Board, teachers clash over online degrees

http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/showStory.cfmArticleID=5814

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Board, teachers clash over online degrees
eSchool News
August 4, 2005


Two teachers who reportedly earned doctorates online from a Mississippi school do not deserve the pay raises that come with them because the university that awarded them is not accredited, officials with their suburban Detroit school district say.

 

Sounds about right. Where's the problem?

 

And which Mississippi online doctorate is unaccredited?

 

Re: Re: Board, teachers clash over online degrees

People seemed to enjoy the article about the Miami-Dade teachers that I posted earlier. I figured that they might like this one, too.

It is hard to tell from the article, but it seems that the school district does not have a clear policy on the accreditation of degrees that it accepts as professional credentials. Otherwise, there would be no need to go to arbitration.

Also, it is interesting that the teachers union is coming down on the side of the teachers; not shocking or unexpected, merely ironic. On the one hand, the union supports the licensing of public school teachers; on the other, the union defends unaccredited degrees as proof of professional development.

 

Re: Re: Re: Board, teachers clash over online degrees

Not another HR department that doesn't know about degrees and accreditation! Is there any place where people go to learn about degrees and accreditation (other than Bears' Guide and degreeinfo)? It just seems so basic that HR people ought to know these things as part of their job description (hint: "that's not my skillset" is not a legitimate excuse) when clearly they do not. Moreover, such knowledge ought to be part of basic self-protection for any employee given all the educational scam artists out there.

 

Re: Re: Re: Board, teachers clash over online degrees

Yes. So did I. And my remark wasn't really aimed at you. It was more of a sarcastic, rhetorical editorial comment, just generally.

Then it makes its own road rougher; but, that the degrees must be accredited is not an unreasonable thing for the school board to have just assumed was the standard. So logical and commonplace is the requirement for accredited degrees in education that the school board could easily argue that it was unnecessary to spell it out. The law permits certain things to be assumed... like that the sky's blue, for example.

I'm pro-union, generally; but it nevertheless makes me shake my head in disbelief at some unions' behavior. They can't have it both ways. Union leaders get so caught-up in the process of fighting for union employees no matter what, that they forget to take a moment to make sure that the "what" is even defensible. Gotta' like the sense of loyalty, though.

 

Re: Re: Re: Re: Board, teachers clash over online degrees

heh... Hard to believe, eh?

I have caught several resumes from notorious degree mills. I work at a regionally-accredited college, and it is critical that we not hire such individuals. One would expect that an awareness of degree mills would be a prerequisite to working here, but it is not. My interest in degree mills is not typical.

FWIW, I've been lurking on DegreeInfo for a couple years; this is one of the first places that I turn, when checking the validity of a school.

I've been amazed at how much I can turn up with ten minutes of googling the the name of the 'school'.

A big part of the problem is that most people do not take this problem seriously.

When I tell the story of Gregory Caplinger, I am able to elicit a sympathic, "Wowww..." but not much more than that.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/1039562.stm

http://www.chiroweb.com/archives/11/01/04.html

One hopes that HR managers become more familiar with AACRAO and NACES, when reviewing applicants' 'transcripts' and 'degrees'.