It started out as a solitary blog entry, no more or less. However, because of frequent goading by supposedly Linda Christas' staff, volunteers and students, I have taken it upon myself to continue to perform research on this weird American enterprise.
This research has been slow going. There's not a lot of information out there and it's often incomplete. As I've reported here before, most of the names on the so-called Advisory Committee only pop up in Google in relation to Linda Christas. I certainly don't view this finding as very beneficial to the company image.
I recently discovered that one of the reasons I've had such a hard time getting a handle on this enterprise is that there is more than one Linda Christas incarnation. According to the Better Business Bureau (BBB), there are 3 Linda Christas companies: Linda Christas Education Services (LCES) of Cloquet, MN; and 2 different listings for the Linda Christas College Fund (LCFC), one in Sacramento, CA and another in Santa Ana, CA.
According to the BBB of Minnesota & North Dakota, the owner of the LCES is Ms. Christine Dusek, MS, a name I can find nowhere on the Linda Christas website nor has it ever been mentioned in any of voluminous correspondence I've received from LC-connected people.
According to the BBB of Northeast California, the principal person is Ron Bernard. However, in an interesting twist, Ron Bernard is also the stated dean of the Linda Christas Academy which it appears is owned by LCES. Seems a little murky to me.
According to the BBB, the other LCCF has no principal person at all. However, it does give this incarnation of the LCCF a CC Rating. Their are 11 ratings from AAA - F. The CC Rating is the 4th lowest.
According to the Linda Christas website, the enterprise is a private not-for-profit organization. My research has revealed that this statement is not completely true. From the BBB of Northeast California:
I've found nothing on the Linda Christas website that even hints at the fact that the educational services are provided by a for-profit company and that the advocacy services are provided by a PAC (note: ALL political action committees are not-for-profit entities). I'm also a bit confused because there seems to be yet another entity -- Linda Christas Tutoring Services -- that is not listed at all with any of the BBBs.
This information answers for me a nagging question I've had for some time. Most educational organizations on the web use .edu. I always thought it was weird that Linda Christas only used .org and .com. Now, it is clear that they don't qualify as the kind of institution that could use .edu.
There's another issue I'm trying to nail down too, but it may be a while until I figure out how to find a complete answer. Linda Christas offers a full-time academy that offers programs "which satisfy the requirements of the most elite colleges in the United States."
However, as documented in my last entry on this overall topic, Linda Christas is NOT accredited by any of the accepted educational accreditation agencies (so they created one of their own). Consequently, if a student enrolls full-time at Linda Christas, do they receive a high school diploma AND, if so, is that diploma recognized by anyone other than Linda Christas?
**** Addendum ****
Since the Linda Christas College Fund advertises itself as a political action committee, I realized I could look them up. I performed searches with the Federal Elections Commission and the California Secretary of States Office. Guess what? Neither have ANY listings for a committee with the words, "Linda Christas". Not a one.
In order to be a political action committee, a group must register with some governmental entity. So, this begs the question: What entity, if any, is the Linda Christas College Fund registered with?
Just to be thorough, I also performed searches on the IRS Charities database and the Charities Search with California Attorney General's Office. Again, I found zero (0) results. Finally, I tried the GuideStar search engine which records information on over 1.5 million nonprofit organizations. As with all my previous attempts, there is no listing for Linda Christas.
Though I certainly won't argue this amounts to an exhaustive search, from what I've been able to discern at this point, the Linda Christas College Fund does NOT appear to be a political action committee NOR a nonprofit organization. My research has also indicated it is NOT an educational institution.
So, what are we left with? A for-profit business -- which is certainly NOT the way the LCCF present itself to the public.
**** ADDENDUM #2 ****
As quoted above, Linda Christas claims that their programs "satisfy the requirements of the most elite colleges in the United States." So, I decided to visit the websites of many elite institutions of higher learning to see what they had to say about this enterprise. I would expect there to be a few documents that mentioned the exploits of students who've been awarded scholarships by Linda Christas or collaborations with Linda Christas' staff on the development of said programs or, possibly, a recommendation or two about how the Linda Christas program might aid students in gaining admittance in this competitive world. Basically, I was looking for ANY mention of Linda Christas and its services.
As with every other search I've conducted on this topic, I came up with the big goose egg. Not one mention of any document or web page which featured the words, "Linda Christas". Not even a measly one.
The sites I checked are all Ivy League Schools (Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn, Princeton & Yale), Stanford, MIT, Amherst, University of Chicago and Swathmore.
This research has been slow going. There's not a lot of information out there and it's often incomplete. As I've reported here before, most of the names on the so-called Advisory Committee only pop up in Google in relation to Linda Christas. I certainly don't view this finding as very beneficial to the company image.
I recently discovered that one of the reasons I've had such a hard time getting a handle on this enterprise is that there is more than one Linda Christas incarnation. According to the Better Business Bureau (BBB), there are 3 Linda Christas companies: Linda Christas Education Services (LCES) of Cloquet, MN; and 2 different listings for the Linda Christas College Fund (LCFC), one in Sacramento, CA and another in Santa Ana, CA.
According to the BBB of Minnesota & North Dakota, the owner of the LCES is Ms. Christine Dusek, MS, a name I can find nowhere on the Linda Christas website nor has it ever been mentioned in any of voluminous correspondence I've received from LC-connected people.
