ACAC zapped by ISP

ACAC is the accreditor/credential evaluator/etc. etc. created by our friends in the Inland Northwest after Sheila Danzig blew her Career Consultants International cover as "Elizabeth Ross" in an Education Week interview with Andrew Trotter in May, 2004. (It was CCI that evaluated 10 of the 11 Georgia teachers' Saint Regis credentials as RA-equivalent. ACAC opened with a staff of two Saint Regis professors and a bunch of links from things like the Official Transcript Archive Center.)

The ACAC domain at www.acacorp.org now redirects to a page announcing "This Account Has Been Suspended. Please contact the billing/support department as soon as possible."

Curious. Did a check bounce?

 

They're back now, Saturday afternoon, and still featuring the fact that they are AACRAO and NAFSA members.

 

This fake credential evaluator scam is especially insidious. For example, I suspect that without it most of the Georgia teachers would still have a teaching career. As another example, the school system was fooled by it, at least for awhile.

Shiela's role is interesting. It lends credence to the argument that MIGS was started up with the intent of creating a diploma mill with a truth proof facade rather than a real school. Even more importantly, it makes one wonder why someone would get into academic fraud and risk their excellent reputation as the creator of the best Macarena lessons on the whole Internet.

http://www.danzig.com/macarena/

 

Its long overdue but credential evaluation services have to be come accredited by DoE.

Membership with NACES is a sign of legitimate service.

 

When you combine the above quotation with the thread below,
http://forums.degreeinfo.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=19393
it seems to indicate that Learner is advocating for the exclusive use of the UNESCO text as a means of determining RA equivalency.
Say it ain't so, Joe.
Jack

 

For those doubting thomas that may say, "yea sure like there's more than website that would have that kind of junk on it". Here's a sampling of the tough competition for claiming the best macarena lessons.

http://www.angelfire.com/al/aserio/macarena.html

http://www.ambassdj.com/page25.html

http://www.megalink.net/~dale/macarena.html

http://www.ludd.luth.se/~vk/pics/ascii/junkyard/creative/animations/macarena.html

Here's one that might be the best macarena but not the best lessons.
http://www.excalibur-nx-1707.com/klingon%20disco.htm

http://www.nacnet.org/assunta/macarena.htm

Here's the "ultimate" Macarena Dance lesson but it requires a download so I've disqualified it.
http://myhome.shinbiro.com/~seperius/maca/macarobo.htm

Here's the best Macarena website but it doesn't teach the dance only the stance.
http://mywits.com/index.php/weblog/sexy_macarena_paz/

http://www.partydirectory.com/dance/macarena.htm

 

Oh. It's a dance. Shows what I know. I thought it was feminist macaroni.

 

I call Evaluation Services that are members of NACES a higher autority then other non NACES evaluators - AACRO is as valid.

So what i was trying to say is that UNESCO publication that was rejected and taken out of GAAP qualification is used by the respected agencies and that maybe the UNESCO publication is not as bad as it was made to be.

If they use other registries, research and suplement it with the UNESCO one than still they use it and they are professionals in the field of foreign credential evaluations.

Why use the guide if its so tereble as some call it that it lists mills etc.

I found my WES evaluation from 1997 and they used this publication as well:

this is an estimation of academic records from Ukrain in term of US equivalency wich made in acordance with section 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,
6, 8 of convention on recognition of qualifications concerning higher education in Europian Region.the european Treaty series # 165 Council of Europe - UNESCO joint convention Lisbon 11 April 1997.

The XXXXXXXXX State University is listed in the IUA etc.

 

What is "NACES"? I assume that it's some kind of trade organization for credential evaluators or something.

What body oversees the 'GAAP qualification' and makes decisions about what should or shouldn't be rejected?

As I understand it, 'GAAP' is an acronym that was coined by John Bear to describe the informal procedure that most university admissions offices resort to when they receive applications from unknown foreign schools. They look up the school in a reference book. So if a foreign school appears in one or more of the commonly used references, odds increase that it will be assumed to be RA-equivalent.

In other words, 'GAAP' is descriptive, not prescriptive. It describes what generally takes place, it doesn't annoit those informal practices as sound, proper and air-tight.

I'm aware that some people here on Degreeinfo speak of 'GAAP' as if it were a form of international accreditation, but that's ridiculous. It isn't accreditation and it never was.

