New chair of DETC Accrediting Commission has written negatively about John Bear

DETC announces that Henry Spille, co-author of Diploma Mills: Degrees of Fraud is the new Chair of the Accrediting Commission, and his co-author, David Stewart has been elected to the Commission.

Will this mean any changes in the way DETC looks at schools? Unlikely, I think, at least in a positive direction. Their book, originally announced as a hard-hitting name-naming book turned out to be soft-hitting and only named names of people already convicted for fear, they admitted, of legal action by schools they criticized. It's an OK book, but not nearly as useful as it might have been.

Spille and Steward have also written extremely unkind, untrue, and hurtful things about yours truly, saying that because of my involvement with unaccredited schools in the past, I am not really a foe of bad schools. They never responded to my letters asking for apology, correction, and retraction.

Ah, well. Incidentally, the DETC Bulletin refers to the new chair as "Mr. Spilled."

 

Kind of scary that they don't understand the difference between "bad" and "unaccredited" schools.

 

John,

Hi. In light of this info and those bleating muttonheads over on AED, it seems appropriate to mention how much I appreciate your efforts over the years to fairly tell the stories of both good and bad unaccredited schools, which opened a world of possibilities to many distance learners. Your balanced view of educational possibilities at both accredited and unaccredited schools has been invaluable to many of us. You made us think carefully about what higher education is. Thank you. (Don't let the turkeys get you down!)

Cheers,

Dave Wagner
([email protected])

 

Being a gentleman, I will refrain from conjecturing what he spilled. He should probably consider checking the inside of his head, however.

As to the schools with which you have been associated in the past, this argument is equally as valid as saying that public school teachers are responsible for the behavior of all the children that they have ever had in their classrooms including their behavior after leaving your classroom.

This is one of those types of things that can only be a "here and now" sort of thing. Yes, you can bear some responsibility for what the schools were like *when* you were involved. However, just like the public school teacher's former student who now spends his days as an axe murderer, you can't be responsible for the poor choices of others once you are no longer involved.



Tom Nixon

 

Bleating muttonheads. I like that. Perhaps they'll form a heavy metal group...

The relentlessness of the attacks from various quarters is a bit much, but it has pretty much become a case of 'out of sight, out of mind.' Bleating Muttonhead Nil Carborundum I guess.

And it isn't just internet. Some B.M.'s use the old fashioned post, such as this, that came through the mailslot last week, written by Edward Reddeck, who has been in prison more than once for running diploma mills; each time he gets out, he starts a new one. I quote just a bit from a very much longer document. "Sics" throughout; this is just as written:

[My school] came under vicious terrorist attacks by this National Educational establishment with John Bear being the Bin Laden of this nation's Education Taliban their agent provocateur, & stalking horse, for their various Akada like agents..."

And furthermore, Bear and these educational terrorist attack and Destroy lawful non traditional universities to eliminate economic, political and religious competition for their goddess (sic!) educational beliefs and schools destroying freedom & competition in education.

The educational Taliban has been protecting the destructive education being forced upon the American people by the...various cult like accreditation associations in fact their agents have even give seminars at national conventions of state educators encouraging their destruction of freedom in education. ...Unknown to most Americans, our educational establishment had been High Jacked. This high jacking has been accomplished by a Religion that is of a greater evil than the Islamic extremist who at least make their intent known...
Our educational establishment however has for decades in secret using our tax money and educational institutions, to promote their religion, which hates America and the God of the Founders. Who according to our Declaration of Independence is the author of our liberty. These evil individuals have as their agenda to remove from our country the authority and God of our fathers Our Maker the Supreme Judge of the University the God of Israel and America."

And on and on and on.

 

Hey now. Don't disparage all the fine folks involved with heavy metal!

 

Dear Dr. John, I must disagree on two points,

is spelled correct, and who knows perhaps he does worship the goddess , it is not for us to say.

I do beleive

is not the generally accepted spelling.

 

Every great (leader) has had to overcome opposition, Dr. John Bear notwithstanding.

For those interested, Dr. Bear missed-the-mark on Northcentral University by advising this poster that NCU would never gain RA from NCA. We all know that NCU hasn't gained RA as yet, but all indications suggest time is the only barrier at this poin

Regards, Wes

 

If you had started the program then, against the advice, would you have finished by now? or before RA was achieved (unknowable)? If so, your degree would not be technically RA-accredited...or else you would have to string it out for an indefinite period of time. Maybe the advice worked for you, anyway.

 

Wes: Dr. Bear missed-the-mark...

John: I'm sure it is good for the soul to be reminded of missed marks. In 1983, in what was then the 2nd best-selling computer book of the year, I wrote, "It is hard to imagine that anyone would ever need more than one megabyte of memory." Of course I wrote those words on my 24K Apple II-E, but it still serves as a fine reminder of how cloudy crystal balls can be.

This just in: the lead item on the evening news on March 9th will have something to do with a ship.

 

__________________________________________________
You are correct, technically a degree earned during candidacy is not considered accredited. However, from a utility perspective the college teaching field is littered with instructors and professors with doctoral degrees earned from institutions prior to the award of full (RA) accreditation. Do a Goggle search using The University of Sarasota or Nova University as keywords and you'll find more than you'd think. This isn't even mentioning the graduates of pre-accreditation Walden, Capella, Saybrook or any of the others. In this regard accreditation means nothing if it isn't going to be defended.

Regards, Wes

 

FWIW: John wasn't the only one who missed the mark; I laughed at NCU's chances when it first applied for regional accreditation, but I stopped laughing when they cleared all of the early hurdles. You were also raising an eyebrow at MIGS months before I stopped defending them. What can I say except that I envy your track record (and apparent good sense).


Cheers,

 

Nobody could have said it better. Although there are many unaccredited schools that are nothing more than diploma mills, there are probably some which could provide a student with a good education.

However, being accredited doesn't always mean good. For example, I know of more than one person who went to one accredited school and found they had to work their fingers to the bone just to earn a "C," while at another, earning a "B" was very easy, and both schools were accredited by the same recognized organization.

One thing I think regular colleges and high schools, etc., fail to do in the area of "encouraging lifelong learning" as one poster said brick and mortar schools do and DL schools don't is to show that learning can occur anywhere, even outside the four walls of a classroom.

I earned my MCSE and A+ certifications outside of a traditional school. I learned the material for MCSE through working with a group of friends from my PC usergroups who also wanted to earn their MCSE, and we all did it. A+ I was able to earn from experience working on PCs in my spare time. Of course, these things aren't the equivalent of a Bachelors' degree, but the methods we used show skills and knowlege can be obtained through non-traditional means if the motivation is there.

Right now I'm looking for a way to learn SQL and data warehousing concepts, anyone know of a good DL program? There aren't any good programs in this area that I can find, nor can I find one I can fit into my work schedule. Any suggestions?

The first step to lifelong learning is accepting that anyone can learn from anybody anywhere, not just in school.