Ashworth College... HELP PLEASE. accredited?

Discussion in 'Education, Teaching and related degrees' started by Cierra m, Feb 23, 2019.

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  1. dlbb

    dlbb Active Member

    You made a mistake, but were able to continue on. Good for you. Many won't be that fortunate.
    Why not attend schools with more rigorous standards that can meet more demanding accreditation? Yes, some people can make NA work and be successful in life or careers, but many more will not. What's more concerning is why you would want people to compromise the quality of their education? (This is typically the case, barring some very specialized schools or some religious ones.) Many people only obtain only one degree, so why make them turn to substandard education? It would be one thing if it were free, but that is not the case: they have to pay money for it unfortunately, often in the form of loans. No merit-based scholarships because there is no endowment, which is because there are not many successful graduates donating heavily to their NA alma mater. Education should be transformative and help people make a significant change in their lives (career, personal development, etc.) It shouldn't be about trying to simply collect credits as easily, quickly, or cheaply as you can. (These are often reasons why people turn to NA.) No, it is not the end of the world if you do, but with some NA programs, it is a wonder why people even bother. You would almost be better off reading the books yourself, but yes you do get that piece of paper that may or may not be recognized by other schools. I guess the only other exception to people who I would encourage for NA is retired people who are simply looking to give structure and activity to their days.

    I think some people get lives ruined by doing NA. You seem to be aware of this with your question about whether or not I got burned by NA, and yet you tirelessly promote it and makes excuses for it. I have not taken any NA coursework.
     
  2. sanantone

    sanantone Well-Known Member

    Capella University is a low-quality RA school that will accept NA degrees for admission.
     
    dlbb likes this.
  3. Maxwell_Smart

    Maxwell_Smart Active Member

    I don't know what I'd actually be "defending" if I were defending something in this case. My first degree was RA, I could've easily stopped at that, never pursued another degree and been just fine. I pursued my NA degrees for the same reason I pursued other RA degrees: I felt like it.

    Telling someone that the sweeping and totally inaccurate generalizations they're making are just that, sweeping and totally inaccurate, isn't a defense. It's just pointing out the reality of what they're doing.

    The problem isn't with taking the stance of "RA or the the highway" as that's the right of the person to do so. The problem is with taking that stance and then adding in inaccuracies, fallacies, and old wives tales that don't even apply anymore. That's irresponsible and not at all ethical on top of it. If he'd said something like:

    "With NA degrees, you can face some limited utility" No argument there. Or "With an NA degree, it will be more difficult to get into top graduate schools" No argument there. Even "with an NA degree, you have a strong possibility of running into roadblocks in healthcare and teaching" No argument there either. See, those are facts. That's not what he's been speaking. Instead what's he's been disseminating is essentially fear porn and outdated information.

    I get that those who are against NA schools want others to BELIEVE that once you get an NA degree your life is over, you're stuck, you're doomed, you're an outcast, but that's actually untrue and I see no reason why those inaccuracies shouldn't be corrected in the same way other types of inaccuracies gets corrected here. One doesn't have to be in favor of the NA sector in order to remain consistent, it's simply a matter of not going overboard into gross mischaracterizations just because you're not in favor of it.
     
  4. Steve Levicoff

    Steve Levicoff Well-Known Member

    I never said any of those things with regard to NA degrees. I acknowledge that they can be useful, and that they can often help holders accomplish their goals. (Providing, of course, they have realistic goals that can be met with an NA degree.)

    What I have said is that those who hold NA degrees will often find themselves in a position in which they have to defend their degrees in ways that RA degree holders do not. Or that their degrees will ultimately not meet their needs.

    Depending on the environment in which you hang out - whether in academe or even on DL fora, you will frequently feel compelled to defend your NA degree.

    Um, just like you've been doing right here in this thread.

    But hey, that's okay - it's always good for entertainment. :D
     
  5. Maxwell_Smart

    Maxwell_Smart Active Member

    For a person that sees himself as above NA education, you certainly have issues with reading comprehension which kinda weakens your position. I'm not saying that to be mean, I'm just pointing out a fact. For example, you said:

    You seem to be aware of this with your question about whether or not I got burned by NA

    I never asked you a question regarding that. I made a crystal clear statement itemizing where most people who make the blanket statements you have fall into.

    Yes, some people can make NA work and be successful in life or careers, but many more will not.

    You continue to make these statements, but they're empty. Let's be honest, you don't have any real data to support your position, this is simply your opinion.

    What's more concerning is why you would want people to compromise the quality of their education?

    What's concerning is your insistence on the idea that everything NA is a compromise in quality. Forget judging schools individually as a wise person should. It's a overreaching generalization. You've decided that thousands of schools are all substandard just because they are NA. Even more concerning is that you don't appear to understand that it's an overreaching generalization.

