Elk Grove schools' recently hired facilities chief -- already surrounded by questions about cronyism and a controversial land deal at his former job -- claims university degrees on his résumé that education experts say appear to have come from a diploma mill. [Well, this is a point UD's made more than once on this blog -- People scummy enough to do the diploma mill thing are scummy enough to do other scummy things, like - in this guy's case - cronyism and conflict of interest.]

The Elk Grove job posting required a master's degree, but The Bee discovered that the company hired to vet Frank C. Harding Jr.'s résumé never checked his academic credentials. [Pretty basic... You pay money to a search firm and, uh, you expect them to check academic credentials...]

On his résumé, Harding, who did not respond to several requests for comment, states that he did course work at UCLA from 1972 through 1976 but received both his bachelor's degree in economics and an MBA from Edenvale University. [Edenvale! Edenvale! A heaven on earth!]

For $2,000 to $8,000, that university will provide a degree based upon "life experience, work experience and any kind of courses taken" at a prior college, said Edenvale registrar Brian Winslow.

Currently, Edenvale is a non-accredited online organization with offices in Dallas, New York and London, Winslow said. Previously, he said, it was a correspondence and distance learning organization.

Winslow declined to provide an address or phone number for the university's headquarters unless a reporter paid a fee for a degree. [Interesting policy. I'm not familiar with other universities where you have to buy a degree before they'll give you their address and phone number.]

Clients send Edenvale their résumé and transcripts and a panel of professors determines if they are qualified for degrees, Winslow said. Letters of recommendation and customized transcripts also are provided. [It goes without saying that all of this - the professors, the recs, the transcripts - is pretend.]

Many legitimate online college programs exist. But education experts said the practices described by Winslow can be tip-offs that an institution sells diplomas.

Alan Contreras, administrator for Oregon's Office of Degree Authorization, is widely known as an expert on bogus degrees. He looked at Edenvale's Web site, www.edenvaleuniversity.org.

"Fake, fake, fake," Contreras said. "This is not even a close call. This is a diploma mill."

Government officials in Texas and the United Kingdom say it is illegal for Edenvale to issue diplomas from those locations.

"(Edenvale) has never been recognized as a degree awarding body by U.K. authorities," Jackie Stevenson, a spokeswoman for Britain's Department for Education and Skills, said in an e-mail.



[Let's pause here in the article as we transition to the 'reaction shot' from the school district. This is often, UD has noticed, the best part of diploma mill stories.]



The superintendent of the Elk Grove Unified School District, Steven Ladd, said the district hired School Services of California to vet Harding's references as part of a rigorous screening process. Harding's previous jobs include posts with the Natomas Unified School District and the private consulting firm School Facilities Planning & Management.

Ladd said nothing of concern arose during that screening.

"The question for us is, 'Does he have the degrees?' and he does," Ladd said during a break in Tuesday's school board meeting. "You're asking questions about the quality of those degrees." [Yeah man. He's got the effing degrees. We're not saying they're worth shit. But he's got the degrees.]

Yet it turns out the education portion of the screening never actually occurred.

Ronald Bennett, president of School Services of California, at first said his firm paid another company to verify Harding's claims. When The Bee found that firm had not made the checks, Bennett said he had accidentally neglected to make that request. [Just a small matter of the candidate's educational credentials, after all. Totally understandable.]

On Wednesday, Bennett said he had notified Elk Grove's superintendent of the mistake.

Elk Grove Unified board member Brian Myers said the board would "certainly pay attention" if questions were raised about one of its employees. But he said it would be a personnel matter and he couldn't comment further.

Board member Jeanette Amavisca said she had faith in the district's backgrounding process.

"Mr. Harding was the best person for the job." she said. "We done good."

Told Harding's degrees were never checked, Amavisca said it was "a matter for the superintendent to take care of." Ladd, the superintendent, did not respond to requests for comment on the vetting error. [They done good.]

Harding started his $149,000-a-year position at Elk Grove -- Northern California's largest school district -- on May 1.

He came from a similar post at Natomas Unified School District, where he recently helped devise a deal for that district to purchase 41 acres of farmland at a record-breaking $325,000 an acre. Acreage in that area typically goes for between $50,000 and $100,000.

While Harding headed the Natomas department responsible for purchasing land for school sites and building new schools, he granted $433,900 in no-bid contracts to his former construction management consulting firm, Educational Facilities Program Management. [He done real good.]

At Natomas, Harding wasn't required to have a higher education degree, according to Superintendent Steve Farrar. That requirement was added this February, district records show.

Harding attended UCLA sporadically from 1971 through 1976, studying political science, said university spokeswoman Claudia Luther, but he did not receive a degree.

On résumés Harding submitted to Elk Grove and Natomas, he said he received his bachelor's degree in economics from Edenvale University in 1982 and his MBA in 1985. Winslow, the Edenvale registrar, said the university was created in 1983. [Hm. A little slippage there.]

However, Winslow would not say whether Harding has degrees from the university, citing privacy concerns.