According to the BBB of Northeast California, the principal person is Ron Bernard. However, in an interesting twist, Ron Bernard is also the stated dean of the Linda Christas Academy which it appears is owned by LCES. Seems a little murky to me.
According to the BBB, the other LCCF has no principal person at all. However, it does give this incarnation of the LCCF a CC Rating. Their are 11 ratings from AAA - F. The CC Rating is the 4th lowest.
According to the Linda Christas website, the enterprise is a private not-for-profit organization. My research has revealed that this statement is not completely true. From the BBB of Northeast California:
According to information provided by the company, Linda Christas College Fund is a not-for-profit political action committee advocating improvement of educational opportunities for middle school and high school students. The organization's website also refers to Linda Christas Tutoring Services. This is operated for-profit and sells on-line coaching and tutoring services. The tutoring service also offers recruits money making opportunities as tutors or college advisors working for the company and offers a two day training program. The program is intended to prepare individuals to market and administer the Christas program to the public. [emphasis added]
I've found nothing on the Linda Christas website that even hints at the fact that the educational services are provided by a for-profit company and that the advocacy services are provided by a PAC (note: ALL political action committees are not-for-profit entities). I'm also a bit confused because there seems to be yet another entity -- Linda Christas Tutoring Services -- that is not listed at all with any of the BBBs.
This information answers for me a nagging question I've had for some time. Most educational organizations on the web use .edu. I always thought it was weird that Linda Christas only used .org and .com. Now, it is clear that they don't qualify as the kind of institution that could use .edu.
There's another issue I'm trying to nail down too, but it may be a while until I figure out how to find a complete answer. Linda Christas offers a full-time academy that offers programs "which satisfy the requirements of the most elite colleges in the United States."
However, as documented in my last entry on this overall topic, Linda Christas is NOT accredited by any of the accepted educational accreditation agencies (so they created one of their own). Consequently, if a student enrolls full-time at Linda Christas, do they receive a high school diploma AND, if so, is that diploma recognized by anyone other than Linda Christas?
**** Addendum ****
Since the Linda Christas College Fund advertises itself as a political action committee, I realized I could look them up. I performed searches with the Federal Elections Commission and the California Secretary of States Office. Guess what? Neither have ANY listings for a committee with the words, "Linda Christas". Not a one.
In order to be a political action committee, a group must register with some governmental entity. So, this begs the question: What entity, if any, is the Linda Christas College Fund registered with?
Just to be thorough, I also performed searches on the IRS Charities database and the Charities Search with California Attorney General's Office. Again, I found zero (0) results. Finally, I tried the GuideStar search engine which records information on over 1.5 million nonprofit organizations. As with all my previous attempts, there is no listing for Linda Christas.
Though I certainly won't argue this amounts to an exhaustive search, from what I've been able to discern at this point, the Linda Christas College Fund does NOT appear to be a political action committee NOR a nonprofit organization. My research has also indicated it is NOT an educational institution.
So, what are we left with? A for-profit business -- which is certainly NOT the way the LCCF present itself to the public.
**** ADDENDUM #2 ****
As quoted above, Linda Christas claims that their programs "satisfy the requirements of the most elite colleges in the United States." So, I decided to visit the websites of many elite institutions of higher learning to see what they had to say about this enterprise. I would expect there to be a few documents that mentioned the exploits of students who've been awarded scholarships by Linda Christas or collaborations with Linda Christas' staff on the development of said programs or, possibly, a recommendation or two about how the Linda Christas program might aid students in gaining admittance in this competitive world. Basically, I was looking for ANY mention of Linda Christas and its services.
As with every other search I've conducted on this topic, I came up with the big goose egg. Not one mention of any document or web page which featured the words, "Linda Christas". Not even a measly one.
The sites I checked are all Ivy League Schools (Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn, Princeton & Yale), Stanford, MIT, Amherst, University of Chicago and Swathmore.
Congratulations on your ongoing work regarding this very... interesting group. They continue to try and spam sites including Wikipedia, especially with content relating to their "chairs", and it's good to know that there is someone calmly, clearly, and consistently looking at their very ambitious claims.
ReplyDeleteI wonder - they seem to have stopped spamming you directly, at least via this blog; do you continue to hear from LC reps in other ways?
Alex,
ReplyDeleteI think it finally dawned on them -- heck, I had to point it out SEVERAL times -- that spamming the blog merely increased my ranking in Google. So now, they simply send me emails.
In addition, a few days ago, they posted on their home page part of an email exchange I had with one of their minions. Of course, they cut and pasted my emails, removing most of the substantive points I'd made. They also include some text that wasn't part of any email I received.
All this tells me is that I am indeed barking up the right tree.
Well, I couldn't resist. I went and added my two cents on the new LC page and was startled to see they actually posted (and responded to, sort of) my questions.
ReplyDeleteApparently, no one in higher ed has ever made any kind of public statement regarding the company/companies, putative school, or the LC method; they as much as say so, even while alluding to the "Linda Christas magic" (perhaps it so hypnotizes educators, this sorcery, that it renders them incapable of comment?
Oy. If I didn't think they were taking money from the credulous, I wouldn't mind, but somehow it only adds insult to injury that it's not even a very good scam...