GAAP - Does the USDOE recognize this?

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by RailRoad, May 20, 2001.

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  1. RailRoad

    RailRoad member

    Can someone point me to an authorized reference for the following, which is often pushed and promoted by Dr. John Bear?

    Was this formulated by John and his Daughter?


    JOHN BEAR writes: Under GAAP, Generally Accepted Accreditation Principles, a school is considered accredited (by the worlds of academia, business, and government) only if the accreditation comes from an agency recognized by the U.S. Department of Education or the Council on Higher Education Accreditation in Washington, or if the school is listed in the International Handbook of Universities (a UNESCO publication), the Commonwealth Universities Yearbook, the World Education Series (published by AACRAO, the association of registrars) or the Country Series (published by the Australian National Office on Overseas Skills Recognition). There are more than 50 unrecognized accrediting agencies, and accreditation by certain tiny nations does not meet the criteria of GAAP either.
     
  2. Mark A. Sykes

    Mark A. Sykes Member

    I believe that is the authorized reference. GAAP is a creation of John Bear which helps to conveniently identify compliance by accrediting agencies to widely accepted and highly regarded independent criteria. It's a mouthful to continually explain acceptance by USDoE and CHEA; therefore his introduction and subsequent use of the term GAAP. Since he has authored the terms, there is no source document of the term GAAP other than what you quoted.

    Similarly, I have to small fields on either side of my house, which I call 'East field' and 'West field.' The terms are easier to use than saying, "The patch of land that lies east (or west) of my house, up to the property line." I have no source reference to these terms; there do exist fields that are more easterly or westerly than mine; and my East field is in fact west of my neighbors just down the street. If, though, I describe the terms to my friends and neighbors, then we're all able to communicate effectively and precisely about my property.

    Mark A. Sykes
     
  3. BillDayson

    BillDayson New Member

    I hope that our moderators realize that "Railroad" is in fact "factwatcher". He's posting the same criticism of GAAP over on AED, trying to use it as a vehicle to attack Dr. Bear.

    But since I find the topic of international accreditation equivalence interesting and important, and since I have been a persistent critic of GAAP myself, I'll respond.

    "Authorized" by whom? If you want to know the policy of university admissions officers in the United States (to the extent that it is standardized), I suggest that you contact the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (AACRAO).

    Was what formulated? Did Dr. Bear invent the GAAP criteria? No. As I understand it, they came out of an AACRAO convention. Did he invent the "GAAP" name? Perhaps. Did he write the text below? I guess, assuming that you are quoting it correctly.

    I guess that is about as succinct a description of the practices followed by most university admissions offices when presented with unfamiliar credentials and credits as can be had.

    It may overstate GAAP's acceptance outside academia and internationally though. But Dr. Bear has always been very forthright in saying that he isn't sure how widely and religiously these criteria are followed, and he currently has some research underway to try to clarify that.

    Once again, Dr. Bear didn't dictate the GAAP criteria. He's describing them.

    My personal opinion, stated repeatedly, is that GAAP is seriously flawed and inadaquate. The problem is that it is just a set of standard references that admissions officers consult, and is only as good as those references. In the case of the UNESCO Handbook at least, the reference in turn defers to national education authorities to make decisions on academic legitimacy and equivalence. Which makes GAAP dependent on 200+ national education systems. Some of these nations exercise no credible higher education QA at all, others have loopholes so large that you can drive a truck through them.

    Nevertheless, having said that, I do think that GAAP works pretty well in the majority of cases, and that it is the best thing that exists at present. The fact that it can be improved, and in fact must be improved in order to defeat a new breed of degree mills exploiting off-shore accreditation havens, certainly doesn't make GAAP useless.

    It's like a hospital. Obviously medical science is inadaquate and must be improved. But the fact that medicine is still imperfect doesn't keep us from using hospitals. And hospitals do save lives.

    And I must stress that any shortcomings in GAAP are not the personal work of the evil Dr. John Bear.
     
  4. John Bear

    John Bear Senior Member

    Dear Mr. RailRoad

    I have explained many times, and happily do again, that I heard the term "GAAP" used informally at the AACRAO (American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers) convention in Reno five or six years ago.

    Since my daughter and I believe that a very important feature of our book is helping readers choose a school -- and since the number one question they ask is "Will this degree meet my needs" -- we felt, and still feel, that identifying a school as generally accepted was the second best help we could provide for these people.

    The best help would be to gather actual empirical data on acceptance from the real world. This has now been done for the academic world, in my survey of registrars and what they do and don't accept (presented at the AACRAO convention in Seattle last month). When Rich Douglas completes his dissertation research next year, we will have definitive data on acceptance in the business world.

    The dilemma for degree-seekers with GAAP is that "generally accepted" does not mean "always accepted." I've given an overview of the registrar data in this forum. Should a DETC-accredited degree, that is generally accepted by under 40% of registrars, be "GAAP"? How about a St. Kitts-accredited degree that is generally accepted by 6%?

    Once Rich Douglas' data are in, my inclination would be to abandon the GAAP-non-GAAP criteria for Bears' Guide, and simply report the acceptance scores for registrars and for HR people. Then readers could make their choices based their specific reasons for wanting a degree, and on how much risk of nonacceptance they'd be willing to accept.
     