    It would be one thing if it were free, but that is not the case: they have to pay money for it unfortunately, often in the form of loans. No merit-based scholarships because there is no endowment

    There are tuition-free NA options. Some NA schools DO offer merit-based scholarships. You really don't appear to know very much about the NA sector at all.

    It shouldn't be about trying to simply collect credits as easily, quickly, or cheaply as you can. (These are often reasons why people turn to NA.)

    None of that is true since most NA schools only follow 8-16 week instructor-led course structures and actually charge more than RA schools (I've pointed that out already) so it's not going to be cheap or quick, nor do they normally offer credits to be gained "easily, quickly or cheaply" the way that RA schools such as Excelsior, Charter Oak, Thomas Edison State, and the growing field of RA schools offering competency-based degree programs do. Ashworth is one of the few NA schools that will allow you to test out of a large chunk of a degree program, many more RA schools allow this. So I suppose, you're okay with "easily, quickly, or cheaply" as long as it's RA? Okay.

    yet you tirelessly promote it and makes excuses for it.

    I've done neither, but it's sad that by simply dispelling misinformation people would frame that as "promotion" and "excuse".

    I guess the only other exception to people who I would encourage for NA is retired people who are simply looking to give structure and activity to their days.

    LOL. This makes me think you're just trolling.

    I have not taken any NA coursework

    And in today's America, never having done something automatically makes you a qualified expert on it. What else needs to be said?
     
    Last edited: Mar 1, 2019
    LearningAddict likes this.
  6. Maxwell_Smart

    Maxwell_Smart Active Member

    I wasn't saying you did, I was just making a reference to what the narrative usually is in the general sense.

    If you say so. I still don't know what I'd be defending exactly. Or, should misinformation just be accepted here? I don't think that's ever been the idea of this forum.
     
  7. dlbb

    dlbb Active Member

    You want me to respond to a serious of poorly formed ad hominem attacks that are entirely lacking in accuracy? Sorry, no interest. Work on the merits of the argument, less on attacking the messenger.

    What I can say is it truly breaks my heart that students invest time in money and something so substandard as NA, when they could be doing something that would confer so much greater benefit and allow for so much more personal growth. You encourage people in this thread here to give that up, something that could be very empowering and life-changing, for something (NA) that is so often of very negligible value. If you are as knowledgeable and well informed as you would have us believe, I would closely consider some of these issues and your future support of NA, which could mislead naive or uninformed students, leading them to costly errors. Yes, that includes lives that could have had a very positive change but that change didn't happen because it was an NA degree of questionable value, so they gained no benefit, only absurdly high loans that will take decades to pay. You can pretend those people don't exist if you wish. I feel I have had my say here, so best of luck.
     
  8. cookderosa

    cookderosa Resident Chef

    well, since Cierra has left the building, none of this matters.
     
    JBjunior likes this.
  9. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    The tricky thing here is that on this board, we treat all NA degrees as equal. They really aren't. Just a quick search of local and local-ish funeral director programs, for example, reveals that if you have your heart set on the profession, the most likely path toward licensure in the state of New York is through an NA school. That is, of course, if you're lucky. My first result, a school in NYC, isn't accredited at all. Their degree is registered (state approved).

    https://funeraleducation.org/home/accreditation/

    I think that, in general, folks would strongly recommend against pursuing an unaccredited associates degree on these boards. And, in general, so would I. But if one of my kids told me that the funeral business was where they wanted to go, would I honestly steer them away from the programs that are approved for licensure within our state? Probably not.

    Initial licensure would be the most important thing. It would be harder to go out of state to an RA program and then come back and get licensed than to just roll with the programs that are available in state with the required approvals.

    This, obviously, is a very niche example.

    This is a situation where either an NA degree or an unaccredited degree would not only enable you to pursue a goal but might actually be the best option for a student depending on their geography, financial means and what sort of support system they have in place as they embark on their new career.

    I can imagine quite a few examples, say, of people in retail management who make a fine living for themselves and for whom a B.S. from a school like Ashworth would not only satisfy any degree requirements they are likely to encounter but may actually give them an advantage depending upon the types of stores they are accustomed to managing.

    On boards like this, and even as HR people sit around and talk shop, it's easy to get lost in concepts of career mobility. But a lot of people, and I do mean a lot, are simply not mobile. And if you gave them a degree with bulletproof accreditation it wouldn't change a thing for them. I stopped in a Dollar General recently, for example, and the store manager was chain smoking near the entrance while cursing loudly and joking with an employee. Is her degree's accreditation what is likely to hold her back from higher level positions within the Dollar General corporate structure? Or from seeking management roles at places that are a bit less...dirty? than Dollar General? Of course not.

