Catapult Online/ Educate Online is RIPPING KIDS OFF Baltimore, Maryland
Educate Online (formerly Catapult Online) is a division of E-Sylvan Learning. They have been running a program for several years now that uses government grants to furnish inner-city kids with computers (which they claim to be new), and provide these kids with free online tutoring. This is all meant to benefit those who struggle the most academically in poor, inner-city areas around the country.
The problem is that the whole thing is a scam. This company pockets the money and then purchases broken, half-dead, refurbished PCs and sends them to the kids. When I worked there, we were inundated everyday with complaints from irate parents whose children had received computers that wouldn't even power on, right out of the box. In most cases, the PCs had parts that would just fall off - broken keys on the keyboard, loose or missing power buttons, fried motherboards, to name a few issues. It was a mess! Once I took a call from a parent whose PC had smoke and sparks shooting out of it.
Then there was the so-called technical support group which was supposed to help fix these issues. This is all a front - a way to divert attention from the main issue - as most of the problems were beyond fixing. About 80% of the time, replacement PCs and parts had to sent to the children, as most of the PCs and peripherals were too far gone to troubleshoot.
One can then imagine the demoralizing effect this had on the kids, whose hopes and enthusiasm were crushed once their "new" PC was taken out of the box only to find that it does not work. The high drop-out rates we experienced were the natural consequence of this.
My hope is that after reading this, somebody out there will take it upon themselves to investigate this company and get to the root of this scam. Right now this company is getting away with cheating this nation's tax-payers and more importantly, its children. There are too many fragile lives at stake for us to just sit and do nothing.
Ex-employee
Addison, Texas
U.S.A.
1 Updates & Rebuttals
Educate Online Management Team
Baltimore,Maryland,
Educate Online in 2013
#2UPDATE Employee ..inside information
Mon, December 09, 2013
Dear Ex-employee,
We have recently come across your review and wanted to update and clarify our business model. From 2007 to 2012, Educate Online was a Supplemental Education Services (SES) provider under the No Child Left Behind Act. Through government funding, we worked directly with students and their parents to improve academic outcomes. We are disheartened to hear that you would label our mission and intent as a scam. We have serviced over 60,000 Title I students nationwide and have served millions of sessions since our inception. Our grade level improvements are well documented and we are proud of the impact we have had on students over the years.
The computers we used to ship were either new or refurbished from a reputable distributor. Given the number of units shipped across the country, a small percentage were unfortunately arriving to their destinations with some issues. In those cases, machines were replaced. Since your time with the company, we have switched to a new distributor. Additionally, with the end of No Child Left Behind under our new business model, we now partner directly with schools who administer sessions at their own computer labs, reducing our need to ship computers.
Educate Online has been under new management since 2012. We apologize for any negative feelings these past issues caused our students, parents, employees, and to you personally. Rest assured that under the new administration none of these issues remain and we look forward to a bright future revolutionizing education across the country.
Sincerely,
The Educate Online Management Team