I'm not sure what you are referring to with the words 'UNESCO publication'. If you mean the International Handbook of Universities, it's great. But if people are going to treat it as their authority, then it probably makes sense to give some thought to how it's compiled. In particular, they need to give some thought to its reliability at the margins.

My opinion is that references like these are only as reliable as their sources. If the editors defer to the judgements of foreign educational systems, then the reliability of individual country listings becomes a function of the credibility of individual countries' higher education systems. Some systems are far more reliable than others. The variety is tremendous.

I suppose that's true.

One answer might be that its listings for many countries (those that enforce credible standards domestically) are valuable and useful. Most other listings are at least suggestive, giving inquirers some idea where a particular university stands in another country's scheme of things.

But it's foolish to use a reference book as if it were sacred scripture. Unfortunately, admissions officers aren't hired to be philosophers or critics, they are hired to clear their desks of applications as quickly as possible.

That's meaningless academic jargon, isn't it?

The Lisbon Convention is always trotted out when somebody wants to mystify something. But in the case of the US (which btw never ratified it), the "competent authorities" for making decisions on whether foreign credentials are acceptable are individual universities and employers. The Convention asks that foreign credentials not be discriminated against, unless they are significantly different than domestic ones. If there are questions about whether or not particular academic awards are equivalent, it's suggested that inquiries be made concerning a questioned university's recognition status in its home country. If there are still questions about what academic standard that foreign recognition really represents, the Convention asks that the originating country make available information on its oversight procedures and the results of the oversight for the questioned school.

(That btw, seems to be precisely what the British QAA is doing on its website when it posts the results of its accreditation evaluations for particular British schools.)

In other words, it turns out that the Lisbon Convention actually places burdens on the accreditation systems in originating countries to be as transparent as possible. It doesn't demand that universities and employers in receiving countries do anything stupid when they are confronted with foreign credentials.

 

As Bill notes, there is nothing that compels individual schools, employers, or persons to accept a particular school's degrees.

"GAAP," IIRC, wasn't coined by Bear. He hear it being used and popularized it (around here) in his books.

The use of "GAAP" is a shortcut. I don't think people are mistaking it for some accreditation body. In fact, it is often a handy shortcut.

It is important to emphasize the word "Generally" in "GAAP." Again, as Bill notes, the margins are the key. And diploma mills (and wannabes like MIGS) always play the margins. All of the largest efforts we've seen lately (St. Regis, Berne, and that Sorbon-thing, to name three) are playing with these margins. They then layer it all in b.s. (Lisbon, apostilles, fake credential evaluators, fake accreditors, no-regulations countries, purchased country recognitions, etc.), hoping to (1) fool the customer and (2) get the investigators (like us) to quit. I know I get tired of the b.s., so I seldom engage regarding these things. If it smells bad, it probably is.

To me, MIGS was the closest call. Ultimately a no-brainer, it was hard to sift through it all. They had real academic types, students forming committees, and what looked like a legitimate relationship with a recognized university. I don't think MIGS was set up to sell diplomas. (In fact, I know it, because I know what their real aim was, and it involved actually running a school.) But, in the end, MIGS was exploiting the situation and not doing the things necessary to legitimately run its operation. A degree mill? Aside from not actually having sold any degrees, probably. Because they wouldn't set it up to run as a legitimate operation, yet still ran it. This doesn't compare to Knightsbridge, St. Regis, et. al., who sold a lot of degrees. But this is about playing the margins, and MIGS did that.

Essentially, "GAAP" is a useful concept. But it actually only describes several processes/ recognitions, some of which are more robust than others. Your mileage may vary.

 

history question

MIGS happened before I started paying attention, so I have a question about it.

We see that the operators of the Saint Regis group have crafted an extraordinarily complex web of supporting infrastructure for their pretend schools. [Note to lurking DegreeInfo visitors: there is extensive documentation that demonstrates this, so please don't kick up a fuss, OK?] There have been two internet domains purporting to be the official site for the Embassy of the Republic of Liberia, there are "foreign credential evaluators" like ACAC, the "National Board of Education" offering to sell accreditation via emails whose headers show them to come through a Spokane ISP, and whose certificates of accreditation are signed by the first defendent in the Regis University v. Lorhan et al. lawsuit, there is the roll-your-own-school service offered by "University Services" with a (briefly listed) price tag $35,000, there are marketing sites like AdvancedU, a number of discussion fora boosting the SRU product, and so forth and so on.

