Who is the acreditor of the acreditor?

Discussion in 'Accreditation Discussions (RA, DETC, state approva' started by milotach, Apr 3, 2004.

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  1. milotach

    milotach New Member

    Sincerily, like a experimented journalist, you give the aparience that this forum is only a land of war for defenders of acredited against unacredited. But is very sad that no one of you make at least a minimun criticizes about your educational system.

    From the point of view of european educational system, is absolutly inmoral to let the acreditations of studies in the hand of privated agencies, that finally they are also looking for their own money. I made some interviews for my article to some college and most of them told in privated that the acreditors take a lot of money from them, came with all the expensives paid, hotel, meal, cars, and can past all the time they want making an inspection, while you are paying for it. They are putting very expensive informatic systems for control and a large etc... of items.

    Finally it seems that hide in your educational system there is a BIG BUSSINES for many people in ALL DIRECTIONS. The DECTS acredited schools told me that they was very hungry due to the "monsters" of the other acreditor agencies that are not given recognotition to him, simply because they put the money in other place. In other side I see universities that will acepts credits for an uncredities universities, specially if they are far away of the big towns and need students incoming to support their owns colleges. No one of them will told in public but they do it in a private due to finally they need to reach to the end of the mounth eating every day.

    I also saw that is very frecuently on this forum that as soon as a person said something in the other way of RA a crowd of bad words start raining over him. I found it very interested, about the legal aspects of your system, all the threads of the member called POLICE, according with his degrees he is expert on law. A law must be defeat by the law not with an ¡ronic of funny words. I saw also insert of your news papers archives a Hillsdale Colleg for example and others that claim about this situation.

    Is a sad to percive that no one of you it seems to be interested in force your government to change this way of actions, most of you it seems that are the defenders of the RA like the ONLY AND DEFINITLY way of degree granting. And something that started like a voluntared question, become in a obligatory for the tradition. Generally accepted not means that something is good, in the 18th century was genearally accepted to have an slaves or to take the properties and land of natives people.

    Democracy means the power on the people and the people power remains on parlamient, and the govenment`s power came for the parlamient, so the govenment is forced to take care of the people.

    Here we have also and independent regions for the central government, educations are transfered from the central to the local government, but recently the government forced with a law to local´s to modify the studies due to bad quality on some students results. Education and health must be a human rights and must be protected by government, all the intention to let this in a privated hands means bussines and bad quality of service, this is not democracy this is moneycracy.

    Degree mills is another terrible question, but the problem is coming for the same source, when the fathers of your constituion was working on it, they forgot to give protection enought against the fraud on it. I like very much the way that the american government let the people living on peace and is not present in many areas, but there is a great diferent between this and let the privated people and organitations make bussines with elemental rights like education or ealth.

    I pray all of you forgive any ofensive on it, I am not traing to come inside of any polemic against nobody, but I consider that a forum should be also a place for exchange experiences, make a serious analisis of problems, and suggest solutions. But there is just a few of this. All becames binary 0 or 1, black or white, but you forget that in the midle the is an infinity quantity of a gray scale colors. This will not resolved publicing the name of one teacher with a doubs degree. You are given names and faces to the grains on the skin but forget the hill on the blod.

    Sorry if someone consider my thread ofensive for him.

    Thanks and I regreat my very bad english.
     
  2. decimon

    decimon Well-Known Member

    I don't consider your post offensive as I'm quite familiar with your point of view. But I do disagree with your point of view. To me, this matter will come down to your command-and-control, statist beliefs versus my voluntarist, individualist beliefs.

    I also don't mind any reasoned criticism of Regional Accreditation or of any form of accreditation. But I will always prefer flexible, voluntary associations over the static, command-and-control model of government diktat.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Apr 3, 2004
  3. PaulC

    PaulC Member

    You can either write a check and pay expenses for a private organization to do the site visit, or you can pay government workers expenses through higher taxes. One way or another, you are going to pay. I see no harm in paying directly as opposed to paying to the government. And if one fears that a private agency can have ill intent, maybe one may want to consider the potential for corruption and bribery that occurs with government officials all the time.

    Having the government directly responsible for accreditation has potential benefits, but by no means removes or lessens the possibility of questionable practices.
     
  4. Mike Albrecht

    Mike Albrecht New Member

    I think you might want read some of the threads here a little more carefully. This initial statement is very wrong from two points.

    1) There have been many discussions stating that some unaccredited schools are often the top in their field and can not be touched by any accredited schools. NTPS is a prime example. Unfortunately the arguments come into play around the borderline "schools" which operate in a gray area and claim things that are not true (KWU being the priome example (IMO)).

    2) There are many critical comments about the US regional accreditation system and the inconsistanceies between the regional (see many discusions on North Central (accreditor) vs. the others andhow DL schools move into that region to be accredited).

    There are also many problems with the European system also, particularly how the UK tolerates outright degree mills as long as they do not sell to UK citizens.
     
  5. milotach

    milotach New Member

    Re: Re: Who is the acreditor of the acreditor?

     
  6. BillDayson

    BillDayson New Member

    I've made countless specific criticisms of this or that aspect of the American system.

    But no, I have never made a blanket condemnation of the entire American higher education system. I think that such a condemnation would be unjustified. The fact is that I like the American system.

    That's nice. We have our opinions of Europe as well.

    One of the cultural differences between us is that Americans are not reflexive socialists. We don't consider private initiative to be inherently evil.

    I think that's because we don't simply assume that other people are driven by terrible secret motives that must be thoroughly suppressed by the loving paternal hand of the state. Our native inclination is to let people do whatever they want to do, with as little restriction as is necessary to maintain public order.

