Tag: tuition fees

She used hidden cameras to help students cheat exams. Now she’s wanted by Interpol | CNN

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Think “international manhunt” and the image that likely springs to mind is that of a hardened criminal like a murderer, bank robber or billion-dollar fraudster – not the middle-aged boss of a high school tuition center.

But that’s who’s at the center of a Red Notice issued this week by the International Criminal Police Organization, or Interpol, which facilitates police cooperation between 194 countries.

Poh Yuan Nie, 57, is thought to have fled Singapore after masterminding an elaborate cheating scam during the Southeast Asian country’s annual GCE O Level examinations, which students take during their final year of high school.

Poh failed to surrender to police after a court sentenced her to four years in prison for running the scam, in which she and three of her tutors fed answers to students using a system of bodycams, earphones and bluetooth devices.

Private tuition centers are big business in the wealthy city-state where the pressure for students to perform well can be overwhelming and it is not unusual for monthly fees at established private tuition centers to cost up to 2,000 Singapore dollars ($1,500).

According to early court documents, Poh, 57, and her three accomplices – her niece Fiona Poh Min, ex-girlfriend Tan Jia Yan and a Chinese national named Feng Riwen – were each paid 8,000 Singapore dollars ($6,100) by a man from China to help six students aged between 17 and 20 – also from China – pass the GCE exams in 2016 so they could enter local colleges.

The payment would have been fully refunded if the students did not pass the exams.

Under Poh’s instructions, the six students wore skin-colored earphones and taped mobile phones and bluetooth devices to their bodies so that they could be fed answers by Tan who posed as a private student sitting the same test papers.

With the help of a hidden camera phone taped to her chest, Tan livestreamed the questions to Poh and the two other tutors back at the tuition center, who then worked out the answers and fed them to the students.

They were rumbled when an exam invigilator heard unusual noises coming from one of the students, who came clean when questioned.

After a year-long trial that ended in 2020, Poh was convicted on 27 counts of cheating and sentenced to four years’ jail. Her Red Notice on Interpol included a mugshot and listed her charges of “abetment to commit cheating.”

Singapore police, who requested the notice from Interpol, said Poh had been due to begin her jail term in September, but failed to surrender herself. Her three accomplices are all currently serving their respective prison terms, police said.

“Poh was convicted for a series of cheating offenses, having conspired with students to cheat in the 2016 GCE O Level examinations,” the Singapore Police Force said in a statement, adding that local warrants had also been issued for her arrest.

“She was ordered in September 2022 to surrender herself to serve her imprisonment term but she did not do so.”

According to Interpol, global law enforcement units are requested to locate and arrest people under Red Notices – pending extradition, surrender or other legal actions.

The case has put the spotlight on a school system that is ranked among the world’s best and is known for its competitiveness.

Singapore’s government has implemented a raft of reforms in recent years aimed at easing the mental burden on students who can face immense pressure to achieve good grades.

The GCE O Level exams can be a particularly stressful time, as they define a student’s entire high school performance and determine which local college or vocational institute they can go to. The exams, known in full as General Certificate of Education Ordinary Level, are national tests in mathematics, science, languages and humanities.

They are conducted jointly by the Cambridge Assessment International Examination and Singapore’s Ministry of Education. They are not the same as the annual British GCSE examinations.

GCE exams are usually taken by students aged 16 and 17 and are also open to private candidates. Every year around 30,000 students sit the exams, according to MOE estimates.

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February 3, 2023
ProPublica: GOP megadonor paid private school tuition for grandnephew of Justice Clarence Thomas | CNN Politics

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A Texas billionaire and GOP megadonor paid boarding school tuition for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ grandnephew, and the justice did not report the financial assistance for the child he helped raised on his annual disclosures, according to a new ProPublica report – the latest revelation raising ethical questions around the high court.

The ProPublica report on Thursday revealed that the billionaire Harlan Crow paid tuition for Mark Martin, who lived with Thomas’ family as a child and for whom the justice became a legal guardian. ProPublica cited a 2009 bank statement and an interview with a former administrator at the Georgia boarding school Martin attended.

The former administrator at the school, Hidden Lake Academy, told ProPublica that Crow paid for Martin’s tuition for the year or so Martin was at the boarding school. The administrator said, according to ProPublica, that he had been told by Crow that Crow also paid for Martin’s tuition at another school, the Randolph-Macon Academy in Virginia, which is Crow’s alma mater.

A statement from Crow’s office did not address the payments for Martin’s tuition directly but said that he and his wife had “supported many young Americans through scholarship and other programs at a variety of schools, including his alma mater.”

A friend and defender of Thomas, conservative lawyer Mark Paoletta, said on Twitter that Crow paid for the first year that Martin spent Randolph-Macon Academy and for the year he spent at Hidden Lake. Paoletta denied that Thomas ran afoul of the court’s financial disclosures rules by not reporting the payments, arguing that Martin did not qualify as a legal dependent under the federal ethics law in question.

