Job Discussion Forums

[thebroformerlyknownaschou]

okay, we've all heard of the (alleged) blacklist maintained by the government
of foreign ne'er-do-wells. some say it's there, some say it isn't. few have
any experience. one poster claimed to have been on it, but successfully
appealed. i'm not aware of anyone who has actually seen it. it's obviously
not national, probably not even provincial. just a private list kept in one
overzealous police precinct. my thoughts anyway.

regardless, we mostly think it's a bad idea. the chinese are notoriously poor
at keeping up-to-date records. shoddy management, corruption....any real
list would be a joke.

but now? now there's talk of a whitelist and/or blacklist of employers and
recruiters. but how exactly will this work? i see two possibilities. either
run by the government, or run by some private entity.

if run by the government, it will certainly be a joke. if you're on the list and
want off, a suitable fat envelope will do the trick. of course, if you're a truly
dispicable employer or recruiter, you're probably raking in tens of thousands
in ill-gotten gains monthly. you'll either pay the fee to get removed, or
you're making so much you simply won't care. i wouldn't trust the chinese
government to maintain an accurate, fair and impartial list. who would?

that leaves........"private entity." so who's gonna run the lists? what are
the standards? where's the oversight? where's the accountability?

can i do it? sure, why not! i'll call myself (hehe, my 'organization') the
"league of concerned educational administrators" or maybe "the guild of
foreign teaching professionals" or.........whatever. heck, i can spend $250
and incorporate in delaware or nevada, get a logo and an embossing seal.
another $250 will get me a slick website, and i'm completely legitimate.

so there's the problem. the standards are set by some dude. oversight
and accountablity? what's that? still wanna let me run the show?

what? you don't trust me? why not? could it be there's no transparency?
the standards are what i say they are. how you get added, or removed,
is a trade secret. and you have no recourse.

i think the potential for corruption, extortion and all-around evil-doing is
simply too great to leave this in the hands of some unknown group of
masked avengers.

blacklist? great idea, but:

i don't like school x (my competition). i submit false complaints. are "they"
able to confirm them? will they bother? or are they simply gonna add
complaints to the list until the secret red line has been crossed. what's
the incentive to check out the facts?

my friends and i complain about a school, they get listed. if we resubmit
better evaluations, will the school be removed? hmmm, how much can
i force the owner to pay for a better report?

what about the "entity"? wanna get off the list, what does the school
have to do? are they even allowed to known what the complaint is?
or is this going to be guantanamo style....."tell us why you did it!"
do they have to submit to "inspections"? what will that cost? will they be
forced to hire entity "consultants"? sounds expensive! what if they don't
pass the "test"? will they have to pay for more extensive "training"? gosh,
the possibilities (and earning potential) are endless!

and what about that whitelist?

how do i get my school on it? what are the standards? what? they're
secret? what? i have to pay to see the list? what? i have to pay to
see my personal information on the list? wow! what a gold mine!

so, now you say that in order to be included on this legendary whitelist,
i need to be "inspected" by your "agents"? and that costs how much?
oh, and then i have to purchase a "membership"? again how much?
huh, and i have to be "re-evaluated" annually?

man, those guys at the "entity" should all have "the" as middle names!

of course, if someone can explain how this can be fairly regulated in
the absence of any government oversight, i'm willing to listen. if not,
i think that despite good intentions, it will eventually become just another
extortion racket.

[RWA1981]

You raise some great points. If there is a racket involved it would probably be the schools buying a spot on the whitelist.

[thebroformerlyknownaschou]

[Shroob]

[thebroformerlyknownaschou]

yes, but these lists are going to be the private property of some
faceless corporations. want an example? fire up the googles, and type "yelp extortion"

here's a sample:

"Yelp and the Business of Extortion 2.0

Local business owners say Yelp offers to hide negative customer reviews of their businesses on its web site ... for a price.

".....Hi, this is Mike from Yelp," the voice would say. "You've had three hundred visitors to your site this month. You've had a really good response. But you have a few bad ones at the top. I could do something about those."

