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  1. ShotoJuku

    ShotoJuku New Member

    Does the BPPVE (California) still exist or has it been replaced by new legislation or government branch?

    Thanks!
     
  2. John Bear

    John Bear Senior Member

    Nothing yet.

    Since last December, Assembly Bill 48 has been slowly working its way through the Assembly frequently amended, but quite a few more amendments under consideration. It is opposed by the Consumers Union (because they think that educational regulation should be in the Dept. of Education, not Consumer Affairs) and the state assocation of approved schools, unless further amended. At the moment, I believe, it would exempt law schools, religious schools, and any school charging less than $2,500 for a degree program. The many millions of dollars it would require (31 staff positions this year, 63 next year) would come mostly from school fees. This sounds like a lot . . . but there are about 1,700 schools that would come under the jurisdiction of the new agency.

    A long and detailed analysis of the proposed bill here:
    http://tinyurl.com/me4zvj
     
  3. ShotoJuku

    ShotoJuku New Member

    Thanks for the update and the link!
     
  4. John Bear

    John Bear Senior Member

    AB48, the bill that would reinstate California's Bureau for Private Postsecondary and Vocational Education, has finally made it out of committee (after 6 months) and reached the Assembly floor, where the vote yesterday was an encouraging 70 to 4 for passage. This suggests that there are plenty of votes to override a veto, in case the governor once again tries to torpedo it as he did several years ago. It now moves on to the Senate for consideration. Could easily be another six months there.

    Details at http://tinyurl.com/yqcmlc
     
  5. BillDayson

    BillDayson New Member

    I kind of like the fact that Dept. of Consumer Affairs rather than the state Dept. of Education would be doing this. We all know that whatever agency licenses these schools, that recognition will be portrayed by the schools themselves as if it was an official endorsment.

    If it's the DCA that licenses schools, it can more easily differentiate what it's doing from accreditation. The Department of Consumer Affairs can tell prospective students that it's primarily concerned with basic business practices across the board and not with the technical details of whatever products particular businesses offer. It can make clear that in the case of schools its oversight of academic details is rudimentary, advising students to seek schools with additional accreditations if academic credibility is a particular concern.

    If it's the Dept. of Education that's signing off, then it's a lot harder for the state to argue that it isn't really endorsing these schools' educational aspects. So the state would find itself a de-facto accreditor, whether it wanted to be or not.

    I would have thought that the state-approved sector would want an approval mechanism restored as quickly as possible. In the absence of approval, mills are flocking to California and the state's non-accredited schools are quickly (and justifiably) becoming an international laughing-stock.

    By "state association of approved schools" I take it that you mean the California Association of Private Postsecondary Schools (CAPPS). They say:

    I wonder what their membership roster looks like.

    http://www.cappsonline.org
     
  6. ShotoJuku

    ShotoJuku New Member

    Ah the fast moving wheels of democracy!

    Thanks again John!!
     
  7. Dave Wagner

    Dave Wagner Active Member

  8. ShotoJuku

    ShotoJuku New Member

  9. Dave Wagner

    Dave Wagner Active Member

  10. ShotoJuku

    ShotoJuku New Member

    Bppve rip?

    So in essence I guess the whole BPPVE restructuring issue is pretty much over.
     
  11. John Bear

    John Bear Senior Member

    Well, a staff recommendation does not mean a fait accompli. Maybe saner views will prevail. We can only hope. And write letters, perhaps.
     
  12. ShotoJuku

    ShotoJuku New Member

    One can only hope. It just seems so counter productive to put on the brakes now after wrestling with this bureaucratic quagmire for so long.
     
  13. Ted Heiks

    Ted Heiks Moderator and Distinguished Senior Member

    I don't think any of this (the destruction of the CA BPPVE) should be any big surprise. CA does, after all, have an actor for a governor. :eek:
     
  14. Abner

    Abner Well-Known Member

    You can say that again. Being a CA native, I think I am having a bad dream with this pendejo in office.

    Ay dios mio!

    Abner
     
  15. BillDayson

    BillDayson New Member

    Things are swirling down the California crapper, bigtime.

