A Message to Readers

As of today this website will no longer be open to comments from readers.  Its original intention was to publish little known facts about Job Corps mismanagement and initiate dialogue from persons who know it best: those who have worked/are working there or those who were/are students.  Another goal was the hope that someday an investigative report would be initiated by a reporter who would bring these problems to light to the American public in order to begin the process of needed improvement to Job Corps.

A reporter’s best arsenal includes verifiable facts and validated testimonies from people therefore, I believe the purpose of this site would best be served to include verifiable facts without commentary.  Changing the site in way is keeping it more true to its original goal of being an agent of change.

A thank you to all the readers who have left insightful comments or dialogue.  Please check back as there will be continued factual updates about Job Corps performance ratings and news reports that are not widely carried by the press.

Andrea for Job Corps Fraud

Filed under: Comments, Job Corps, Reader's Comments

Reader’s Comments

-from Glenn

I recently stumbled upon this site, just a few weeks ago, and have been trying to read all the various posts and comments. I retired a couple years ago from an organization that is very involved in the Job Corps Program. In my opinion, there are to many program and contractor related inaccuracies on this site for it to be considered credible, or taken seriously.

-from Job Corps Fraud

Thanks for your comment.  We rely heavily on Office of the Attorney General Reports (OIG) that are printed in semi-annual Reports to Congress, statements from former and present Congressmen/women, Senators during Legislative Hearings, and official published statistical analyses that prove Job Corps success rates were inflated in the past and are continuing in the present and, in fact these reports also assert Job Corps students are little or no better off after completing the program.  Washington D.C. economists have also published reports in journals that state the same information. Without these published reports, this site would not exist. You may access most of the these reports on this site. (The audit reports from the Office of the Inspector General kowever, only go back a few years instead of all the way back to 1978).  It appears that the organization you were involved with did not have access to “behind the scenes, actual goings-on” in Job Corps as many of the students and staff commenting here.  You, as an outsider looking in, are obviously not in the position to to give any first-hand, eye-witness accounts as many of us are able to.  We actually experienced the “trickle-down” effects of contractor’s greed and were unwilling parties to false reporting to the DOL. I encourage you to carefully read more of the website and especially look at OIG Reports, Legislative Reports, Research Reports and Books.  After you read the factual, statistical information thoroughly on this site, please write back.  It’s so important to know the facts before sharing hasty opinions. You may also access the OIG Reports going back to 1979 here: After clicking on any year, type the words “Job Corps” in the “Find” box.  Some of us are the employees who made those complaints. Hope this helps.

-from Howard

Specifically, which comments were inaccurate? If you have not actually worked at a Job Corps, then you don’t have a very good reference point from which to speak. I agree with Andrea on that point.

I know that my posts are accurate. I have worked in the Job Corps system for many yrs, at five different centers for four different contractors. I have visited many centers and know a lot of staff, present and past. I know the workings of a center and what goes on behind the scenes, at the center, corporate and government levels – I have written contract proposals and Job Corps curricula and have held responsible positions.

What, in your opinion, are inaccuracies on this site?

Filed under: Reader's Comments, Comments, Job Corps, OIG

Guest Writer Trevor Campbell from the Pittsburg Job Corps Center, “A Day in the Life”

This is an interesting article I’ve created to give Job Corps students from the past, in other centers, prospective students, or students who are expected to arrive within a few weeks an idea of what goes on at Job Corps. This is the “around the clock typical day” I’ve spent since my arrival week up to now involved in CCAC. This schedule includes weekends and the change of C-Prep/trade to the OCT department. I’m making this as candid as possible, excluding adventures, incidents, or unplanned events. This should get previous or current students interested to also agree and share their “Day in the Life, at” story, giving people another insight to what life is like overall at Job Corps, and for an individual center.

During C-Prep, Vocational Trade, & Education
1. 6:00 AM: “Six O’Clock fellows, time to wake up” – Six is the wake up & MAC sheet time. Everyone is expected to wake up as soon as possible and move along with their morning routines-including hygiene, details (if assigned), & breakfast. You are pretty much forced to be awake by 7:00 AM. Breakfast could be served as early as 6:30, despite the majority of students arriving during the last 20-30 minutes. Morning Details start by 7:00 AM, and you must be off the dorm floors by 7:30.