However, on the justice’s 2002 financial disclosure submission, Thomas reported as a gift $5,000 from another couple that was characterized as an “Education gift to Mark Martin.”

The Supreme Court’s press office did not respond to requests seeking comment from the court and Thomas.

ProPublica previously reported that for years, Thomas has accepted lavish trips and gifts from Crow, which have gone mostly unreported on the justice’s financial disclosures, and that Crow also purchased several real estate properties, including the home where his mother lives, from the Thomas family.

The extent to which these transactions and hospitality should have been reported by Thomas has been the subject of debate among judicial ethics experts, who have noted that a recently-closed loophole for certain “personal hospitality” may have covered some of the luxury trips.

Thomas has said he followed the advice of others in deciding what required disclosure, and a source close to Thomas previously told CNN that the justice plans to amend his disclosure forms to reflect the real estate transaction, which also went unreported. Thomas also said in a statement last month that Crow “did not have business before the court.”

Nevertheless, court reforms advocates and Democratic lawmakers say that Thomas’ conduct shows that the current ethics rules for the justices – who are not subject to a code of conduct akin to the standards imposed on lower courts – are too lax.

Amid the ethics firestorm, which included a Senate hearing this week, Chief Justice John Roberts and the other eight justices released a “Statement on Ethics Principles and Practices” last week that the court’s critics say did not go far enough to address their concerns.

“Today’s report continues a steady stream of revelations calling Justices’ ethics standards and practices into question,” said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin in a statement on Thursday. “I hope that the Chief Justice understands that something must be done – the reputation and credibility of the Court is at stake.”

Republicans have pushed back on Democrats’ calls that Congress step in to enact stricter ethics rules for the justices, but some GOP lawmakers have acknowledged they’d like to see the high court – on its own – take steps towards greater transparency.

Asked Thursday about the latest ProPublica report, Sen. Mitt Romney said, “I hope they’ll look – they’ll evaluate.”

“I have no way of knowing the accuracy of that report and what’s been done but it clearly justifies taking a good look at it,” the Utah Republican said.

Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he wasn’t going to speak to the specifics of the new allegations against Thomas, “because I could sit here and talk about other instances from other justices that the fact patterns are similar.”

“Which goes back to the point of the Supreme Court should address this and they should address it on a consensus basis,” Tillis said.

Ethics experts who spoke to ProPublica also acknowledged that the tuition payments, if considered a gift to Martin, may not have required disclosure. But since Thomas was Martin’s legal guardian, according to ProPublica’s report, he would have had responsibility for the child’s education and the tuition could also be viewed as an unreported gift to the justice himself.

The statement from Crow’s office said that that the tuition he and his wife has provided for young people “is given directly to academic institutions, not to students or to their families.”

“These scholarships and other contributions have always been paid solely from personal funds, sometimes held at and paid through the family business,” the statement said. “It’s disappointing that those with partisan political interests would try to turn helping at-risk youth with tuition assistance into something nefarious or political.”

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April 12, 2021
2024 GOP candidates race to meet donor and polling thresholds to make August debate stage | CNN Politics

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Donald Trump hasn’t yet committed to the first Republican presidential primary debate in August – but some of the former president’s most vocal critics within the party’s 2024 field are still working to qualify for the stage.

The race to meet the 40,000 unique donors threshold set by the Republican National Committee as a minimum to qualify for the first debate – in addition to polling requirements and a commitment to support the eventual GOP nominee – is unfolding ahead of a showdown that could be the best chance for lower-polling candidates to break out from the pack seeking to stop Trump from winning a third straight presidential nomination.

The threshold, which also requires at least 200 unique contributors from 20 or more states and territories, is a test of candidates’ ability to appeal to grassroots donors across a broad swath of the United States.

Several candidates and their aides say they have already met that donor threshold, including Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, former United Nations ambassador and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.

Lesser-known candidates are trying zany, rule-bending approaches to up their donation totals. North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum is swapping $20 gift cards for $1 campaign contributions. Miami Mayor Francis Suarez’s super PAC is offering entries to a free college tuition sweepstakes in exchange for contributions to his campaign.

But the biggest question ahead of the August 23 showdown on Fox News is whether some of Trump’s foremost critics – including former Vice President Mike Pence, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and former Texas Rep. Will Hurd – will qualify for the stage.

Though they have raised substantial sums before, and Burgum has vast personal wealth to spend on the race, some candidates lack the small-dollar conservative base of donors that candidates like Trump and DeSantis have cultivated. And late entrances by Pence and Burgum further complicate their paths to the debate, which is being held in Milwaukee.

Pence, in a Tuesday interview with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on “The Source,” indicated that he has not yet met the donor threshold.

“You bet we’ll be on that debate stage. We’re working every day to get to that threshold,” Pence said. “I’m sure we’re going to be there.”

