Now Why Would the Bush WH Want to Meddle with College Accreditation?
By BURTON BOLLAG
Arlington, Va.
The face-off between the Education Department and accrediting organizations entered a sharper phase on Monday as the two sides began a new round of negotiations on changes the government wants to make in accreditation rules.
Unsurprisingly, the friction centered on two controversial areas in which the Bush administration wants to influence higher education by changing how the accreditors operate.
The first involves proposed changes that would require accreditors to establish standards on what students should learn and then measure the extent to which individual colleges meet those standards.
The second rule change would tell colleges they could no longer refuse to accept credits earned at another institution solely because the sending institution did not have regional accreditation.
The proposed changes, if adopted, would "constitute a massive expansion of the federal role" in overseeing higher education, said Judith S. Eaton, president of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation, an umbrella group representing accreditors. The changes "would replace the professional judgment of accreditors with federal regulations," she said.
The three-day meeting, at a hotel just outside Washington, is the second of three gatherings in a process known as "negotiated rule-making." The third gathering will be in April. Taking part in the negotiations are 12 nongovernment negotiators -- accreditors and senior officials of state and for-profit college systems -- and officials of the Education Department.
The department called the meetings as part of its efforts to use accreditation to put in place some of the key proposals of last fall's report of the federal Commission on the Future of Higher Education. The department says it intends to take the opinions of the group into account in any rule changes it makes. But the government alone has the final word.
During their first meeting, in February, the panel members discussed the department's proposed changes in more general terms. On the table at this week's meeting is a 36-page document with new language the government would like to insert into rules governing 12 areas of the accreditors' work.
The Education Department e-mailed the document to negotiators only on Thursday evening, and some of the nongovernment negotiators said that had left them with little time to analyze the text. The meetings' protocols state that "to the extent practicable, the department will provide members with documents ... at least seven days in advance."
Vickie L. Schray, a senior department official who is leading the talks, promised to try to provide future texts in a more timely fashion.
At the first gathering, the nongovernment negotiators pushed through softer language in place of a department proposal to have accreditors set minimum standards for "student achievement" at the colleges they oversee. The idea of minimum standards is opposed by many traditional colleges, which believe it would undermine the great diversity of American higher education.
But the department hardly seemed to have taken notice of that in the proposals it sent back to the group.
Some of the proposals "seem to suggest a significant change in the function and role of accreditation," said Ralph A. Wolff, president of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges' Accrediting Commission for Senior Colleges and Universities. "We're trying to figure out the implications."
Under an item titled "Institutional success with respect to student achievement," the document says accreditors could select one of three approaches for measuring success. Those options are as follows:
* An accreditor establishes "specific quantitative and qualitative measures of student achievement and an expected level of performance."
* An accreditor "develops a set of evaluative rubrics for groups of institutions with similar missions, which includes quantitative and qualitative measures. The agency then weighs the components of the rubric for each institution and specifies an expected level of performance for each component."
* "The institution establishes quantitative and qualitative measures for each of the programs it offers, and an expected level of performance, that is satisfactory to the agency."
Betty Horton, an official of the Association of Specialized and Professional Accreditors, questioned the validity of that proposal. "Is there any scientific way to determine which measures
of student learning are effective?" she asked.
In fact one of the two occasions on which the nongovernment negotiators stopped the meeting to caucus among themselves on Monday was related to that issue. The interruption was to stop discussion of the third agenda item, "monitoring of institutions," and agree to take it up only on the last day of this week's talks, after the issue of assessing student achievement and the department's proposals to make more accreditation findings public have been made clearer.
On the other highly controversial issue, credit transfer, the accreditors themselves are divided. The six regional accrediting organizations, which oversee most comprehensive institutions, may like the approach proposed by the Education Department: that the lack of regional accreditation of the sending institution should not be a reason to reject credits out of hand. But they, and many college groups, don't want federal regulations interfering with colleges' decisions on the matter.
Some believe the department has no authority to make rules in this area.
But career-oriented institutions -- and especially the for-profit networks of such colleges -- complain that their students are often unable to bring with them credits they have earned when they transfer to traditional institutions. Elise Scanlon, executive director of the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges of Technology, said she was "encouraged" by the department's proposed changes on this issue.
At Monday's meeting, negotiators also discussed proposed changes intended to strengthen the "due process" obligations of accreditors when they take disciplinary actions against institutions, and accrediting rules governing "substantive change," such as when institutions open multiple sites, or are bought by a new owner.
Although the meeting remained cordial and even friendly under the leadership of the department's Ms. Schray, the far-reaching impact of the proposed changes created a certain tension in the room.
The nongovernment group's first call to interrupt the gathering for a caucus came shortly after the meeting began. The reason was a complaint by a number of the accreditors and college leaders that the summary of the previous month's meeting prepared by the department was incomplete and slanted.
When members of that group came back from their hourlong caucus, they presented a statement saying the department's summary "could lead to misunderstanding and misinterpretation." The department agreed to withdraw the summary.
HT: Mark Crispin Miller
Arlington, Va.
The face-off between the Education Department and accrediting organizations entered a sharper phase on Monday as the two sides began a new round of negotiations on changes the government wants to make in accreditation rules.
Unsurprisingly, the friction centered on two controversial areas in which the Bush administration wants to influence higher education by changing how the accreditors operate.
The first involves proposed changes that would require accreditors to establish standards on what students should learn and then measure the extent to which individual colleges meet those standards.
The second rule change would tell colleges they could no longer refuse to accept credits earned at another institution solely because the sending institution did not have regional accreditation.
The proposed changes, if adopted, would "constitute a massive expansion of the federal role" in overseeing higher education, said Judith S. Eaton, president of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation, an umbrella group representing accreditors. The changes "would replace the professional judgment of accreditors with federal regulations," she said.
The three-day meeting, at a hotel just outside Washington, is the second of three gatherings in a process known as "negotiated rule-making." The third gathering will be in April. Taking part in the negotiations are 12 nongovernment negotiators -- accreditors and senior officials of state and for-profit college systems -- and officials of the Education Department.
The department called the meetings as part of its efforts to use accreditation to put in place some of the key proposals of last fall's report of the federal Commission on the Future of Higher Education. The department says it intends to take the opinions of the group into account in any rule changes it makes. But the government alone has the final word.
During their first meeting, in February, the panel members discussed the department's proposed changes in more general terms. On the table at this week's meeting is a 36-page document with new language the government would like to insert into rules governing 12 areas of the accreditors' work.
The Education Department e-mailed the document to negotiators only on Thursday evening, and some of the nongovernment negotiators said that had left them with little time to analyze the text. The meetings' protocols state that "to the extent practicable, the department will provide members with documents ... at least seven days in advance."
Vickie L. Schray, a senior department official who is leading the talks, promised to try to provide future texts in a more timely fashion.
At the first gathering, the nongovernment negotiators pushed through softer language in place of a department proposal to have accreditors set minimum standards for "student achievement" at the colleges they oversee. The idea of minimum standards is opposed by many traditional colleges, which believe it would undermine the great diversity of American higher education.
But the department hardly seemed to have taken notice of that in the proposals it sent back to the group.
Some of the proposals "seem to suggest a significant change in the function and role of accreditation," said Ralph A. Wolff, president of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges' Accrediting Commission for Senior Colleges and Universities. "We're trying to figure out the implications."
Under an item titled "Institutional success with respect to student achievement," the document says accreditors could select one of three approaches for measuring success. Those options are as follows:
* An accreditor establishes "specific quantitative and qualitative measures of student achievement and an expected level of performance."
* An accreditor "develops a set of evaluative rubrics for groups of institutions with similar missions, which includes quantitative and qualitative measures. The agency then weighs the components of the rubric for each institution and specifies an expected level of performance for each component."
* "The institution establishes quantitative and qualitative measures for each of the programs it offers, and an expected level of performance, that is satisfactory to the agency."
Betty Horton, an official of the Association of Specialized and Professional Accreditors, questioned the validity of that proposal. "Is there any scientific way to determine which measures
of student learning are effective?" she asked.
In fact one of the two occasions on which the nongovernment negotiators stopped the meeting to caucus among themselves on Monday was related to that issue. The interruption was to stop discussion of the third agenda item, "monitoring of institutions," and agree to take it up only on the last day of this week's talks, after the issue of assessing student achievement and the department's proposals to make more accreditation findings public have been made clearer.
On the other highly controversial issue, credit transfer, the accreditors themselves are divided. The six regional accrediting organizations, which oversee most comprehensive institutions, may like the approach proposed by the Education Department: that the lack of regional accreditation of the sending institution should not be a reason to reject credits out of hand. But they, and many college groups, don't want federal regulations interfering with colleges' decisions on the matter.
Some believe the department has no authority to make rules in this area.
But career-oriented institutions -- and especially the for-profit networks of such colleges -- complain that their students are often unable to bring with them credits they have earned when they transfer to traditional institutions. Elise Scanlon, executive director of the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges of Technology, said she was "encouraged" by the department's proposed changes on this issue.
At Monday's meeting, negotiators also discussed proposed changes intended to strengthen the "due process" obligations of accreditors when they take disciplinary actions against institutions, and accrediting rules governing "substantive change," such as when institutions open multiple sites, or are bought by a new owner.
Although the meeting remained cordial and even friendly under the leadership of the department's Ms. Schray, the far-reaching impact of the proposed changes created a certain tension in the room.
The nongovernment group's first call to interrupt the gathering for a caucus came shortly after the meeting began. The reason was a complaint by a number of the accreditors and college leaders that the summary of the previous month's meeting prepared by the department was incomplete and slanted.
When members of that group came back from their hourlong caucus, they presented a statement saying the department's summary "could lead to misunderstanding and misinterpretation." The department agreed to withdraw the summary.
HT: Mark Crispin Miller
Labels: College accreditation, Education
posted by CLB at 4:46 PM
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