Filed under: Guest Writer, Job Corps, Job Corps Centers, Pittsburg Job Corps Center, Reader's Comments, Tell Us Your Story, Guest Writer, Job Corps, Pittsburg Job Corps Center, schedule, Student, training day routine, typical day

Read a Student’s Ripoff Report About His Experience at Joliet Job Corps

The student is very articulate and describes his experience at Joliet Job Corps as a “nightmare, discrimination and abuse”.    This student’s observations remind me of some of the things I saw as a a staff person at Shriver Job Corps managed by Adams and Associates…

Some of the high points of this student’s observations:

“As a punishment in the building/trades department, students (including minors) were made to carry lumber from one side of the football field to the other for 6 hours of classroom time”.
“At one point, I caught the records manager on center over a weekend (two days before a major review). He was toting out boxloads of documents to the garbage dumpster…. So much for protecting privacy”!

” During the month of April, my dormitory had no toilet paper, handsoap, or paper towels to which we could dry our hands. My dormitory had no drinking water… which means on weekends, no drinks before 11am and no drinks after 10pm!  Most of the toilets were constantly backed up and overflowing. On one occasion, a fight occurred in the lower (academic) hallways and a student bled all over the wall.  11 days later, the blood was STILL all over the wall – Neither the medical staff nor safety staff wanted to take responsibility for cleaning it and students were forced to do it. It was only washed off – The area was not sanitized”.
“Despite regulations against those with felonies attending the program, MANY were being sentenced there by family judges.  Several students urinated in an empty drink bottle and then poured it on the face/down the throat of a student as he was asleep. Those guilty were punished, but not removed from the center”.

“Some electrical outlets hung from the walls by the wiring in the dormitories”.

Make sure to read the Ripoff Report here:

Filed under: Adams and Associates, Contractors, Job Corps, Joliet Job Corps, Reader's Comments, abuse, Adams and Associates, discrimination, Job Corps Ripoff Report, Joliet Job Corps, nightmare, Ripoff Report

Reader’s Comments on Job Corps and the American Dream

-from Trevor

I have an idea:

Start teaching really young kids to stay in school, stay out of trouble, learn how to find resources to get a JOB they’d WANT. Do this with some kind of private educational institutions and/or Awareness Campaign to make sure kids don’t end up getting themselves in something that could hurt them and them not know. If there was another alternate for kids other than Job Corps, and if we had a non-gov’t program telling kids to better themselves before they end up like Job Corps kids. If kids don’t have a reason to make a last resort to Job Corps, the program will suffer and the plug will be pulled.

This would take years to do so, but with the right people starting this, it all has possibilities to work. I plan on seeing this some day.

-from Howard

Why does this need to be privatized? Why can’t this be part of the public school curriculum?

-from Howard

While there is redundancy in the Job Corps program, for instance, one can earn a GED through BOCES, a community college, public school systems, as well as do work on-line and by watching TV programs, the selling point of Job Corps is that it provides room, board and health services free and the student also earns a stipend when enrolled as a trainee. For homeless youth or those in other negative life situations, this program can be life-saving.

-from Shirley

Bob Confer is a total joke. And this article is a bunch of bull. The government has been bought and paid for by the wealthy, and the big corporations. They and the government are one in the same. I can name on one hand the government representatives who appear to be honest and fighting for their constituents. “The government that has created poverty” is in fact the wealthy classes who want the masses to be poor – how else can they exploit them so they, the rich, can become more wealthy?

Confer and his ilk just don’t want to pay their fair share of taxes, so they attack Job Corps and health programs by saying that these programs are ruining the country and using jingoism to scare people. Sound familiar? Sound like Fascism, well it is. Why doesn’t he talk about his cronies who run the system and have become millionaires by playing the game?

