CEDU
Encyclopedia
CEDU Educational Services, Inc., known simply as CEDU , was founded in 1967 by Mel Wasserman
Mel Wasserman
Mel Wasserman was a businessman, entrepreneur and founder of CEDU Education. He was a pioneer in the Therapeutic Boarding School industry.-Biography:...

 and his wife Brigitta. The company owned and operated several therapeutic boarding school
Therapeutic boarding school
A therapeutic boarding school , alternatively known as an emotional growth boarding school, is a boarding school based on the therapeutic community model that offers an educational program together with specialized structure and supervision for students with emotional and behavioral problems,...

s and behavior modification
Behavior modification
Behavior modification is the use of empirically demonstrated behavior change techniques to increase or decrease the frequency of behaviors, such as altering an individual's behaviors and reactions to stimuli through positive and negative reinforcement of adaptive behavior and/or the reduction of...

 programs in California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

 and Idaho
Idaho
Idaho is a state in the Rocky Mountain area of the United States. The state's largest city and capital is Boise. Residents are called "Idahoans". Idaho was admitted to the Union on July 3, 1890, as the 43rd state....

.

The original CEDU High School website describes itself:

History

Their motto says: "See yourself as you are and do something about it", however some claim that to be a backronym
Backronym
A backronym or bacronym is a phrase constructed purposely, such that an acronym can be formed to a specific desired word. Backronyms may be invented with serious or humorous intent, or may be a type of false or folk etymology....

 with the name actually being an acronym for Chuck E. Dederich University after the founder of Synanon
Synanon
The Synanon organization, initially a drug rehabilitation program, was founded by Charles E. "Chuck" Dederich, Sr., in 1958, in Santa Monica, California, United States...

. Before starting CEDU, Wasserman had sponsored teenagers into Synanon. CEDU was started in 1967, when Wasserman bought property in Running Springs, California
Running Springs, California
Running Springs is a census-designated place in San Bernardino County, California, United States. The population was 4,862 at the 2010 census, down from 5,125 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Running Springs is located at ....

, east of Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

. Some claim that he actually began his work with teens in 1965, when he (at that time running a furniture store) started to take restless youth into his household.

Original CEDU period (1967–1985)

The average time a student spent at a CEDU school was 2½ years. The school year was year-round. The original CEDU program did not believe in use of psychological medicine. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 1pm to 5pm (sometimes 6pm) students were required to attend group therapy sessions called Raps. In this CEDU period, Raps were highly confrontational, at any given moment in a Rap there were could be between 1 to 15 students screaming at other students or, with their head pointed towards the floor, screaming at their own 'emotional issues' and/or crying uncontrollably. Approximately 95% of the faculty had no accreditation or training specific to intensive Gestalt based 'group therapy' which was very popular during this time period.

Expansion (1982–1990)

In 1982, a small group of students and staff, including founding headmaster Dan Earle, left the Running Springs campus for Bonners Ferry, Idaho
Bonners Ferry, Idaho
Bonners Ferry is a city in and the county seat of Boundary County, Idaho, United States. The population was 2,543 at the 2010 census.-History:...

 to open Rocky Mountain Academy (RMA). RMA's curriculum and philosophy were identical to the original school, CEDU Running Springs. On rare occasions staff and students were transferred between schools. The staff generally transferred campuses for promotions, students were transferred because the staff felt a "fresh start" was the best (and usually last) option for the student. Rocky Mountain Academy was one of the largest employers in Bonner's County during the period, diversifying it's timber and agriculture economy.

Around 1990 the facilities began to accept that some of the teenagers could need medications.

CEDU Education - Brown Schools (1998–2005)

CEDU Education was sold to Brown Schools while it was at its peak in the market; all the schools were full and everything was going well. Two years into its ownership by Brown Schools, the staff turnover was extremely high, no one with any time or stability in the company was left, and CEDU Education went backwards. Former employees watched helplessly as the Brown Schools made management decision after management decision inconsistent with the CEDU philosophy of education and inconsistent with what was effective in helping struggling teens.
StartedName LocationClosedFate
1967 CEDU High School Running Springs, California 2005 Campus sold to Chabad of Los Angeles
1982 Rocky Mountain Academy Bonner's Ferry, Idaho 2005 Property purchased by Universal Health Services
Universal Health Services
Universal Health Services, Inc. is a Fortune 500 company based in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. UHS is one of the leading hospital management companies in the United States and operates, through its subsidiaries, acute care hospitals, behavioral health facilities and ambulatory surgery centers in...

