Something Smells About Crimson Education.

By
Allan Alach
-
24
2046

In early August there was a flurry of news items about proposed changes to NCEA. One of the people in the news at that time was Dr Jamie Beaton, of Crimson Education, and there had to be questions about his relationship with the National Party and with Erica Stanford – it was just too coincidental that Crimson Education were geared up to go with workshops about the planned changes to NCEA. 

I wrote about it here:

What’s Going On Here? More National Corruption?

I concluded the discussion with the comment that something smells here.

Well, guess what? The smell has got much worse. I didn’t know much about Crimson Academy at the time but a recent Mountain Tui post included a link to a USA Today article about Jamie Beaton and Crimson Academy.

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This Harvard grad has made millions on U.S. college admissions for international students

“As he tells it, Jamie Beaton found his way to Harvard after applying to 25 universities in the U.S. and U.K. But the New Zealander says he had no guidance on how to get into an elite college, and he had to find that path himself.

He sensed a business opportunity. 

So in 2013, at age 17, he and a partner gathered up some college friends and launched a new venture: a consulting service for international students seeking to attend elite American universities. Beaton’s employees would be tutors. They would help students craft college essays or mentor them through practice ACT and SAT tests.”

So far, so good, setting aside a fair degree of disbelief how a 17 year old could establish such a business. Hmm I wonder who the business partner referenced here could be?

The article continues:

“Beaton touts his company, Crimson Education, as a booming success. The company says it has raised $20 million from investors, has grown in value to $260 million and employs thousands of tutors to help its international clientele and U.S. students as well.

But as Crimson Education’s fortunes have grown, along with Beaton’s, critics have questioned the effectiveness of its business model. Crimson pairs high school students with tutors who are held out as qualified consultants, even though they are often just college students themselves.”

Excuse me – is Beaton saying that college students have the prerequisite knowledge and skills to carry out what seems to me to be a challenging task? He admits that some of the tutors are 17 and 18 year old ‘freshmen’.

All is not what it seems:

When USA TODAY examined Crimson Education’s record, the review found: 

    • “The company publicly claims a near 100% success rate in getting clients into their top school, but that assertion is based on clients being accepted to at least one of multiple schools to which they applied.
    • Its website lists offices around the globe, complete with phone numbers, but reporters who visited locations in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and London found no one at desks in the offices — and in one case, no sign Crimson had ever been there. Calls to the listed numbers often rang without answer, or calls were cut off abruptly. 
    • Crimson claims membership in college advisers’ associations, which are designed to signal that companies adhere to training and ethics standards in an unregulated industry. But reporters found the company overstated how many of its employees had taken the training to be part of these groups. In one case, Crimson’s membership had expired at an association, and Crimson later said its one employee enrolled was checking his membership.”

The article does make it clear that there is no suggestion of illegal activity by either Beaton or Crimson Education. 

Then we find out who the ‘partner’ mentioned above could be:

‘“I have been and remain a great fan of Jamie Beaton,” billionaire hedge fund pioneer Julian Robertson, a Crimson financial backer, said in a statement relayed by his spokesman, Fraser Seitel.’

It seems Beaton worked with Robertson while studying at Harvard and that Beaton has visions of being another Mark Zuckerberg.

Not mentioned in the article as a financial backer but whose face appears on promotional material, is John Key, who makes no secret of his involvement – Beaton has employed him in an advisory role. One of the tutors employed by Crimson is his son Max.

While Beaton claims his company is a ‘booming success’ the article wonders otherwise:

“Crimson officials won’t say whether the company has turned a profit yet, calling the detail “commercially sensitive information we do not disclose.” And Beaton declined to discuss the company’s finances”

The article goes to raise questions about many of the claims made by Crimson, including its offices all over the world – apparently when reporters had no success when they tried to contact some of the contact information.

“Good luck trying to reach Crimson over the phone. Depending on the country, callers might never make it through to a living person. Multiple calls to the line associated with the United States were not returned. In Johannesburg, the phone rang endlessly. Repeated calls to the number listed for the Edinburgh, London and Zurich offices produced a busy signal.” 

Further the article runs through a number of concerns expressed about Crimson, including its ties to the National Association for College Admission Counseling and the International Association for College Admission Counseling:

“…trade groups made up of college consultants and university admissions officers. 

