of Goforth’s objections—essentially, that fraud is afoot.

Further, the Reg reporter, Teri Sforza, stated that “we’re still waiting on dollar figures for the Emeritus physical education program….”

Naturally, since Monday, I’ve been keeping up with the Reg, hoping to see those dollar figures and any further explanation or defense by the college. As far as I know, after five days, none has appeared (at least in the Reg).

Yesterday, the Reg posted the article again (Laguna Woods man skeptical of classes), this time essentially combining the original article with the follow-up.

Sforza repeats that:

We could be way off base here, but the entire episode sounds hauntingly similar to the “phantom classes” investigation done by our colleagues at the Register five years ago. They found that the state's community colleges artificially inflated enrollment by counting high school athletes – at their regular high school sports practices – as community college students.

Yeah. The worry here is that, once again, a kind of fraud is afoot.

Naturally, one must keep these matters in perspective: the state's community college system is huge, and the occurrence of instances of fraud simpliciter are pretty rare. Instances of systemic unselfish fraud (i.e., fraud for the sake of programs, not perpetrators' gain) are, I suppose, less rare, but by no means epitomize the system.

By Friday, had Sforza received any financial data?

We have asked Saddleback, and the state of California, for dollar details of these “Emeritus” physical education classes, both locally and statewide. We are waiting for those figures, and we'll keep you posted.

Sforza also quotes from a petition “for Eliminating Clubhouse One Saddleback Emeritus Classes,” which was presented to an LWV governing board weeks ago:

“This class is not a traditional class environment in that it is not designed for group instruction. Since there is only one Saddleback College instructor present for the class, most of the students never receive individual instruction either. The Fitness Center Staff is used to assist in the operation of the facility while these classes are in session. Most workout programs of residents are prepared by this staff outside of class. This same staff operates the Fitness Center in the afternoon and evenings without a Saddleback instructor because there is no additional benefit to the residents in having an instructor there.”

Sforza once again notes that, despite the petition, LWV’s governing board decided that residents liked the classes, though the board evidently recognized the need for some changes, including adding another instructor per course.

Some critics of Saddleback's Emeritus PE courses are pretty clueless about public education and, too often, they offer the simplistic demagogic rhetoric of the “government is the problem” crowd. But it seems to me that, at bottom, they do have a point here. Are we (i.e., the two colleges of SOCCCD) getting state funds for courses that aren’t really courses or that aren’t sufficiently course-like?

Seems so. It'll be interesting to see where this goes. Let's hope we won't once again become the poster child for some idiocy or scandal.