1992 CEDU Middle School Running Springs, California 2005 Campus sold to Chabad of Los Angeles
1993 Boulder Creek Academy Bonner's Ferry, Idaho 2005 Re-opened by Universal Health Services
1994 Northwest Academy Naples, Idaho 2005 Re-opened by Universal Health Services
1994 Ascent Wilderness Program Naples, Idaho 2005 Re-opened by Universal Health Services
|Milestones Transitional Program 2005 property in litigation

Closure

Brown Schools operated 11 boarding schools and educational facilities in California, Idaho, Texas, Vermont, and Florida. Facilities in Austin, Texas and San Marcos, Texas were sold to Psychiatric Solutions Inc. in 2003. CEDU closed in early 2005 due to financial problems. Several CEDU employees reported to Lake Arrowhead Mountain News, however, that pending litigation against CEDU for abuse and violation of rights as well as citations against the schools contributed to the downfall. In March, 2005 Brown Schools declared bankruptcy, in part because of legal costs related to lawsuits filed by the families of several former students. The same year, Universal Health Services bid $13.5 million for the Brown School properties in bankruptcy.

Idaho Educational Services

Universal Health Services Inc., a public company focused on hospitals and behavioral health centers, subsequently reopened three of the former CEDU facilities: Ascent, Boulder Creek (located on the former Rocky Mountain Academy property) and Northwest Academy. These operate under the new name of Idaho Educational Services. Each program is overseen by individual directors.

Influence

The history of CEDU is largely the history of the development of parent-choice, private-pay residential programs. A significant number of the schools in the Emotional Growth/Therapeutic schools industry were developed or strongly influenced by people who were originally inspired by their CEDU experience.

In 1984 the Cascade School was founded in Whitmore, California by Michael Allgood a student of Mel Wasserman along with ex-Cedu staff and students utilizing the exact propheet model of CEDU.

Ideological and therapeutic underpinnings

Lon Woodbury, former admissions director at CEDU and current independent education consultant had this to say about the origins of the program. "Mel Wasserman was influenced by Synanon, and so used the confrontation model watered down quite a bit in the founding in CEDU." No one suggests that any of the most unseemly aspects of Synanon were ever part of the CEDU curriculum.

Group sessions at CEDU, referred to as Raps, were inspired by Synanon's The Game. Other influences in CEDU's methodologies can be traced to Large Group Awareness Training seminars such as Erhard Seminars Training
Erhard Seminars Training
Erhard Seminars Training, an organization founded by Werner H. Erhard, offered a two-weekend course known officially as "The est Standard Training"...

 and Lifespring
Lifespring
Lifespring was a for-profit private company, founded in 1974. The company promoted itself through books and word of mouth advertising. By 1989, officials stated that over 300,000 people had enrolled in the company's seminars...

. A variation of Lifespring was/is, in fact, used as the last workshop in the CEDU curriculum.

There are also many striking similarities in CEDU therapy to that of Primal Therapy
Primal therapy
Primal therapy is a trauma-based psychotherapy created by Arthur Janov, who argues that neurosis is caused by the repressed pain of childhood trauma. Janov argues that repressed pain can be sequentially brought to conscious awareness and resolved through re-experiencing the incident and fully...

 and Bioenergetic Analysis
Bioenergetic analysis
Bioenergetic Analysis is a form of body psychotherapy , based upon the work of Wilhelm Reich, but adding a number of innovations...

, but it is at this point unable to be proven definitively as to whether Mel Wasserman actually borrowed directly from these practices.

Students experienced several workshops throughout their stay, these are referred to as "Propheets", in which the general theme for the propheet is based loosely on the writings from The Prophet
The Prophet (book)
The Prophet is a book of 26 poetic essays written in English by the Lebanese artist, philosopher and writer Kahlil Gibran. It was originally published in 1923 by Alfred A. Knopf. It is Gibran's best known work...

 by Khalil Gibran
Khalil Gibran
Khalil Gibran Jubrān Khalīl Jubrān,Jibrān Khalīl Jibrān, or Jibrān Xalīl Jibrān; Arabic , January 6, 1883 – April 10, 1931) also known as Kahlil Gibran, was a Lebanese American artist, poet, and writer...

