The acf puts their stamp of approval on these bs art institute culinary programs. Experienced staff is gone, there is never enough equipment and the product is horrible. A five hour class has enough work for an hour. I dropped out of Aip after 3 quarters when I was disgusted by being asked to use a rotten protein and moldy onions for the hundredth time. The director is a selfish corporate pawn and doesn't care. He's never there because he's always training for some acf competition. The acf just gives approval to their buddies. Speak up people!!!
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american culinary federation is a scam
it's my opinion
The acf is an outdated old white boy club. It is all about collecting dues. Irrelevant membership for the vast majority of chefs who actually work in the industry.
The directors and deans at Ai schools are in for a shock when they will need to find other jobs. The "management" experience isn't respected and working at an edmc school in 2015 is a choice to be on the side of a fraudulent company. Any ethical person can see that fact.
The culinary programs can't survive gainful employment. Edmc's only plan is to hire legal teams so they can continue to slime along.
The ACF isn't going to go after a school where one of their culinary team members is placed as director. Of course the director does nothing other than propel his own career that is the deal. Who cares if he has no experience in education? Who really cares if he is never there because what does he do anyway? There are few directors or deans who have backgrounds in education in 2015 at EDMC schools. He poses for pictures and puts his name on the program and then gets to build his career. Why would the American Culinary Federation be against any culinary school? More students in culinary means more ACF schools and more ACF enrollment fees. Prior to graduation students pay $80 each to join the ACF in order to be certified culinarians or certified in pastry... that's a lot of cash. 1,000 AI graduates who want to be certified = $80,000 for the ACF in student memberships alone. Who cares if they don't know how to cook or bake? Who cares if they don't know basic math or if they can write an essay? Just keep following the money.
You would think a 11 billion dollar lawsuit followed by a 200 million payout would be enough to have anyone with an ounce of ethics take a look at these schools.
Because once a school gets it accreditation, its a cake walk to keep it. Basically a rubber stamp unless something highly dramatic takes place and they have to be aware of it.
Not just ACF and ACICS but WASC, as well. I suspect any accreditor who receives substantial membership fees from the schools they "accredit" will be tempted to look the other way once those fees begin to flow in. I filed a complaint with WASC over a clearly documented violation of Title 4 simultaneously with a similar complaint to DoEd. WASC couldn't punt the ball fast enough once they were aware of the Federal complaint. DoEd agreed with me that the policy I filed the complaint over "appeared to be at least a violation of the spirit" of the particular CFR in question, but they were declining to pursue it (even though the policy was worth millions in additional revenue to EDMC) because they felt it would be a difficult and expensive waste of resources. Once Ed dropped the ball, WASC followed suit. Accreditations have become worthless as an indicator of quality. Recall Morningstar, Fitch and Moody's approval of the disastrous CDO situation prior to the banking and mortgage meltdown of 2008-2009.
ACICS is being investigated. They are another piece of the puzzle that is going to be chiseled away to revel the fraud.