This wasn't your average sales pitch. At least, not the kind that John, an East Bay restaurateur, was used to. He was familiar with Yelp.com, the popular San Francisco-based web site in which any person can write a review about nearly any business. John's restaurant has more than one hundred reviews, and averages a healthy 3.5-star rating. But when John asked Mike what he could do about his bad reviews, he recalls the sales rep responding: "We can move them. Well, for $299 a month." John couldn't believe what the guy was offering. It seemed wrong....."

http://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/yelp-and-the-business-of-extortion-20/Content?oid=1176635


try that with any of the popular review sites, and you'll find similar schemes
going on. and that's in the supposedly less-corrupted west. imagine......

[Bud Powell]

White lists and black lists of schools aren't necessary. Forums such as Dave's do a good job of reporting shysters. Sure, there are a few sites that allow any sort of slanderous post about schools, but I think that (for the most part) word of mouth (er, word-of-finger) is a lot more effective than any official list. People who do their homework and read many forums will eventually form a mental image of the schools.

Twelve years ago, people screamed about one particular chain found throughout China. It was generally accepted that it an absolutely awful outfit to become involved with. I have seen very few comments about it during the past few years, but they've all been complimentary.

There's a blog that maintains a "Hall of Shame", but it seems not to be interested in many reports about really bad schools. I am uncertain if it is highly selective or if it entertains reviews only from a small coterie of friends.

It's possible that several blacklists of FTs exist throughout the industry. Sure, it's possible that an influential FAO or a school owner may have the influence to keep the PSB in a few cities informed, but it's more likely that recruiters and the schools themselves have lists of undesirables, as well as desirables that they share with other schools and recruiters. They have direct contact with the recruits, and they stand to lose the most if they continue to place crummy teachers in the same schools.

I am sure that there is a national database of FTs who are habitual offenders or who are jailed for serious offenses. That does not stretch the imagination at all.

[Javelin of Radiance]

I don't trust any list where anyone can add anything anonymously.

Agoda.com (not esl-related) has a good system. Before you can submit a rating for any business you first have to book and pay for the services of a company (a hotel for example). Three days after your booking expires you're allowed to post a review. People can still post a negative review of a place but they won't normally be posting the "I'm going to sabotage a competitors business" review because they've had to pay for the right to make the post. More likely to be fair-minded.

Anything short of that is just crap.

Can't see how such a system could be used for rating schools though. Maybe there's room for the CFTU to branch out from their traditional BS here.

[RWA1981]

[Bud Powell]

The blacklist may be more tricky because you never know the true motive of the guy who trashes a school. Maybe he was fired for selling weed or sexual harassment or someone reason that would justify a termination.

Wait. One won't just be be fired for dealing drugs in China. That's a serious crime, a conviction for which will entail jail time, and possibly the death penalty. Two Filipino women were framed a couple of years ago and they got the Big Tingle for it.

Are you really in China?

[thebroformerlyknownaschou]

[RWA1981]

Instead of guessing why not just send an email to those guys and ask them how they come up with a white list. Since they give links for the blacklist, that seem pretty straight forward and legit to me.

There are other blacklists besides the CFTU out there but they do not seem to be updated very often. In fact the TEFL Blacklist has not been updated since 2009. Here are the ones with 2014 entries:

http://worldwolfwatch.wordpress.com

http://eslwatch.info

http://chinascambusters.com

As for whitelists, I could only find two - the CFTU's which is has an annual update and Angelina's ESL Cafe which was posted in 2011 and really only reflects the schools that are registered with SAFEA to hire foreigners. I cannot really say it is a true whitelist but check it out for yourself:

http://www.anesl.com/schools/info.asp?province=&page=1

and here are the 2013 and 2014 CFTU whitelists:

http://www.chinaforeignteachersunion.com/2013/03/2013-china-school-whitelist-compiled-by.html

http://www.chinaforeignteachersunion.org/2012/12/10-best-esl-tefl-schools-in-china-china.html

[Shroob]

[The_Kong]

[thebroformerlyknownaschou]