Membership among these groups can signal a minimum amount of training and adherence to certain ethical standards. They can be a way to tell parents a consultant knows what they’re doing and is familiar with the world of higher education. Because anyone can technically call themselves a college consultant, membership in one of the organizations can signal legitimacy. 

But Crimson’s membership in NACAC expired in 2018 and hadn’t been renewed in 2019, the group told USA TODAY. 

Crimson had said it was a “proud member” of both groups, but didn’t give any indication if that meant all its tutors met the trade group’s requirements. The company has since said only two members of their company were part of the IACAC, and one had been part of NACAC for 22 years. ”.

 Crimson Education aims to enable applicants to win places in prestigious universities – good luck with that as success in those institutions appears to be very hard to come by.

“Harvard’s acceptance rate recently fell to 4.5%, a new low. Yale’s rate is approximately 7%. Stanford is hovering at just above 4%. And so long as families are obsessed with highly selective colleges and the prestige they confer, the path is likely to get narrower.”

I get the feeling that Crimson Education is very happy to accept students’ money, that going by this article there are real doubts that the tutors they employ are qualified to do the job, and that the chances of achieving successful outcomes in prestigious universities are low.

Maybe they offer a money back guarantee?

And nothing I have read gives me any information as to why Jamie Beaton’s opinion on the merits or otherwise of NCEA have any validity, nor do I see any reasons why Crimson Education are qualified to run workshops on what the changes to NCEA means for children’s futures.


24 COMMENTS

  2. Dear Greywarbler,
    Does collective life run best (?) when women fear God (hence, respecting their husbands) whilst men fear Mother (hence, loving God).

  3. The one standout in this “Crimson Education” is the absence of any perceived moral purpose to education. When I was growing up we thought of education as a means of making oneself a better person in a better world. We were not in a race to grab a prize. Our assumption was that the entire whanau would benefit from the success that any one of us achieved in education. There was no competitive aspect to the acquisition of knowledge and education was seen as a public good rather than a private one.
    Therefore education at all levels was free of charge.
    Charging for education was a prerequisite to changing its fundamental character. “Education is a private good and therefore you should pay for it” they argued, but the argument really only took hold on the individual psyche when they could say “You have paid for your education, and therefore you should regard it as your own private good”.
    Neo-liberalism did not make a material change to the world. It simply set out to remove moral purpose from the thoughts and motivations of humankind, and it has been quite successful in that endeavor.
    So now we have “Crimson Education”. Clearly it has antecedents in the kind of schools that Dr Beaton attended (Kings College in his case) where education is linked not to the capacity to do good in the world, but to the promise of “doing well” or “succeeding” in the world in strictly material terms. Education then becomes a competition, in which students pay large sums of money to Crimson Education in order to get privileged access to institutions of learning. To us such tactics would have seemed unethical, even corrupt, and contrary to the fundamental purpose of education.
    However I can see that the Crimson Education approach is a good fit to the working principles of a neo-liberal society. Therefore our own view of education as being a public good with a moral purpose might seem to be out of step with the times. So be it. Tangata motu will continue to regard education as a public good to be used for the public good. Meanwhile the colonialist folly will continue until its headlong scramble for private privilege ends in a mortifying nose dive. That day will come.

  4. Has anyone else noticed that there have been waves of articles in NZME about NZ high school kids getting accepted into or being awarded scholarships at overseas colleges and universities? I wonder whether Crimson have PR people pushing these articles? Worth investigating.

    • If you look at the makeup of Crimson Education’s board, and the location of its offices, and then think about the whole approach of gaining access for those who would not automatically be privileged to it, it becomes evident that the company exists to take money from vast numbers of predominately Chinese and Indian hopefuls who are desperate to get admission to an American Ivy League university.
      Crimson Education is in effect selling its clients a very expensive lottery ticket with a win rate that logically has to fall over time in inverse proportion to the company growth. The “success story” articles you read are in the same category as the write-ups on Lotto winners. No mention is made of the losers, who outnumber the winners by orders of magnitude. Therefore Crimson Education is running a scam. I hope that not too many New Zealanders are taken in.