  5. RailRoad

    RailRoad member

    Dear Mr. Bear;

    Please point me to a reference where the AACRAO uses any of the "GAAP criteia".

    Also, let me say apriori, that if MIGS is listed in the International Handbook of Universities, then RICH will report that criterion as necessary for acceptance of a degree by college registrars.
     
  6. RailRoad

    RailRoad member

    Many of you have played gurus and identified me under numerous incorrect names. I am not the person you think you know. I am a doctoral student of UNISA, and I am enjoying it. Dr. Bear can enjoy his GAAP criteria, and I will enjoy the prestige of a world reknown, British Chartered University. I will have no need to write a second dissertation defend my degree from UNISA (schedule to graduate in September).
     
  7. ahchem

    ahchem New Member

    British Chartered????
     
  8. dgtucker

    dgtucker New Member

    fwiw and notwithstanding the empirical research for which you're waiting, i would urge you to retain gaap because it seems to be a useful criterion-- or meta criterion-- to guage these programs. relying on empirical data from one study has it's own risks-- critics will always be able to identify methodological flaws in something like that-- so i would not scrap GAAP completely. i would suggest you use both since they might complement each other.
     
  9. tcnixon

    tcnixon Active Member

    Sorry, but even the dim-witted would realize that UNISA meets GAAP. It is a foreign (to the U.S.) university which is found in any standard reference.


    Tom Nixon


    [Note: This message has been edited by tcnixon]
     
  10. John Bear

    John Bear Senior Member

    The anonymous RailRoad asks, Please point me to a reference where the AACRAO uses any of the "GAAP criteia".
    http://www.aacrao.org

    And now, can you point me to a reference where we will learn that the University of South Africa is "British chartered?"
     
  11. Guest

    Guest Guest

    The vast majority of what you wrote below does not make any sense. It contains internal contradictions.

    Please excuse me if English is not your first or second language. I hope you did not attmept to write your dissertation in English using the kind of illogical statements & reasoning you used below. If you did, September may not be a good month for you.

     
  12. RailRoad

    RailRoad member

    DEAR JOHN:
    How I hate to write, but I must let you know tonite --- that UNISA has a "ROYAL CHARTER".
     
  13. Lawrie Miller

    Lawrie Miller New Member

    Not a friend of railroad but in the interests of truth:

    "To ensure the status of the university, hence the recognition of degrees conferred by it, the university administration hastened to apply for a royal charter. The governor,
    Sir Henry Barkly, made representations to the Queen and the charter was granted in 1877."

    Note that this applies to the University of the Cape of Good Hope, later renamed University of South Africa.

    Go here:
    http://www.unisa.ac.za/general/0727index.html
     
  14. Byran Lee

    Byran Lee member

    GAAP - "General" Accepted Accreditation Principles. Any further explanation or "authorized reference" is simply redundant.

    Mr. Train-tracks seems to be a doctoral student at Earlscroft Mill.

    Byran
     
  15. Lawrie Miller

    Lawrie Miller New Member

    I don't see that railroad has been particularly offensive or off topic, and bizarre and delusional posts are no rarity hereabouts. Indeed, it may be I have characterized one or two of your contributions thusly (now enjoy the humor Bill, and try not to get all bent out of shape).

    John Bear sees ominous similarities to Factwatcher's overture in AED. That may be true, but it is also certain that degreeinfo.com is NOT under similar threat. The censors of degreeinfo can pull the plug on railroad any time they please. That was not the case with AED. So there is no imperative on grounds of self defense, to gag railroad at all costs.

    Controllers may be allowing railroad every opportunity to display unambiguous signs of clinical derangement before certifying him persona non grata, again. In this respect he seems to be a most cooperative subject.
     
  16. Guest

    Guest Guest

    Indeed. An interesting subject for practising with the DSM IV (R). Hey, this could be a DL opportunity. We take our best guess and then he tells us whether or not that has been his diagnosis. [​IMG]

    North

     
  17. David Yamada

    David Yamada New Member

    For the most part, this board has been a remarkably interesting and informative forum. But in recent weeks, tempers have flared, and in a few cases like this one, topics of potentially honest disagreement (i.e., can we have such a thing as GAAP?) serve as proxies for someone's personalized attacks.

    Is it possible for us to reinforce basic ground rules such as (1) critiquing the idea and not the speaker and (2) if people really need to duke it out verbally, they should take it to e-mail? It is easy in this medium, and I have committed such sins myself, to get worked up about something and fire off a post that mixes substantive dialogue with a little/a lot of invective behind it. It can be a very passive-aggressive type of behavior, tucking in personal digs under the cloak of "discussion." If we can avoid this, we'll all be happier when we check in here.

    Personally, I would endorse any attempts by the moderators to ensure that this board does not go the way of AED -- even if it means removing habitual offenders, or at least rapping some of us across the knuckles if we get too personal with our criticisms.
     
  18. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    Of course, Dr. Bear has nothing to do with the operation of MIGS. And this post has nothing to do with reality.

    Rich Douglas
     
  19. Guest

    Guest Guest

    I concure wholeheartedly with David, and make a plea to the moderators to ensure the continued success of this forum.

    Russell
     
  20. Guest

    Guest Guest

    Typing too quick! This should read "concur." Sorry!
     

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