The entire Varsity Blues scandal is bad enough with Lori Loughlin, Felicity Huffman and a host of others on the hook for their part in gaming their kids into college. What’s as bad or worse is that many of the parents involved also gamed the system by claiming their kids had some type of learning or medical disability!
“According to the indictment, Singer told one client, Gordon R. Caplan, the co-chairman of New York law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP, to instruct his daughter “to be stupid, not to be as smart as she is” when being tested by a psychologist on Singer’s payroll, who would then diagnose the student with a learning disability, thus qualifying her for extra time.”
Oh. Ok! Wait WHAT??!!
“According to interviews with parents and educational experts, certain psychologists and educational therapists who specialize in learning disabilities charge exorbitant fees, often in the range of $5,000, to give a diagnosis that will result in extra time.
“It takes parents about one second to find these doctors,” says Simon, “These fake diagnoses are part of the problem and it’s something that allowed this scandal in part to take place.””
Look, I know that there are stories of folks who’ve gone doctor shopping to get the diagnosis they want for themselves. or parents who’ve doctor shopped because they refuse to acknowledge a very real issue with their child or don’t believe the original diagnosis.
THIS however is shopping for a doctor who will help their kid skate through big tests by having more time than others, even though said kid has NO learning or medical disability whatsoever!
The parents along with Singer and any involved in pushing this particular part of the scam need to pay the consequences.
Whoever these doctors are that are diagnosing these kids with disabilities should be investigated as well.
Look into how long they were seeing the patients, guidelines of diagnosis, possible bribes and things of that nature. #VarsityBluesScandal https://t.co/1ycZX7W7yP— Mike Callahan (@Mikelee8810) March 17, 2019
Absolutely. Whomever the so-called medical professionals are, they need to be fined and have their medical licenses yanked permanently!
Even college students have noticed that classmates are trying to buy fake diagnosis in order to have more time to take a test THAT THEY SHOULD HAVE STUDIED FOR!!
“Jessa Glassman, a junior, called attention to a problem at her elite private school: extra time for tests, intended to help children with learning disabilities level the playing field, but which she believes many of her peers have abused.
“I have seen more than a few of my classmates flock to specialists with the hopes of being diagnosed with a disorder that would qualify them for extra time on their entrance exams,” Glassman wrote. “Extra time has been exploited by some wealthy families who use their easy access to expensive medical professionals to give their children an upper hand in the college admissions process.””
Am I yelling periodically as I write this? Damn skippy!
You see, my daughter is a sophomore in college. At the very start of her junior year in high school, she was diagnosed with epilepsy. It was a diagnosis that came out of left field for all of us. She dealt with seizures and the aftermath of her seizures, time away from school for seizure studies, and the struggle to keep up with her classes. We put a 504 plan in place in order to ensure that the teachers and staff would work WITH her and communicate in detail what her assignments are.
She refused to ask for extra time to take any test. She studied hard for her SAT and ACT tests. Did she ask for extra time for those? She refused to consider it.
For her college essay she made it absolutely clear that she will always work hard and refuses to let her epilepsy determine how she lives and how successful she will be in school.
She finished her freshman year of college with A’s & B’s, and made the Fall 2018 Dean’s List.
Yet here we have parents and medical professionals gleefully gaming the system with false learning and medical disability diagnosis to the determent of students who actually DO have a genuine learning disability! They did so to the detriment of students who have medical issues yet are giving their all to get the education they want.
I really think this #VarsityBluesScandal and #theranosfraud and #fyrefraud is a byproduct of participation ribbons, parents yelling at teachers and kids being told they can do anything and never having any consequences
— Angela (@casamohr) March 17, 2019
That is an excellent point, but doesn’t excuse their actions one bit. All those involved are facing potential jail time.
Gaming the system is bad enough. But gaming the system while claiming a non-existent disability is disgusting on every level.
Feature Photo Credit: panitanphoto Royalty-free stock photo ID: 704005726 via Shutterstock, cropped and modified
sound awake says: they do what they do out in the open for the whole world to see
they do so with no shame guilt or remorse
they can deny reality of course
but there will come a time when they will no longer be afforded the luxury of denying the consequences of denying reality
and that right soon
What’s new. We had a doctor in Wisconsin, during the besieging of the state legislature, openly writing fraudulent sick notes for government employees.
The therapy pet idea has become a complete fraud and everyone knows it. These, and many other cases, bread open contempt for the rules.
Regards,
Bill
Stage Mom says: The unasked question is whether the cheating students would have gotten into the schools of their choice if they were, for instance, black. We will never know, but, If so, then their parents simply sought to give their kids the same advantages as the children of the “under”privileged. They would have been better off determining that their children are 1/1024 native american or eskimo.
GWB says: Yet here we have parents….
Because college is now a status symbol. It’s no longer actually a measure of learning difficult things and a broad range of facts and knowledge and critical thinking. It’s simply a ticket to a job (“Oh, you’ve got a degree, good.”) or a notice that you’re the right kind of people (“Oh, I see here you graduated from [Goodthink School name here]. Welcome to the team.”). Getting into the “good” schools – for these parents – is how you signal “My kid is one of the special people.”
I think they also don’t see any of their actions as depriving a more deserving student. After all, those sorts of people always have State U they can attend (said with a disdainful sniff or their nose in the air).
Jim says: Sadly there are parents the world over and certainly where I live who seek diagnoses, e.g. autism when the child is actually just a spoiled and uncontrollable brat, just to get special services for their children thus robbing the children who are actually deserving of those services. Thus we find children in special schools just because they are behaviour problems, though their developmental profile is in the normal range. Some parents also seek diagnoses that are socially acceptable. For instance a social worker in Virginia once commented to me that upper class/wealthy parents have children with ”learning disabilities” while blue collar parents have children who are ”mentally retarded”.
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