    I have done more to defend non-RA schools than either you or Police ever have. If you think that some non-RA school deserves more consideration from us, then by all means tell us about its strong points. Explain why you think that it's cool. Convince us to join you in liking it. Do something constructive.

    The United States government doesn't require that RA be the only way. It's YOU, by insisting that we switch to a government as opposed to a private system of accreditation, that's demanding the monolithic one-way system.

    Here in the US we allow the academic and professional communities to set their own standards as they see fit. And unlike most other countries, we recognize that differences of opinion exist on these issues and we allow multiple visions to co-exist. People are given the opportunity to make choices for themselves, rather than having the government make their choices for them in their 'best interest'.

    For evidence of the difference that this stuff makes, take the list of higher education institutions in a typical European country and compare it to the list of higher education institutions here in California.

    Unlike in Europe, you find people here actually taking the initiative to create their own schools. We don't passively petition the government to... please... give us a university, we go out and start the suckers ourselves. It's the same kind of entrepeneurship that created Silicon Valley and the biotech industry.

    That provides us with a variety of higher education institutions that's probably unprecedented on earth:

    We have the multi-campus state-funded University of California. We have 'top-tier' private universities like Stanford and Cal Tech. We have specialized scientific and public policy research schools like the Scripps and Rand Institutes. We have artistic groups starting their own schools, like the American Conservatory Theater and the American Film Institute Conservatory. We have hospitals putting in molecular biology Ph.D. programs like City of Hope. We have schools for chefs. We have schools for photographers. We have schools for classical musicians and for popular performers. We have a galaxy of religious schools ranging from evangelical Fuller and Biola to Buddhist IBS and avant-garde CIIS. We have psych-schools in every imaginable flavor. We have far-right schools like Oakbrook and far-left schools like New College. We have vocational schools and liberal arts schools. We have schools that teach spooks their intelligence trade and schools that teach parapsychology. We have schools that teach Java and schools that teach Javanese. (Not to be confused with Japanese.) We have law schools of every variety: ABA, CalBar, DL. We have Asians starting universities over here like Soka University of America (a spinoff of Japan's Soka U.) and Hsi Lai University, founded by a Taiwanese Buddhist order. We have avant-garde new-media start-ups, like CA-approved Expression Center (now College). We have the world's leading civilian test pilot school. (We also have guys down the tarmac at the same desert airfield testing their own private manned spaceship.) We have schools boasting their own air forces, including supersonic jets, and we have degree-granting monasteries full of shaven-headed monks sitting in meditation.

    Given that amazing diversity, ranging from Nobel Prize winners to degree mills, somebody has gotta sort it all out. But who?

    Once again, we let people do what they want. We leave them free to make their own choices rather than demanding that the government make their choices for them. Anyone can express their opinions on this stuff. Of course, the opinions of some groups carry more weight than others because they possess the authority of the academic and professional communities. Those communities form the accrediting associations. When the regional accreditors speak, it's the leading universities talking. When ABET accredits an EE program, it's the IEEE endorsing the school. People listen up.

    But people are free to disagree or to seek different authorities if they feel like it. NTPS isn't RA (though I believe it recently had an initial site visit), but the FAA likes it, which is a big deal in the aviation world.

    Bottom line: You can criticize RA all you want. But in the American system, people who want something else have somewhere else to go.

    In Europe, where can those who disagree with the government educational authorities go? What alternatives do they have?
     
  7. decimon

    decimon Well-Known Member

    Re: Re: Who is the acreditor of the acreditor?

    Not entirely true as any school accepting government funding, directly or not, must hew to specified standards. And they've made it near impossible for a school to not be an indirect recipient of government funding.
     
  8. milotach

    milotach New Member

    Re: Re: Who is the acreditor of the acreditor?

    Dear Bill: Sorry I will not answer all, to much work for my very bad english. Only two question, I am not socialist at all, I belong to the Aznar President party, we losted the past elections, for supporting your government on the war, and I losted a couple of friends in the terrorist atack. So I am in the other side of comunist. I told you many times that I like this conception of freedon in USA, but if you let to do the people what ever they want then you can not regree later the reactions. Here you can have an school FOR WHAT EVER YOU WANT without nothing more, for this question we have a LAW, YES THE LAW that let you do it under the "NON REGULATED TEACHINGS" so you are not inventing nothing at all. Here the advantage is that at the same time THE GOVERNMENT protect the univerisity studies a do not let anyone to use this name. Here is not possible such a confusion, you can have a school called, "Academy of cooking with micro oven" if you want and you can give a privated diploma, no problem on it. in fact there is many of this NON REGULATED schools that are giving a very hight level on bussines adminitrations for example and are very apreciated by employers, also in graphic disign, publicity and many others, you can call this Master also if you want. But THE LAW again and THE GOVERNMENT legislator stablished VERY CLEAR for every body, the LEGAL limits of both. Finally my friend I am not against your educational system, I have been looking for a distance speciality that we do not have here. But I saw, my be is a proffesional vice, that question are not so simple as you are telling in the forum, 0 or 1. And finally if you are proud that in your country every one can do what they want, also carring guns on the schools, without going on the hand of government, Whay are you having this forum?, finally let degree mill people do what they want, THEY ARE FREE, no governments laws are needed. Kill the state, this is more near of anarquism than my point of view, it seems more RED than my point of view.
     
  9. JoAnnP38

    JoAnnP38 Member

    Re: Re: Who is the acreditor of the acreditor?

    I wonder how that will translate back to Spanish? I think it prudent to not use colloquialisms when communicating to someone who isn't expert in your language.
     

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