However, the paltry second-quarter fundraising haul of $1.2 million that Pence’s campaign announced Friday underscored just how far the former vice president has to go to catch his top rivals.

Pence – who often jokes on the campaign trail that he has already debated Trump many times in private – said he is hopeful his former ticket mate decides to take the stage.

“I intend to be on that debate stage in late August, and I look forward to squaring off,” Pence said.

Hutchinson said Friday on “CNN This Morning” that he has not yet reached 40,000 donors but believes he will eventually hit that mark.

“It’s just a question of how quickly we can get there, but we want to be on that debate stage,” he said.

The former Arkansas governor has been among the most vocal critics of the RNC’s debate qualification rules, pushing back for weeks against the minimum donor threshold.

Hutchinson said Friday that some of the inventive gambits by his fellow candidates to attract the requisite donors “illustrate how silly this whole concept is. They’re telling campaigns you’ve got to reach these limits to make sure you get 40,000 donors. You can do that by your rhetoric and getting people fired up, you can do that by gimmicks, and so we’re going to have to do what we need to do to get there.”

Hurd does not appear yet to have met the minimum donor threshold. “Will fully intends on meeting the donor and polling thresholds,” a campaign aide said Wednesday.

Burgum, a wealthy former software executive, is offering $20 so-called “Biden economic relief cards” in the form of Visa or Mastercard gift cards to 50,000 donors who give at least $1. One solicitation Tuesday described it as a “better deal than anything you are seeing during Amazon Prime Day.”

Burgum’s campaign on Friday announced an $11.7 million fundraising haul in the second quarter, but $10.2 miliion of that candidate’s own money.

Perry Johnson, the little-known Michigan businessman, was at one point selling “I stand with Tucker” T-shirts backing the fired Fox News opinion host for $1.

A super PAC backing Suarez on Thursday launched what it called “Francis Free College Tuition” – soliciting $1 contributions that would go to the candidate’s campaign to enter a sweepstakes that would offer the winner a year of paid college tuition up to $15,000.

Suarez, unlike many other GOP candidates still racing to meet the donor threshold to qualify for the debate, has backed the RNC’s rules.

“I do think there should a minimum criteria because time is valuable,” Suarez said Wednesday on “CNN This Morning.” “I think the Republican Party has tried to set a relatively low bar, and they’ve tried to create a diverse candidate pool so that people have options.”

Ramaswamy’s campaign has said he already met the donor threshold – but his campaign recently launched a program to pay grassroots fundraisers 10% of the money they raise.

Whether Christie would meet the donor threshold was a major question but one he seemed to settle on Wednesday night.

“I am glad to be able to tell people tonight, Anderson, that last night we went past 40,000 unique donors in just 35 days,” Christie told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on “AC360.”

Scott’s campaign on Wednesday also announced it had surpassed the 40,000 donor threshold, along with a $6.1 million second quarter fundraising haul. Scott, a prolific fundraiser as a Senate candidate, was widely considered a virtual lock to reach that minimum donor threshold.

Another key benchmark to qualify for the debate stage is polling. Candidates must reach at least 1% in three national polls, or at least two national polls and two polls from separate early-voting states – Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina or Nevada.

The RNC set criteria to determine which polls meet its standards to qualify toward the debate. The first poll to meet those RNC standards, a national survey by Morning Consult, found that Trump, DeSantis, Scott, Haley, Ramaswamy, Pence, Christie and Hutchinson had all reached the 1% minimum to count toward making the debate stage.

Others still have zero qualifying polls toward the minimum qualifications for the first debate.

Larry Elder, the conservative talk radio host and failed California gubernatorial nominee who is seeking the GOP’s 2024 presidential nomination, complained in an opinion piece published Wednesday by The Hill that the RNC “has rigged the rules of the game by instituting a set of criteria that is so onerous and poorly designed that only establishment-backed and billionaire candidates are guaranteed to be on stage.”

“That’s not what our party is about: We are the party of free speech, debate and the exchange of ideas. With 16 months until the general election, Republicans should have as many voices as the stage will accommodate. Anything short of that is elitism,” Elder said.

The third requirement to make the August debate is a pledge to support the eventual Republican nominee in the 2024 general election.

Some candidates, including Christie, have grumbled about the pledge but indicated they will agree to it because failing to do so would leave them no real path to the sort of attention needed to win the GOP nomination.

Trump has privately discussed skipping either one or both of the first two Republican presidential primary debates, CNN reported in May. Since then he has not publicly said he would participate in the debate.

DeSantis on Wednesday criticized Trump in an interview with Iowa conservative radio host Howie Carr over his refusal to commit to the debate.

“Nobody is entitled to this nomination. You have got to earn the nomination,” DeSantis said, adding that debates are “important parts of the process.”

“I will be in Milwaukee for the first debate, and I’ll be at all the debates because the American people deserve to hear from us directly about our vision for the country, and about how we’re going to be able to defeat Joe Biden,” he said.

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April 12, 2021