Tutor center scammed $2M in federal funds
A bicoastal tutoring center — whose website boasts endorsements from actor/former Calif. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and former New York and LA schools chief Ramon Cortines — has agreed to shell out a $2 million settlement to the feds after confessing it falsified documents to solicit public funding for services never provided.
Under a settlement deal with the government announced Tuesday, The Academic Advantage, based in Manhattan, admitted bilking taxpayers out of federal funds by forging students signatures on attendance sheets for years to make it seem as if more were attending tutoring classes.
The city’s Department of Education distributes federal supplemental-education services funds for students attending under-performing public schools. Approved providers, such as The Academic Advantage once was, receive more money if they can document that they service more students.
The feds last month sued The Academic Advantage and nine of its staffers claiming the tutoring group was paid $14 million in federal funds from 2010 to 2012 for “purportedly providing after-school tutoring services to students attending under-performing public schools in New York City” but was actually “repeatedly billing for Tutor center scammed $2M in federal funds | New York Post:
