tranfer credit and accountability

The issue of transfer credit worthiness between nationally and regionally accredited institutions brings up a number of issues that underscore the importance of understanding to what extent students have mastered the material. In some states, there have been attempts to require all courses to have the same course name and number (my understanding is this is the case in FL), but we just do not know currently if an English composition course from a for-profit career college involves just as much learning than at, for example, a doctoral extensive research university. On one hand, one can argue that students who are required to retake these courses are in a sense “double dipping” from Title IV funds (and from students) because they will not accept credit for transfer students coming from nationally accredited schools. On the other hand, institutions are rightfully concerned about the quality of learning at these schools. All this begs two questions at least—(1) if this is an issue of such concern, then some kind of central authority might have to somehow standardize and coordinate the process, perhaps at the state level (but what about transfer students between states?); and (2) student learning in general education courses such as composition and mathematics will need to be assessed across institutions, again assuming that this issue is identified as one of great importance.

One might be able to argue that there is a legal issue as well—if students at nationally accredited schools can demonstrate that they are learning just as much as students at regionally accredited schools, does this open schools up to liability? A student might be able to argue that s/he is being required to pay twice for the same thing, just as the feds can make the same argument.

Am I being too provocative or alarmist? I agree with everything this report says, and that the federal government runs the risk of becoming too activist in this regard. But we won’t know much at all until student learning is somehow assessed with a good degree of confidence.

Sean McKitrick, Assistant Provost, Curriculum, Instruction, & Assessment at Binghamton University, at 8:00 am EDT on May 25, 2007

Compromising mood?

It is unlikely that the SHEEOs like the idea that colleges and accreditors need to set “more explicit minimum standards for the knowledge and skills required for different degrees” and for the academic community, “through accrediting associations,” to hold degree granting institutions accountable “for rigorous academic standards resulting in demonstrable student achievement.”

This compromising stance masks the fact that there are a number of other “minimum standards” that the US DOE could bring down on everyone (HEA Sec 496). SOoo.. maybe by embracing just this one, SHEEOs can buy some time, marshal the SPRE-shock troops and ... . Well. We can speculate, can’t we?

BTW: Who signed this un-official looking document? Much too tentative a gesture, I think.

Glen S, McGhee, Dir., at Florida Higher Education Accountability Project, at 10:05 am EDT on May 25, 2007

RE: the effect of for-profit schools

Well. As I said before and I say it again. With the for profits in the market place, we simply can be naive about what they might do. However, the problem is that if we can’t even persuade our traditional institutions to demonstrate the quality of their graduates, I don’t see how can we hold the for profits responsible.

I still hold high hope on the pro-capitalism. Capitalism does not mean no regulations. It actually mean the need of objective measurements and regulations.

Duncan, at 3:10 pm EDT on May 25, 2007

Questioning the wisdom of backing off

The State Higher Education Executive Officers (SHEEO), among others, are now questioning the wisdom of the Department of Education’s aggressive approach to using federal regulation to change the behavior of colleges and accreditors.1 It has always been my understanding that the federal government exists to promote and defend America’s national interests and well being — doing those things when, for whatever reason, the states have not done, refuse to do, or, are unable to do themselves. Now is one of these times. Let me explain:

In a recent article, “Government Should Stay Out of Accreditation,” A. Lee Fritscher, a professor of public policy at George Mason University and former assistant secretary for postsecondary education at the Department of Education and president of Dickinson College, said: “Involving accrediting agencies or the federal government in evaluating and regulating teaching and learning is an unhealthy departure from traditional arrangements. Outside involvement in those activities runs the risk of curbing the innovation and high levels of creativity that have been the hallmarks of American higher education for decades.” 2

Taken as a general guideline, Fritscher and others who oppose federal intervention such as Larry Arnn, president of Hinsdale College, are correct in the sense that federal intervention should be a last resort.3 Indeed, there are exceptions to this guiding principle. For example, the defense of America’s system of higher education system from the negative impact of overly commercialized college athletics and its attendant cancer-like academic corruption is a salient example of the need for federal intervention in the accreditation process. Paraphrasing Fritscher, federal intervention would help curb the innovation and high levels of creativity that have been the hallmarks of the academic corruption related to intercollegiate athletics in American higher education for decades.

For all too long colleges and universities have been self reporting graduation rates, and now Academic Progress Rates for their so-called student-athletes who were/are in ostensibly accredited degree programs such as the general studies degrees described by Jon Solomon in his article, “Athletes make academic end run."4 Solomon found general studies and ‘Jock’ majors prevalent in Alabama schools during the newspaper’s investigation this past fall. No doubt, similar ‘diploma-mill-like’ degree tracks have been engineered for athletes in other states by members of their school’s academic support center staff. Likely all have been accredited by regional accrediting organizations.

Academic corruption in big-time college sports demands federal intervention in accreditation. And just what does the Department of Education’s National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity (NACIQI) have to say about that? 5

Breaches of academic integrity exist at multiple levels in America’s higher education enterprise where integrity can be compromised by schools intent on winning at any cost. Rubber-stamp accreditation by weak, or, intimidated accreditation organizations make the breaching task a no-brainer for big-name schools. As Walter Byers, who served as NCAA Executive Director from 1951 to 1987, said when speaking of a college’s reporting on the necessary progress that has been made on the rehabilitation of at-risk high school graduates: “Believe me, there is a course, a grade, and a degree out there for everyone.”

School administrators seem to believe that outcomes assessment and strict accreditation are none of the government’s business – ignoring the fact that all schools benefit from government programs in one way or another. The NCAA and its member schools use the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) to shield academic corruption from public view — avoiding disclosure of any information that could prove damming or embarrassing, especially in the case of the academic performance of their athletes This corruption not only allows them to sustain their phony ‘student-athlete’ ruse with its derivative tax-exempt status, but also to recruit, sign, and roster academically unqualified blue-chip athletes requisite to fielding professional-level teams for their moneymaking sports entertainment businesses.

Without an independent outcomes assessment of student learning, the government has to take a school’s word on Graduation Rates and Academic Progress Rates for their athletes. If schools are ever going to produce, collect and publish meaningful information about student outcomes, accreditors need to force them to do so. Why? Because the NCAA will not require their member schools to do it. Sadly, neither will the states, all too many of which over-identify their state’s stature with the state schools’ success in big-time athletics. Disclosure of aggregated (Buckley-compliant) outcome assessments on the athletes in their football and basketball programs would expose the NCAA’s student-athlete scheme to the light of day – jeopardizing the tax-exempt status as an institution of higher education.

Schools should require their athletes to perform as real students – maintaining them as an integral part of their student bodies where academic standards of performance for athletes are the same as for the general student body. However, that won’t happen unless and until disclosure is mandated by the government – the Department of Education via more stringent accreditation guidelines or by the Congress via a demand for tangible evidence justifying the NCAA’s tax-exempt status. 6-8

It is time for more explicit minimum standards for the knowledge and skills required for different degrees to be set. As SHEEO’s Paul Lingenfelter says, degree granting institutions should be held accountable “for rigorous academic standards resulting in demonstrable student achievement.” This is precisely the outcomes approach taken by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) in their “Criteria for Accrediting Engineering Programs.” 9

Thus far, NACIQI has avoided getting involved with academic corruption in big-time college sports. However, momentum is building in Congress to investigate how universities with big-time sports programs use their tax-exempt status to pay multi-million-dollar coaches’ salaries and build extravagant athletics facilities. Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the senior Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, has asked the Congressional Budget Office to investigate the tax-exemption issue.10 In the meantime federal tax policy will continue to force parents, students, and other American taxpayers to help foot the bill for multimillion-dollar salaries for coaches, ’stadium wars,’ tax breaks for wealthy boosters, and other artifacts of the big-time college sports arms race.

Notes

1 Lederman, Doug, “Back Off on Accreditation, States Urge U.S.,” Inside Higher Ed, May 25,

2007, http://insidehighered.com/news/2007/05/25/sheeo.

2 Fritscher, A. Lee, “Government Should Stay Out of Accreditation,” The Chronicle of Higher

Education, p. B 20, May 18, 2007.

3 Arnn, Larry, “Hands Off Higher Education,” The Wall Street Journal, May 12-13, 2007.

4 Solomon, Jon, “Athletes make academic end run,” The Birmingham News, Oct, 29, 2006.

5 Splitt, Frank G., “Who Accredits Alternative Ed Programs for College Athletes?” http://www.thedrakegroup.org/Splitt_Alternative_Ed.pdf

6 _____, “The U. S. Congress, Higher Education, and College Sports Reform,”

http://thedrakegroup.org/Splitt_The_Interface.pdf

7 _____, The Congressional Challenge to the NCAA Cartel’s Tax-Exempt Status

http://thedrakegroup.org/Splitt_Congressional_Challenge.pdf

8 _____, “Recommendations for Sports Program Transparency and Reporting at the NCAA

and Its Member Institutions,” May 4, 2007.

http://www.thedrakegroup.org/Splitt_Recommendations_for_Transparency.pdf

9 ABET, “Criteria for Accrediting Engineering Programs,” http://www.abet.org/Linked%20Docu...PDATE/Criteria%20and%20PP/E001%2006-

07%20EAC%20Criteria%205-25-06-06.pdf.

10 Fain, Paul, “Senator Questions Colleges’ Tax Breaks,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, p. A26, April 13, 2007.

Frank G. Splitt, Member at The Drake Group, at 10:55 am EDT on May 31, 2007