Does this Bob Confer, a writer for the New American, a right wing John Birch Society publication, think we are all so stupid as he would hope? Does he think at least some of us don’t see through his distortions and lies? Using Job Corps, Medicare and Medicaid as examples of government waste in his right wing diatribe is despicable, as the right wing is the recipient of most tax handouts. Check the statistics – see which states receive the most tax dollars back from Washington as compared to the tax dollars they contribute to Washington.

The people in this country are fed a bunch of lies just to keep them stupid and exploitable and they actually believe those lies.

New American is a magazine published by the John Birch Society and the information on Job Corps Fraud is taken from a larger article that also criticizes Medicare and Medicaid.

The companies who abuse and make the profit from the “entitlements” this author mentions are the very same right wing nut jobs who read his magazine.

Read the whole article. These programs and the government are not ruining our country – it’s the right wing contractors who are stealing our tax payer dollars and who have to be monitored every step of the way because they are a bunch of thieves who can’t be trusted.

I wouldn’t cite anything from a John Birch Society rag publication as having any credibility because while they claim to be fighting for freedom, the only freedom they are concerned with is their own and to hell with the middle and lower classes. Read about the Koch brothers whose father co-founded the John Birch Society. Do you think they care about anyone but themselves and their own pockets?

Filed under: Job Corps, Newspaper Reports, politics, Reader's Comments, Bob Confer, Job Corps, John Birch Society, New American, redundant

Reader’s Responses to a Student’s Question

-Jenn’s question

where would be a place that i can report a missing highschool transcript thati never got from them? i went to guthrie oklhomas jb corps tpget my highschool diploma but it says everywhere i go that i never got one when i was there taking the reuired curriculum to get it.

-from Howard

“Call your state Department of Education, Office of GED Administration, and ask them to see if there is a transcript on file for you. Go to the internet for the phone number.

What do you mean by “It says everywhere I go that I never got one”? Did you take the Official GED test? If you didn’t take the Official GED test, then there will not be a transcript for you anywhere.

Did you contact the Records and Academic Depts at Guthrie Job Corps? They would have a record of you taking the Official GED test.

You will need to have the date of test that you took it, or dates, if you took the sub-tests at different times if you talk to the Oklahoma Dept of Ed.

Just because you were taking classes in Academics doesn’t mean that you were awarded a high school equivalency diploma. The high school equivalency diploma would be issued by the state of Oklahoma if you passed the Official GED test, according to the Oklahoma state standards.

You can check Oklahoma’s standards on-line by googling the Oklahoma Dept of Education or by going on-line to the American Council On Education, which publishes the GED test, and check out the standards for Oklahoma.

Again, if you never took the Official GED test at an Official Test Site, you will not have a transcript on file anywhere. By the way, if you did take the test then your Academic Dept at the Job Corps should have given you the transcript with your grades on the sub-tests. Did you get such a transcript?

You can contact me by responding to this post if you need further help.”

Filed under: Comments, complaints, Guthrie Oklahoma Job Corps, Job Corps, Questions from a Student, Reader's Comments, Guthrie Job Corps, high school diploma, missing high school transcript

Allegations about Flint/Genesee Job Corps online diploma program

-from J

“There is wide spread corruption and unethical practices at the Flint/Genesee Job Corps operated by the Alluttiq management LLC. Many of the students, aka, trainees take the high school on line classes from Penn Foster. The work is supposed to be completed on the computer. The administrator provides the student with a print out of the questions with the answers. The diploma is not worth the paper it is written on. There is high staff turnover and the students do not put the proper time in to obtain a vocational trade but are given the certification. This location needs some oversight or investigation.”

-Howard’s response:

“Flint/Genesee Job Corps has an overall ranking of 52 for the rolling year ending July 30, 2010. They ranked number 7 for the GED/HSD category. Well, now we know how they do it – give the students the answers to the test questions. This is nothing new, how do you think these “high school diplomas” are “earned” at Job Corps centers?

It’s more difficult to cheat on the GED test because that test is monitored by a GED examiner who doesn’t work for Job Corps. Knowing that most students can’t pass the GED test, the Job Corps system pays a hefty sum to other companies whose services they contract to issue “high school diplomas” allegedly earned on-line. It’s just another Job Corps charade.