    • This would be because one of Jaime Beaton’s uncles sits on the board of NZME’, hence the free advertising and articles written about Crimson.

      In terms of the Crimson Education scholarship, this is nothing more than a rebate on their services, with recipients never seeing any of the scholarship ‘money’ attached to the scholarship.

      Very few (and we are talking less than 10) NZ High Schools support any Crimson initiatives, instead working with EducationUSA, and accredited academic boards.

      Jaime Beaton has recently been announced as a lecturer at The University of Auckland Business School, the same university who’s medical school has publicly decried Crimson Education for unethical practices and will not allow them on the medical school campus. As a lecturer of innovation and entrepreneurship to first year students, where will he add to make it you just need a small loan from a rich benefactor (I’m sure I heard this statement from someone else making grandiose statements……..)

      Jaime Beaton has taken his opportunities to present himself as someone with an authority to make public comment on the New Zealand schooling system, when in fact he has no authority at all. The troubling aspect in this, is that he seems to have caught the ear of the Minister of Education, and very soon we will see the privatisation of career education in schools.

      This is a turning point in the NZ school system, which side will you make a stand for?

      • A very perceptive comment CD. It simply beggars belief that msm have little to say. Q+A had a platform a few weeks back but knowing what we know now didn’t get out of first gear. Dissapointing.

  5. Australia was settled by convicts. New Zealand was settled by conmen.

    (Just look up The New Zealand Company.)

    Beaton won’t be touched by NZ watchdogs as he is protected by John Key’s blue dome. US regulators could go after Beaton like they went after Eric Watson. Where’s the so-called money hiding?

  6. Redesigning curricula and assessment necessarily involves consultants. Two choices: academics or entrepreneurs. Academics are a fickle lot, knowledgable but more than often wedded to one theory than to another. The Minister is left to cherry picking to suit the ideology of the day.

    Entrepreneurs on the other hand base their expertise on ‘what works in the real world’ but often than not simply based on reputation and marketing. Ssems the case here.

    The link to John Key is interesting given his relationship to Chris Luxton. It’s no secret that Chris Luxton believes that what works for business can be applied to … well just about everything. Including education. It’s his modus operandi. He knows no different. So it’s no surprise that Crimsom Education and its glory boy Jamie Beaton are there in the thick of it all.

    Whether those handing out the cheques are aware of the background – as exposed in the post – well, maybe. Maybe not. The Minister seems a bit naive as well as doing what’s she’s told to do. And after all, a successful entrepreneur is a masterful salesperson, if nothing else.

    I’d like to think the more experienced MoE officials will be judge any advice given on its merits and come to see it for what it is. Whatever it is Beaton and his company are selling. Yet more money wasted on consultants.

  7. New Zealand is a small country, and New Zealand’s entrepreneurial wunderkind have many links to the movers and shakers in commerce and to right wing political leaders, most notably former Prime Minister John Key.
    So Jamie Beaton was a director of Key-protege Jake Millar’s “Unfiltered” start-up. When Millar’s castle came crashing down despite having taken millions from those who were supposed to be among New Zealand’s most savvy investors (and allegedly at least in part as a result of Millar’s love of the high life) the remnants of his enterprise were absorbed into Crimson Education.
    Could Crimson go the same way? No reason why not. Like “Unfiltered”, Crimson is based on hype. It is a stack of cards. The brash young entrepreneurs who run these outfits have no more substance to them than the older millionaires, like Kevin Roberts, Eric Watson and Julian Robertson who fund them or the politicians, like John Key, to whose vanity they can so easily appeal.

    • I love this, getting the inside info on these crooks we are supposed to admire.
      I knew nothing about these people except our last National PM and I wouldn’t trust him or his son.
      Didn’t trust him as PM, didn’t trust his involvement with ANZ bank or Air NZ. Didn’t trust him when he pushed all the non-thinkers to imagine Luxury Luxon was the best choice for PM.
      If he had any credibility he wouldn’t be slinking around here with fingers in many little pies. The UN or some other reputable international organisation would want him. It appears none of them do and that tells me my first thoughts were correct. He isn’t even an ambassador. Even Mallard did better in the end.
      Our late unlamented PM is just back to wheeling and dealing, where he started.