    It's a fine topic of debate around these parts because this is a central focus. In the real world? Very few people care about the nuances of accreditation. And in the grand scheme of employers, only a single digit percentage do any sort of verification that actually considers accreditation at all. That's the reason why the mills that offer verification services thrive and why people are able to make it through entire careers without the time bombs ever exploding.

    NA will always be somewhat controversial around here. And in the real world, we all know that it serves some careers and demographics better than others. My ex, who had a fully RA Bachelors and an Ivy League Masters was able to effect a pretty impressive career shift simply by tacking on a Penn Foster associates degree she earned post-masters.

    There just is no such thing as a typical case. As more and more people earn degrees, fewer people scrutinize them. It's the same reason I've not had a single employer since the Navy ask about the source of my high school diploma. Everyone I work with has one. They assume I do too. And nobody cares where I got it, the religious affiliation of that school or its accreditation status.

    For this thread, it is important to distinguish the danger of getting a degree, any degree, from a school that won't enable to you to pursue licensure in your state of choice. And that can happen even with RA programs. Identify the goal. And do what gets you there. I would never want someone to make a bad choice simply because they were afraid the strangers on the degree fora (thank you for the proper latin) judging them. The circumstances trump our personal opinions.
     
  10. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    To be clear, we are talking about the field where in most states, a perfectly adequate credential (Child Development Associate, CDA) can be earned by completing some online training, along with practicum. No accreditation needed. Ashworth AS meets and exceeds training requirements for CDA, and would be OK in many states (including earning status of "Highly Qualified" paraprofessional under No Child Left Behind). If you want to work daycare in your state, and it is OK with Ashworth, it can be a good option. This job is about fit and experience anyway; a requirement for 2 years of academic postsecondary training is grossly excessive IMHO. It's not an unusual thing that my friend, with her ancient degree in Forest Engineering, is better at her job than most teachers and most local ECEs with diplomas from "gold standard" Ontario colleges. (Does it show that I'm a little bit bitter about this stuff?)

    True, RA is safer; but the problems will concentrate in weird circumstances. My friend had highly unusual requirements and resides in a jurisdiction (Ontario) that sets grossly excessive standards for entrance to this field (and seem to intentionally screw foreign-trained candidates). This is partially why you can't find a licenced daycare for your toddler in Ontario an anything approaching reasonable prices.

    Having said that: there are RA programs that are only a little more expensive than Ashworth.
     
  11. sanantone

    sanantone Well-Known Member

    I was going to say the same thing. A degree is usually not required to become a daycare worker regardless of whether they're called teachers, but the OP did mention aspirations of becoming a daycare director or public school teacher, and I'm not going to pretend I know what Washington requires for those.
     
  12. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

  13. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    While degrees may not be required for daycare workers they are very common and not always in field.

    Daycare work tends to pay fairly well in many areas. If you like kids I'm sure it's a pleasant enough job. As such, it seems to collect people with all sorts of liberal arts degrees who wanted a job that didn't involve screaming my name so they could hand me my latte. My kids were just in daycare around five years ago. Not a single teacher in the program had a degree in early childhood ed but all of them had degrees.

    Obviously, in places where licensing is an issue, one should look to those requirements first. The issue, for those who may recall, with Stanislav's friend was not that they simply planned badly. The issue was that the regulatory body for early childhood educators had educational requirements which, as written at the time, seemed to allow for any accredited U.S. program, a loophole that I believe they have since closed.

    Beyond that, I can see why one might want to walk into the interview with the associates degree. Compared to just having a high school diploma it may be the only thing that tips the scale in their favor when a handful of unemployed sociology and fine arts majors walk in and apply for the same job.
     
  14. sanantone

    sanantone Well-Known Member

  15. sideman

    sideman Well Known Member

    With just a cursory view of wages for childcare workers, it looks like Texas, with Houston and Dallas as the major cities targeted, paid the least among the other major cities listed in California and New York. That really isn't that much of a surprise due to cost of living in those states. But certainly the cost of living is only going up in Texas too. I wonder if there would be a significant difference in pay if the childcare worker became trained in Montessori teaching style. It looks like the administrator would have to have a bachelors, but looks like an associate, with a high school diploma, could be trained at an American Montessori Society educational center and within 1-2 years be charged with kids with a range of ages in preschool.
     
  16. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    Highly anecdotal, but I'd note that my kids went to a Montessori pre-school which maintained it was a living wage employer which meant they were paying at least $15/hr compared to the $11/hr other preschools were paying. That said, it was also quite a process, it seems, to become certified in Montessori teaching and those who left went to work at other Montessori schools.

    Much like Waldorf I think once you get into it you remain in that world and don't just float around general early childhood education and have the certification in your back pocket just in case. So the real question is whether Montessori or Waldorf jobs pay more than non, I believe they do, and then looking at the requirements to get into one of those.
     
  17. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

  18. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

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