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California Regulator Seeks To Shut Down 'Learn To Code' Bootcamps
cultiv8 writes: "The Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education (BPPE), a unit in the California Department of Consumer Affairs charged with licensing and regulating postsecondary education in California, is arguing that 'learn to code' bootcamps fall under its jurisdiction and are subject to regulation. In mid-January, BPPE sent cease and desist letters to Hackbright Academy, Hack Reactor, App Academy, Zipfian Academy, and others. Unless they comply, these organizations face imminent closure and a hefty $50,000 fine. A BPPE spokesperson said these organizations have two weeks to start coming into compliance."
The regulation is hardly aggressive. According to the regulators for now all the companies need to show is a good faith effort to come in compliance. The article headline is obviously misleading.
Regulation can prevent harm. Litigation is expensive, time consuming, and a crap shoot with loaded dice since the perpetrator has much deeper pockets. Also see tort reform which gutted your only recourse. Deregulation and tort reform are done for the wealthy to give them impunity.
I'd raise your "misleading" to "bullshit", actually. The article makes it perfectly clear, the summary and headline are garbage.
Strangely, many deep-red states are also struggling with poverty and high unemployment.
Except that is not true. There are five states with unemployment worse than California, and none are red (they all voted for Obama in 2012).
If "this kind of bureaucratic overreach" was a simple explanation for high unemployment rates ...
Nobody said it was a "simple explanation", but it is certainly part of the problem. In no other state is a business required by law to inform their customers that they may get cancer if they eat the toner powder from the laser printer in the back office.
If a school (or any other businesses) appear to be using fraudulent advertising, then the state attorney general should investigate. But they should not be throwing up hurdles to everyone that wants to start up a business and generate jobs.
Actually, the federal government is working hard to prevent companies fleeing to these states like, for example, hassling Boeing for building a giant plant there claiming it's anti-union to poor souls inWashington state.
I'm sure meme oh race to the bottom oh my meme savior of worldviews. Worldviews are schizophrenic, or at least neurotic: they hold logically incompatible philosophies as simultaneously true.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Except that is not true [bls.gov]. There are five states with unemployment worse than California, and none are red (they all voted for Obama in 2012).
And other states near the bottom of the list: Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi, Georgia. Also, "voted for Obama" is a poor measure for intrusive state regulations --- one of your "bottom 5" states is Nevada, the place that allows brothels and pretty much anything to go (an "anti-California" when it comes to pervasive regulations). In other words, the picture is far less clear than you claim. Your statement was "This kind of bureaucratic overreach is the reason" (emphasis mine), which is demonstrably false. Fine, if you want to walk it back to "one small part of the problem" --- but it was your own words clinging to the simplistic distortion to support your ideology.
If a school (or any other businesses) appear to be using fraudulent advertising,
Which is what these places appear to be doing, on a wide scale. Thus, the state is placing them under the oversight of the regulatory body with the mandate and expertise to evaluate claims and practices in education. This isn't "throwing up hurdles to everyone that wants to start up a business"; this is putting up hurdles to a very specific class of shady businesses that've raised attention through dubious practices.
I'm a student at Hack Reactor. I was pretty cynical about that 99% hiring rate number before I started here, but now I tend to believe it's accurate. I say that based on what I've seen from the graduates of the last 2 classes. As far as I can tell, everyone in the class that graduated 10 weeks ago has a job and everyone I've talked to from the group that graduated in December seems to be getting job interviews and having success moving forward in their job search.
The trick isn't in how they do the math. If there's a trick to it, it's that:
* Admissions are pretty competitive. They pick students who are likely to be successful.
* They have chosen the right niche. It's all JavaScript all the time around here. There's a huge shortage of good JavaScript developers in the valley. A lot of companies see value in having someone who knows a bunch about JavaScript and is clearly highly motivated to learn even if they're weaker in data structures or some of the other areas.
* The numbers are small right now. Hack Reactor is only 14 months old. There's only something like 120 HR graduates in the job market.
But, and I'm in the minority around here on this, I also think coding schools should be regulated. CA passed a law to tighten regulation of trade schools in 2009 because there were lots of scams going on- a lot of bogus CNA training programs and cooking schools, etc. That law makes sense.
And if there's a law that regulates trade schools, it seems like it should apply to coding schools just as much as sound engineering programs, barber colleges and cooking schools. Creating loopholes in a good law for one industry that thinks its special seems like a bad idea.
Besides a little regulation will add legitimacy to a young industry and keep scam artists from moving into the space. There will be some compliance costs (paperwork is a hassle!), but I can't see it being much more than that.