. The propheet evolved out of all night Rap sessions by Wasserman in the late 1960s. Examples of this is Gibran's passage about Joy and Sorrow, which is used in the Truth Propheet, or his prose about children, which was used for the Children's propheet. Wasserman was quoted as stating that a propheet was to "Take the words of the Prophet and put feet to them." Propheets lasted a full 20–24 hours. It was soon found that certain questions had to be addressed before there could be meaningful work on other areas. It rapidly evolved into nine Propheets, taken in sequence by all students, each one addressing different issues any child must resolve in order to become a mature, successful adult. For example, a child has to have at least some handle on what the truth is about themselves before anything else can even be addressed. The first Propheet consequently is the Truth Propheet. Later is the Values Propheet where each child explores the basic values he or she is living by, and is helped to decide if those values make any sense. Other Propheets help them look at what they are really doing in creating relationships, help them ask what happened to the Dreams they once held, and explore and understand the things they do to undermine success and happiness. Each one helps them to better understand that area of their life, and to make changes when and where appropriate. Some workshops were multi-day events, the first one lasting three days, and the second one, based on Lifespring lasting six.

The school's philosophy was to take high risk self destructive teens and change the way that they viewed themselves and to change the destructive behavior they exhibited towards themselves and others. The staff provided a different curriculum which focused on the positives of some of our greatest heroes including Mother Theresa, Gandhi, Kahil Gibran as well as Martin Luther King Jr. and other intelligent, humane leaders of the world. This was used to help the students to understand that sometimes peace is more potent than violence in dealing with conflict. While there are many students who had a difficult time in the later years of the school, there are those who the program benefited and enriched. Unfortunately for those with a positive experience those who did not, have spent much time and on many forums verbally abusing anyone who says anything positive about the school and their stay there.

Another questionable aspect of the group raps was the expectation by staff that students were to reveal a wide variety of previous acts, such as sexual experiences, criminal activities and anything deemed by the staff to be emotionally traumatizing. Most of these revelations were done in very public settings with peers and staff often demoralizing students for these very confessions. The therapeutic premise was "break the student down, then after emotionally dealing with the issue, prop the student back up". The problem is that students began to act the way they were expected to when confronted and learned to cry and act out emotionally, with better performances reaping greater rewards. Many students have admitted to making up past events so as to have a past that was comparable to other students, who were "growing" through their past traumas through revelation.

Propheets & Experiences

Seq. Name Resources Description
1 The Truth Propheet Passages pertaining to:
"Joy and Sorrow"
from Khalil Gibran
Khalil Gibran
Khalil Gibran Jubrān Khalīl Jubrān,Jibrān Khalīl Jibrān, or Jibrān Xalīl Jibrān; Arabic , January 6, 1883 – April 10, 1931) also known as Kahlil Gibran, was a Lebanese American artist, poet, and writer...

's The Prophet
The Prophet (book)
The Prophet is a book of 26 poetic essays written in English by the Lebanese artist, philosopher and writer Kahlil Gibran. It was originally published in 1923 by Alfred A. Knopf. It is Gibran's best known work...

 
"The truth shall set you free."

"What is your truth?" examples are: sparkle, beautiful, loving

"What is your lie?" examples are: weak, slut, liar

"You are what you do, not what you say you do."

The concept of the pendulum: "To the degree that you feel your sorrow, to that same degree you shall feel your joy"

The concept of the chrome ball: You where once a beautiful chrome ball which your behaviors (the lie about you) have tarnished.

This was a 24 hour experience.

It's main feature: an all night rap, in which older students came into the propheet who had functioned as 'big brothers or big sisters' to the younger students when they entered the school. They aid the staff by bringing up known negative behaviors of their friends. The rap focused on attach tactics to break the student down. Each student had a card taped to his/her chest with a negative word written on it. That was their lie, they must live with, for the evening.

