Florida School Is Target of Inquiry
November 29, 2005
Florida School Is Target of Inquiry
By PETE THAMEL
The Florida High School Athletic Association announced yesterday that it was starting an inquiry into University High School, a correspondence school where several students quickly improved their grades to gain college eligibility.
John A. Stewart, the association commissioner, said the inquiry would take place over the next few weeks and would examine the legitimacy of University High. Stewart declined to say which public high schools would be contacted.
Stewart said that a New York Times article on Sunday about high school football players dropping out of public schools to attend University High prompted the inquiry.
University High has no classes and no educational accreditation. It was founded by Stanley J. Simmons, who served 10 months in a federal prison camp after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud for his association with a college degree mill.
"We have a lot of reservations about numerous things mentioned in the article," Stewart said.
Joseph Garcia, a spokesman for Miami Dade County Public Schools, said his organization would also be making inquiries. The article detailed how Antron Wright, a former Dade County substitute teacher, had lured students to Killian High School, a public school, and later to University High.
"Certainly this question of whether an individual is enticing a student athlete to move from one school to another is a serious concern," Garcia said.
The Times identified 14 students from the Miami area who attended University High and went on to sign with 11 Division I football programs. Many of the students said they had significantly increased their grade point average over short periods at University High, graduating in as little as three weeks.
Three of the colleges that accepted University High graduates - Tennessee, Auburn and Florida - play in the Southeastern Conference.
Mike Slive, the SEC commissioner, said he was pleased that the conference had questioned what he said was a loophole in N.C.A.A. rules that had allowed University High transcripts to be accepted. Slive pointed to a 10-point letter that the SEC sent to the N.C.A.A. on Nov. 2 as proof of the conference's scrutiny of the issue.
"It's important now that this loophole be looked at nationally," Slive said. "In 2000, when the N.C.A.A. decided to move away from some critical analysis, it opened the door and people moved ahead with it."
Partly in response to the SEC's letter, the N.C.A.A. is forming a group of college and high school administrators to look into the subject and forward recommendations to the N.C.A.A. by June 1.
The group will examine how correspondence school courses are reviewed, the legitimacy of high school credentials and the time limitations on meeting core course requirements.
"We think this is a bigger issue than the operation in South Florida," said the University of Florida's president, Bernie Machen.
"We think it could be all over. A few years ago, it was in the junior colleges; now this is the next wave higher education is going to have to deal with."
Allen Ezell, a former F.B.I. agent who specialized in investigating degree mills, said yesterday that University High "sounded like watered-down education to the point of being fraudulent."
Ezell spent 11 years investigating college degree mills for the F.B.I., and helped shut down about 40 of them, including one that Simmons was affiliated with.
He said that focusing attention on places like University High could lead to increased state regulation. Florida law is explicit in its hands-off policy toward regulating private schools and their curriculums.
Ezell said, "It may be good to point out a flaw in the system: that no one does regulate them."
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