    • These precocious young entrepreneurs are different to the colonial capitalists of a few generations ago. Unlike James Fletcher, James Wattie, John Spencer or Francis Carter they do not create jobs in New Zealand. (Forget the mantra that “Wealthy people create jobs”. This kind of wealth helps to keep a few folk in work at fancy restaurants in the Viaduct Precinct and that’s it). In fact they do not create anything of substance in New Zealand and they do not even dream of competing with foreign capitalists as their forerunners did. Instead Jake Millar made a considerable amount of money out of flattery, by catering to the vanity of American capitalists. Jamie Beaton gained his own wealth as an appendage of the American university system exploiting those who have the wealth to afford its fees but who are not sufficiently intellectually accomplished to gain admission on their own merits. It is truly extraordinary how much money can be made in this age by those who recognise and exploit the moral defects of the affluent classes and people like Millar and Beaton owe their success to their abilities in that respect.
      Although hailed as “successful young New Zealanders” they and their cohort are besotted with the United States of America to which they owe pretty well everything. Therefore they fit well with the current crop of colonialist politicians such as John Key, Jacinda Ardern and Christopher Luxon, who give the impression that they would rather be, or are actually, living in the United States. Yet despite their connections they are not serious people and they do not make their money in serious ways.

  8. I’ve had some experience in the private tutoring game, I did it for about 15 years, 10 of them in Korea. My model was less commercial however, in that I mostly taught one on one, which is no way to become wealthy. It does really help students however, and the similar use of teacher aides in classrooms in NZ was, I believe a constructive development.

    I’d be much less concerned with the qualifications of tutors than of their staffing ratio – the success of peer or near peer tuition schemes has one of the largest effect sizes in education. The tutors improve too.

    “Peer tutoring stands as a proven educational approach, backed by compelling evidence from UK schools. Research demonstrates its remarkable impact through grade improvements, with students achieving up to 40% better comprehension and maintaining 61.9% higher retention rates compared to traditional learning methods.” ~ Google

    The education mills, of which language schools are typical, are a very different story, offering indifferent results at a very high price. I won’t work for them.

    • In my country primary school Standard 1 to 4 students were in the same classroom and shared the same teacher. Standard 4 kids helped to teach the younger kids. This was a natural system of education and in my view it worked remarkably well. It benefited the older pupils as much as the younger ones. We had no idea that there was anything competitive about education – until we left primary school and went to “normal” colleges for our secondary education. In my case it was a prestigious grammar school. That school offered a high standard of formal education but it was also deeply unsettling. It was authoritarian, violent, unashamedly colonialist and of course highly competitive. There are two adverse outcomes from that kind of education. The first is upon the pupils who become divorced from their true selves. The second is upon society as a whole. If you wanted to allocate blame for the current state of New Zealand society, a fair portion of it could be heaped upon schools like King’s College, Christ’s College and Auckland Grammar School which more or less correctly claim that they are in the business of producing the leaders of tomorrow. “More or less” because “leader” is a misnomer. The alumni of these schools dominate the power structures and set the abysmal moral tone of colonialist society, but they do not lead in the proper sense of the word.
      Yet I see hope in our local kura. There, the social and pedagogical values of my own primary school years are still thriving. Kaiako who are loved by the tamariki. Akonga who support each other in learning. It is not perfect because we are not perfect. But I reckon that it is a sight better than anything that will be delivered by the Crimson brigade.

      • This is probably right as regards Crimson Education – I know that my allegedly prestigious school did little for me, beyond a good grounding in science, but then many or most secondary schooling experiences are disappointing. Then again, good human teachers find their way into the least promising institutions to leaven the banality of their offerings.

        Genuine learning communities are at present rare – but if history teaches us anything it is that a human community that is prepared to learn can overcome anything – even a deadbeat government as obtuse as Luxon’s lame-ass anas superciliosa superciliosas.

        • That’s right Stuart. “if history teaches us anything it is that a human community that is prepared to learn can overcome anything”. Our task is to keep learning, teaching, working and fighting for a better Aotearoa and a better world.

  9. I can imagine John Key looking at Beaton as the son he always wished he had . . Max has the same smarmyness but without having his Dad’s backing he would just be another wanky but unknown Kings boy.

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