NA Accreditation

That's not true. I've missed nothing of substance. Your post is a cop out and, as a reasonable participant, I don't deserve criticism like that.

 

Robb,

If you're truly interested in this topic, I encourage you to read about it here:

(http://www.aacrao.org/transcript/in...ty&thearchive=6

 

Okay, I finally read the bill and I don't like what I see. Although it really is an anti-discrimination clause of the sort I posted earlier, I'd say that it also applies to professional accreditation. In short, as I read it, an ABA law school would be required to accept credit from a DETC law school.

Now, the ABA schools aren't going to do it. Instead, they will probably decide to accept NO transfer credit from ANY source. Such a policy would affect only a very small group of law students since the vast majority of law students complete their J.D. degrees at a single institution.

The other thing they might try is to refuse to accept D/L credits from any school, whatever its accreditation.

In either case, the result will be decreased flexibility for the student.

 

Nosborne48,

Thank you for researching the bill and recognizing the facts behind it. Just out of curiosty, what do you not like about the bill?

Why shouldn't accredited DETC law schools be able to be recognized by ABA?

 

This proposed legislation really sounds like a lowest-common-denominator system to me. What point would there be in an accreditor setting any standard above the absolute minimum if schools are forbidden by law from preferring it?

In fact, what point will there be in private accreditors existing at all? On paper they will still be allowed to use their own professional judgement to set different and perhaps inconsistent standards. But if universities aren't allowed to favor one over another, then isn't that freedom really just illusory? The real standard will be set by whatever bureaucrat it is in Washington that decides what the US Dept of Education will recognize.

I think that it's simply appalling that it's the ostensibly "small government" Republicans who are pushing what appears to be the nationalization of the country's hitherto free-choice accreditation system.

 

The thing that offends me about the bill is that it seeks to establish as true by legislation something that really isn't true in real life.

The American Bar Assiciation administers a carefully developed and constantly reviewed system of inspection and approval of law schools offering the J.D. degree. Compelling these schools to accept transfer credits from schools with institutional, as opposed to professional, accreditation is an end run around the quality standards the ABA enforces.

Before Congress should even CONSIDER doing such a thing, there needs to be SOMETHING other than emotion and ideology to show that a DETC class in advocacy really IS the equivalent of the same class at an ABA school. As drafted, however, the ABA school CANNOT say, "Your school doesn't meet ABA standards and is therefore unknown to us; we won't accept your credits". Instead, the school (apparently) must say, "Well, this institutional accrediting agency with two whole correspondence law schools to its credit swears that their educational program is equivalent to our own so we MUST accept it." It's just nonsense.

I am NOT saying that Advocacy can't be taught via D/L. I AM saying that DETC is not competent to judge a professional doctorate program AS SUCH. Neither are the regional accrediting agencies. They don't have the depth or expertise to JUDGE such things. They CAN and DO judge the operation of the school itself. But nothing WASC or DETC says about a law school AS a law school can begin to substitute for the ABA process. DETC doesn't even IMPOSE detailed standards on law programs the way the ABA does. Even CalBar is more exacting.

Well, if it passes, the schools will have to deal with it, probably by creating a "shadow list" of "A" schools and "B" schools. It won't be the first time, either.

 

It won't pass, it will die in the Senate. The AACRAO doesn't want it and I can't imagine any well established B&M schools will want it. In the Senate cooler (and wiser) heads will prevail.

 

Having said all this, though, I do wonder if it would compel the ABA to loosen up on its hitherto implacable and, I think, ill advised opposition to D/L law programs. Consider, for a moment, that the REAL value of ABA accreditation to the student is the fact that every state bar will accept his degree. The proposed bill won't force bar examiners to accept D/L degrees; nothing would keep them from looking behind the degree to make sure that no credit was awarded for study at a non ABA school.

Perhaps there might be good reason to cause the ABA and DETC to get together on D/L standards.

After all, I have been defending D/L law programs for years. I do believe that a University law degree should NOT be the only way to enter the profession and I also believe that the rapidly increasing cost of a law degree is making it less and less possible for the non-wealthy to accomplish it.

Yes, even if it DOES pass, good may yet come of it.