Here’s the funny part. Any serious educator who looks at Flint/Genesee’s other statistics will immediately notice something suspicious. They rank number 115 out of 122 Job Corps on the Literacy ranking. How can they do so well earning GED/ high school diplomas, when they rank so low on Literacy gains? Every teacher worth his salt knows that the skills needed to pass the GED and earn a high school diploma correlate highly to Literacy skills. Stated another way, Literacy is a significant factor in being able to pass the GED test or to earn a high school diploma honestly. Yet on this center there is a very high inverse correlation between the two.

You’ll probably say, “but those students who earn the diploma and GEDs are not in the pool of students whose Literacy and Numeracy gains are being tested and tracked.” Not true. High school diplomas are being granted to students who score below the eighth grade level on the TABE. In fact, a student can enter the New Summit high school program with just a 6.5 GE Literacy score on the TABE. These students are definitely not leaving the program with 10.0 GE reading level as is recommended for taking the GED test. Most states’ Education Depts want students to be functioning at the 10.0 reading and math levels before they take the GED. This is how Job Corps fools students and the public into believing that they have earned a “high school diploma”. Then when they go to interview for a job, the boss finds out that they can’t read or write at what is considered a literate level. The unions, especially, are questioning these diplomas.

So why is the Forestry Service looking for contractors to submit bids for providing high school programs to it’s centers? The Forestry Service has prided itself in remaining true to the original Job Corps goals and in delivering honest certifications. Is it now falling in line with the rest of the system that has sold its soul to the devil”?

Filed under: Alutiiq, Contractors, Flint/Genesee Job Corps Center, number manipulation, Performance, Reader's Comments, Alutiiq, Flint/Genesee Job Corps, GED, literacy gains, online diploma program, overall ranking, Penn Foster, USDA forestry Service

Howard’s Newest Comment About Angell Job Corps and its Murders

-from Howard

Interesting that on this site there is an account of a murder committed by Angell Job Corps students and another account of an attempted murder by an employee of the center ten years later. What other Job Corps center has that kind of history? Yes, Job Corps students have murdered other people, but usually not while they are students at a center. This center sounds like a magnet for psychopaths.

Also interesting, is the fact that the center never reported the student missing, even though he was a minor at the time, until weeks later. This student was AWOL and was not designated as such until the next morning when he was listed as not being present at bed-check. It was too late by that time. However, he did not have a pass to leave center and should have been noted as off-center almost immediately because most dorms have meetings in the evening hours. Sometimes two meetings: one right before or after dinner, and one before bed-time and lights out. Attendance is taken at those times for student accountability purposes. If people are missing, then a search should have been made. His life might have been saved.

Also, the staff who should have known something was amiss, were, in my opinion, highly negligent. They sound like a group of incompetents who were not aware of this population’s penchant for this kind of trouble, and in particular, were unaware of advanced indicators that were probably “out there” regarding the murderers.

They were probably not too street smart in their questioning of these and other students – if they ever did question anybody. In a Job Corps center, staff have to keep their eyes and ears open and have relationships with students who can give them information when it is needed. Staff on this center were just covering up for themselves, by not reporting him missing and giving conflicting information to his family.

Filed under: Angell Job Corps, Comments, crime, Job Corps, Job Corps Centers, Reader's Comments, Angell Job Corps murder, cover up, incompetent staff

More Reader’s Comments from August 24, 2010

-from Howard to Trevor,

Here is my take, this coming from a former Residential Living Manager and Center Director:

All dorms on center should have had cleanliness standards in force to begin with. When the Evans dorm supervisor decided to enforce the rules, she should have given the students a reasonable amount of time to get their rooms in order – let’s say three days and a definite time and date when the students would be held accountable for their rooms. If someone had some extenuating circumstance that would have prevented him from cleaning his room in time, that should have been taken into consideration.

Filed under: Comments, Job Corps, Job Corps Centers, Pittsburg Job Corps Center, Reader's Comments, dorm cleanliness, Job Corps, Pittsburg Job Corps