The main song of this propheet, which was featured on a scroll given to the student by an older student when leaving the propheet is: (add). Songs are often played on repeat for effect.
2 The Children's Propheet Passages pertaining to:
"Speak to us of Children"
from Khalil Gibran's The Prophet
"Children of the Universe, Children One and All."

"A child that lives with truth learns what justice is."

"Who is your inner child?" examples are names such as pumpkin or sweet pea. Each student identified the nickname they were called when they were young.

This is a 24 hour experience.

It's main feature: a birthday party at the end of the propheet in which each student is given a bagged lunch and cupcake and encouraged to snuggle smush and act as child-like as possible.

The main song of this propheet, which is featured on a scroll given to the student by an older student when leaving the propheet was often "Child for a Day" by Cat Stevens
Cat Stevens
Yusuf Islam , commonly known by his former stage name Cat Stevens, is an English singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, educator, philanthropist, and prominent convert to Islam....

.
3 The Brothers Keeper Propheet
4 The Discover Expedition
5 The I Want To Live Propheet
6 The Values Propheet Guided imagery Students are required to have a discussion about what makes humans different with respect to other creatures.
7 The Wilderness Challenge Expedition
8 The Stretch Night
9 The Imagine Propheet

Deals with the inner child concept and regression similar to the children's propheet.
The John Lennon song "Imagine" is used throughout
10 The I and Me Workshop
(3 Day)
Guided imagery
11 The Summit Workshop
(7 Day)
Mel Wasserman purchased the rights to use the Lifespring workshop, in addition to adding his own exercises.

Daily life

Daily life at CEDU was rigidly structured, however, depending on the era, it could differ in nature of activities (i.e. such as what days of the week raps were held), or what the phase/level system entailed. The manner of punitive measures also changed greatly over the course of the CEDU lifespan. (See links to lawsuits below.)

One template of the daily structure, from the 1980s/1990s era, normally consisted of some form of manual labor in the morning, a four hour rap in the afternoon, followed by one hour dorm time, dinner, and then spending "social" time with other students in the evening. The days that did not have raps in the afternoon usually substituted those hours with some form of physical exercise or team sport.

Academic life

Academic life changed over the period of CEDU's lifespan. At one point, it was nonexistent, and students earned school credits for the activities they were forced to endure. (For example, one rap earned you a credit in "interpersonal dynamic workshops".) In the late 80s, the upper school students' daily labor (which normally consisted of supporting younger students at their family's/team's/group's/ work site) was replaced with academic classes. Many detainees did not graduate with high school diplomas and had to return to high school after attending one of the CEDU schools.

The Academics were based on a trimester schedule with an ACW (Alternate Curriculum Week) at the culmination of each. The classes themselves were as small as the student body and enough work to keep the students occupied but not enough to learn any particular topic. This was prescribed as a means to keep the students focused on their emotional growth.

Many of the counselors and teachers were not qualified to teach in an academic environment. Many students have said they learned little about how to function in the academic arena and found themselves at an educational level below their peers after leaving the school. The almost cult-like
Cult
The word cult in current popular usage usually refers to a group whose beliefs or practices are considered abnormal or bizarre. The word originally denoted a system of ritual practices...

 focus on dealing with emotional issues and finding the inner child
Inner child
Inner child is a concept used in popular psychology and Analytical psychology to denote the childlike aspect of a person's psyche, especially when viewed as an independent entity. Frequently, the term is used to address subjective childhood experiences and the remaining effects of one's childhood...

 left little time for academic pursuits, and academic excellence was not recognized or even desired.

Celebrity and CEDU

The first facility was located in California — not far from Hollywood. The busy life of the persons in the entertainment industry meant that some of the known celebrities had less time for their children and outsourced the upbringing to CEDU. In relationship with the closure of the facility as local newspapers stated:
Paris Hilton
Paris Hilton
Paris Whitney Hilton is an American businesswoman, heiress, and socialite. She is a great-granddaughter of Conrad Hilton . Hilton is known for her controversial participation in a sex tape in 2003, and appearance on the television series The Simple Life alongside fellow socialite and childhood...

 attended the running springs school for some months prior to attending Provo Canyon School
Provo Canyon School
Provo Canyon School is a residential treatment center for teenagers with two campuses in Utah. The boys' campus is in Provo and the girls' campus is in Orem. The primary focus of the school is residential treatment for emotionally troubled youth...