    It isn't really surprising though. There's no way that the legislature is going to appropriate funds for a new regulatory agency in this economic climate, when they can't even pay the employees that they already have.

    It's going to be a complete disaster. Mills are already flocking to California, but have been kind of deterred by the idea that a new regulatory agency might appear at any time to sweep them out again. But if mills are going to be more or less guaranteed 6 or 7 years of anything-goes grace, the sudden overnight appearance of bogus new "California universities" is going to something to behold. That will only tarnish California's strong international reputation in higher education.

    Non-accredited schools in California are going to become a world-wide bad-joke. And that might finally kill the old California-approved world that I've been so fond of for so long. The credible few will be indistinguishable from a huge mass of total and absolute scams. Maybe more of my CA-approved favorites will pursue accreditation. Where that's not possible for some reason (shaky finances, unconventional educational models or whatever) they may just close. Real educators and subject-matter buffs aren't going to want to start anything interesting or experimental in the new con-artist-friendly climate.

    Oh well, our peculiarly Californian grass-roots academia was fun for a generation and nothing lasts forever.
     
  16. Ted Heiks

    Ted Heiks Moderator and Distinguished Senior Member

    Well, let's see here now. California once had a CPPVE (later the BPPVE) and the governor and the legislature decided to treat it like a political football and leave it too poor and underfunded and generally abused to do its job and keep the mills out. Then they kill off the BPPVE altogether and wonder why the mills come washing back up on California's beaches like so many dead whales. Hey, I'm not the one who forced y'all to take an actor for your governor.
     
  17. BillDayson

    BillDayson New Member

    The state government realized that the lower-tier of the old two-tier system was too weak and they eliminated it. There's nothing wrong with that, it was a positive change. The whole state approval regime has always been kind of experimental and it needs adjustment from time to time in light of how it's actually working in practice.

    "They" didn't kill off the BPPVE. Its enabling legislation sunsetted and required reenactment. That became hopelessly bogged down in arguments that had nothing to do with preventing degree-mills. Everyone in the state government is agreed on opposing mills, though most of them don't give the problem nearly the priority that it deserves. The current conflict is essentially between the adjunct-happy chain-schools like the University of Phoenix and DeVry on one side, and the faculty labor unions on the other. The field of battle is the education code sections that previously required non-WASC RA schools to get each of their California remote sites individually approved by the state. The chain-schools want the exemption from state-approval that WASC schools currently enjoy extended to all regional accreditors.

    Then the budget crisis hit and state government revenues fell dramatically below state expenditures. That threatened the equivalent of state bankruptcy and necessitated laying off and furloughing many state employees and ruthlessly cutting back programs, including ones where cutbacks really hurt. So everyone's pretty much accepted that there's almost no chance of passing a new appropriation bill in the current situation, and the whole issue is apparently being pushed off a few years along with a number of less-pressing spending proposals.

    My fear is that doing that will have unexpected consequences, turning California into a new international haven for degree mills and quite possibly killing off the California-approved sector of fascinating grass-roots schools by swamping them in scams.
     
  18. Ted Heiks

    Ted Heiks Moderator and Distinguished Senior Member

    In other words, they allowed the BPPVE to sunset, knowing that the result would be that, with no state approval agency for institutions of higher education, it would become legal for anyone who wants to to start his own mill in CA. Same difference.
     
  19. John Bear

    John Bear Senior Member

    Yesterday, the state senate voted 13-0 to put the school licensing proposed bill in the "Suspense File," which is the equivalent of putting it 'on hold' for consideration at a later time, which could be next Tuesday, or the year 2043, or somewhere in between.
     
  20. Ian Anderson

    Ian Anderson Active Member

    CA also had another actor for Governor - Ronald Reagan.

    However at least the current governor (Arnold S.) worked for employers, is (or was) an entrepreneur, graduated from the University of Wisconsin with a business and economics degree, and acheived US citizenship.

    The problem in CA is that both houses of the state legislature have to comply with budgetary provisions enacted by the proposition process - a 2/3 majority - which is proving unworkable. There is a growing numbers of Californians pushing for a constitutional convention to revise CA's constitution.
     

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