Dear all: Consider the following: "The United States has no Federal ministry of education or other centralized authority exercising single national control over postsecondary educational institutions in this country." "Accreditation does not provide automatic acceptance by an institution of credit earned at another institution, nor does it give assurance of acceptance of graduates by employers." "It also means that each State Legislature is the competent authority in that state for Education." So state-approval is the way to go? So let's vote. Byran
State approval is certainly not the way to go. Near as I can tell, no state approval process is as rigorous as regional accreditation. Also, just the lack of acceptability should show that it's a poor choice. For example, in California, no school district will accept a state-approved degree as a qualification to be a teacher. In addition, I know of no state where it is different than here. Also, even though it does not provide automatic acceptance for transfer of credits, it comes much closer than *any* state-approved program. Tom Nixon
Thanks Tom. Actually, I found all that "the first post in this thread" from *Neil Hynd's website: http://www.bfranklin.edu/hubs/gulf/coord/webnfiss.htm Let us imagine a prospective student who is unaware of the fundamentals regarding the US Education authority, and happens to visit that website. This is especially true to those residing outside North America. Byran *Mr. Hynd, whose Ph.D happens to be fromCentury University, remarks Dr. Bear was once a Journalist (not as a compliment), regards Steve as a GOS member, and myself as a GOS wannabe. I smell too much external justifications.
State approval is not the way to go, at least for the United States. 1. There are fifty states in the US. So replacing accreditation with state approval would imply the equivalent of fifty different competing accreditors. What's to keep them all on the same page? 2. If 'state approval' is interpreted to mean the federal government, what advantage is there in removing education from local control and handing it over to a faceless Washington bureaucracy? There may be constitutional issues as well. 3. Accreditation is currently a system of peer-review. The regional accreditors are associations composed of the universities in a geographical region. The disciplinary accreditors are usually the relevant professional organizations. Who better to oversee QA for university chemistry programs than the chemists themselves, organized in the form of the American Chemical Society? 4. If the current system can be faulted for allowing too many non-accredited degree mills to legally operate, how in world would it improve things to eliminate accreditation and turn everything over to the very states that permit that to happen? Why should we expect the lax states to suddenly become competent and responsible overseers of educational quality if they aren't already? 5. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. The American regional accreditation system works fine. There is no compelling reason to replace it with anything.
I absolutely agree with you. Please read my 2nd posts on this thread. I found all that information from Neil Hynd's website. Byran