. When she turned 18 she left as an adult.

Joe Francis
Joe Francis
Joseph R. "Joe" Francis is an American entrepreneur, known as the founder of GGW Brands which produces the Girls Gone Wild and Guys Gone Wild DVD series....

, manager of Girls Gone Wild
Girls Gone Wild
The Girls Gone Wild franchise, created by Joe Francis, is a video series by the production company Mantra Films, Inc., which is headquartered in Santa Monica, California.-Content:...

attended CEDU before attending the University of Southern California
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...

. His parents were heavily involved in Herbalife
Herbalife
Herbalife International is a global nutrition, weight-loss and skin-care company. The company was founded in 1980 and it employs around 4,000 people worldwide. Herbalife reported net sales of USD 2.7 billion in 2010...

.

Herbalife founder Mark Hughes
Mark R. Hughes
Mark Reynolds Hughes was an American businessman who was founder, chairman and CEO of Herbalife International Ltd.- Early life :...

 was a well known name during the early years of CEDU.

In the news

1993: A 17-year-old boy disappeared from the Campus. He was never found.

1994: A 14-year-old boy disappeared from the Campus. The family believes that he was abducted. He has not been found.

July 1994 - Jon A. committed suicide in one of the dormitories of lower Camelot at Rocky Mountain Academy.

1997 - Five persons were injured in a riot at Northwest Academy.

2002 - CEDU Educational Services, Inc. pays settlement to former client on charges of abuse.

2004 - Parents search for their son who ran away from CEDU Running Springs.

2009 - A police investigation is conducted into the unsupervised presence of the convicted killer James Lee Crummel on the CEDU Running Springs Campus in connection with the two disappearances in 1990s.

See also

Related topics
  • Teenage rebellion
    Teenage rebellion
    As part of their development into young adults, humans must develop an identity independent from their parents or family and a capacity for independent decision-making. They may experiment with different roles, behaviours, and ideologies as part of their process of developing an identity...

  • Continuation high school
    Continuation high school
    A continuation high school is an alternative to a comprehensive high school primarily for students who are considered at-risk of not graduating at the normal pace. The requirements to graduate are the same but the scheduling is more flexible to allow students to earn their credits at a quicker...

  • Residential education
    Residential education
    Residential Education, broadly defined, is a pre-college education provided in an environment where students both live and learn outside of their family homes. Varied forms of residential education have been in existence in the United States since before the nation's founding...

  • Residential treatment center
    Residential treatment center
    A residential treatment center , sometimes called a rehab, is a live-in health care facility providing therapy for substance abuse, mental illness, or other behavioral problems...



Techniques
  • Therapeutic community
    Therapeutic community
    Therapeutic community is a term applied to a participative, group-based approach to long-term mental illness, personality disorders and drug addiction...

  • Operant conditioning
    Operant conditioning
    Operant conditioning is a form of psychological learning during which an individual modifies the occurrence and form of its own behavior due to the association of the behavior with a stimulus...

  • Behavior modification
    Behavior modification
    Behavior modification is the use of empirically demonstrated behavior change techniques to increase or decrease the frequency of behaviors, such as altering an individual's behaviors and reactions to stimuli through positive and negative reinforcement of adaptive behavior and/or the reduction of...



Therapies
  • Group psychotherapy
    Group psychotherapy
    Group psychotherapy or group therapy is a form of psychotherapy in which one or more therapists treat a small group of clients together as a group...

  • Behavior therapy
  • Attack therapy
    Attack therapy
    Attack therapy is a controversial type of psychotherapy evolved from ventilation therapy. It involves highly confrontational interaction between the patient and a therapist, or between the patient and fellow patients during group therapy, in which the patient may be verbally abused, denounced, or...



External links

  • Surviving Cedu, a 2008 documentary by Liam Scheff, featuring a closing segment with cult expert Paul Morantz
    Paul Morantz
    Paul Morantz is an attorney at law specializing in the prosecution of fanatical cults, religious or otherwise, and their leaders for harmful conduct. He is most recognized for his cases against Synanon, a behavior modification drug rehabilitation group in the 1970s, which attempted to kill Morantz...

    .
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