It is unlike other operations; the comparison with the enormously successful "University Degree Program" is striking.

We know that Sheila Danzig worked with the Saint Regis gang. Was MIGS a training ground for Saint Regis? That'd make MIGS like the Spanish Civil War was for the Luftwaffe: a training ground for the main event; Saint Regis in the present case, and the commencement of World War II in the historical case.

What are the SRU-MIGS connections, if any?

 

We know exactly how to tell in US if the US university
has valid recognized accreditation.

Why can't we have the same for credential evaluators?

A clear distinction.


How unsuspecting customer can tell if ACAC or ECE Int or WES and ECE etc.

 

Re: history question

In actuality, the training ground was, historically speaking, not MIGS, but American Coastline University. Sheila Danzig not only acquired her Ph.D. from this entity (described by a leading distance education expert as, “the degree mill run by Ray Chasse”), but also served as "key faculty."

 

(1) Indeed, the National Association of Credential Evaluation Services (http://voled.doded.mil/dantes/refpubs/ftr.htm) is the relevant trade association.

(2) Having read the relevant portion of Bears' Guide (p. 42 of BG13; p. 45 of BG14; and p. 44 of BG15), nowhere does Dr. Bear claim to have invented the term "GAAP" as it applies to generally accepted accrediting principles. And nowhere do I see anyone writing as if there existed any such organization or group of persons known as GAAP that would get together and have annual meetings where they would decide whether to re-accredit USDOE or CHEA or give initial accreditation to the Ministries of Education in Liberia or St. Kitts, etc. GAAP is simply a convenient concept that allows the prospective student of a foreign school (and his/her future employers and grad school profs) to know whether "Foreign School X" meets some form of quality control that would mean that it would likely be regarded as if it were as good as an accredited American school.

 

Re: history question

I suspect that Sheila started up MIGS with the idea of creating a real school that she would later be able to leverage into a high priced honorary degree scam. This is just purely a guess though because as far as I know MIGS never bestowed a single degree, neither real or honorary. I never saw any soliciting for honorary degrees from MIGS either. So my guess is based on the facts that Sheila is into multiple kinds of deceit for money and she started up MIGS that had all appearances of being a real school except that she was the owner.

I would suspect that Sheila saw an opportunity to make some money running the credential evaluation service and took it. Perhaps she also consulted with the SRU owner at some point?

 

Dichten=Condensare

ACAC

.sdrawkcab ti daer tsuJ

 

I would agree with your assessment. I think the original intent was to be able to be a real school and offer real degrees.

Why? Because, at that time, there was a pile of cash to be made. And Sheila, bless her Uber-Capitalist heart, likes money.

The problem? MIGS would require prolonged, sustained, focused effort, and that really isn't Ms. Danzig's style. Move in, make the kill, and move on is a little closer to the reality.



Tom Nixon

 

Re: history question

I don't know about any connections. (I don't really keep up with the SRU stuff.) But there aren't too many points of comparision. With MIGS you had direct involvement by the CEU. You also had direct involvement by the state Secretary of Education. You had real faculty, a real dean, and a real president.

Then, you had the dark side.

What was not known was to what extent the CEU was involved. I tried to involve them when proposing my program (that I didn't start), to know avail. That raised big red flags. But when I called the campus at CEU, they did know of MIGS. The other thing that wasn't clear was whether or not the CEU (a) really had the authority to add MIGS to its lineup and (b) whether or not the CEU was actually going to issue the degrees. It all collapsed before any of that came to light--before even one degree was issued. I suspect SRU has issued a few.

I don't see how MIGS could have been a source for what became SRU. What other connection besides Danzig is there? (I don't even know of that one; I'm just responding to what I've read here.)

 

Re: Re: history question

According to MIGS' president, it was started in order to enroll Hispanic students and get federal funding for doing so. I really do believe that Danzig would have allowed MIGS to be a legitimate operation, but she certainly didn't have the first clue about making it so. (And likely didn't have the wherewithall to make it happen, either.)

 

Yep on all counts.