Better definition of 'accredited' for CA employers

Good news, folks:

An assembly bill has been introduced in California this week, which, if passed, would require public agencies to be more exacting about degrees they accept from job candidates.

The bill goes on to define "accredited" as consistant with CEC 94712 :

This will be a bill worth watching. It'll be especially interesting to see who may go on record as opposing it.

 

I haven't read the actual text yet (the devil is always in the details), but just from what you posted, I have at least three serious concerns:

1. The problem that I see with that is that it doesn't seem to allow for exceptions. It's easy to imagine exceptional individuals who, though they lack the required degree, are nevertheless extremely well qualified. Steve Jobs would probably make a fine management professor at the University of California, for example, despite his having no degrees at all. Steven Spielberg only recently went back and completed his bachelors degree, but somehow he manages to be a pretty good film director. The state needs to make provision for those kind of cases.

2. What about the hordes of foreign university graduates in California? If this bill is going to be credible, it's going to have to incorporate some version of "GAAP". And that opens up a huge smelly can of worms, since you would have to deal with universities from places where standards are a mystery, the off-shore flags of convenience and all the rest of it.

3. Omitting candidates for accreditation is apt to make early graduates from California State University Channel Islands and University of California Merced ineligible for applicable public employment. This bill really needs to make provision for graduates of candidate institutions.

Again, I'm just going from the excerpts posted, but if I were in the legislature, I think at this point that I'd oppose the bill unless it was amended to include worthy exceptions, foreign university graduates and candidate institutions.

 

Other problems?

The American Bar Association offers two levels of accreditation; "provisionally approved" and "fully approved" and states that there is no difference as far as the student is concerned. Both count as an "approved" degree. That contradicts the proposed legislation.

This wouldn't be a problem in California because every California ABA law school is deemed to be CalBar accredited but how about a graduate from a provisionally approved school in another state? Would a graduate of, say, St. Thomas not be eligible for public employment?

And actually, I am troubled by any public employment discrimination against licensed attorneys regardless of their legal education. I can see that a law school might legitimately require an ABA degree for a law professor since teaching law is an academic activity and the basic credential is the J.D. degree. Licensure really doesn't count for much. But a lawyer is a lawyer and those who earned their law licenses nontraditionally are more likely to be able to accept public sector salaries than are the graduates of expensive ABA programs.

 

What discrimination?

The first paragraph of the bill says,

To me, this indicates that, when an accredited degree is required for hiring purposes, that degree must be accredited in a particular manner, i.e., by an agency recognized by the U.S. Department of Education.

But it is just the first draft. If the bill stays alive, the language will be refined before it hits the subcommittee. If you sign up at the Assembly website to receive updates, expect to see many changes as the bill makes its way around.

Bill, the issue you raised about foreign equivalency is compelling. I'm composing a letter to the Assembly subcommittee and I'd like your advice on this. As a practical matter, how would a California (public) employer efficiently verify that a foreign degree is equivalent to a U.S. accredited degree?

 

This proposed bill does not address the issue of California approved degrees but by ommission it appears that they will not pass muster.

 

Well, again, if you'll read the text above, this has to do with the requirement for accredited degrees. Nowhere in there does it mention non-accredited, or state-approved degrees.

 

I wonder if this might have an affect on degrees with or without programmatic accreditation, such as the various business school accrediting bodies.

Dave