Has the Oregon ODA Prosecuted Anyone?

I'll have to respectfully withhold my applause until Alan can get his priorities straight. If they can adjust their sights to target the bad guys... great. Right now I see their effort as dysfunctional. If they actually DO something productive (like actually prosecute a bad guy) rather than just publish a website and make a little noise ...then better still.

Little known fact... the Office of Degree Authorization and the Oregon Department of Agriculture compete for the same acronym on their respective websites. Further lending to the confusion... some poor slob will inevitably wind up looking for bullshit in the wrong place....

 

Re: Re: Re: Re: Has the Oregon ODA Prosecuted Anyone?

To the first part, it sounds as if a complaint against this favored son is considered to be some sort of blasphemy... personally, I think the Office of Degree Authorization should be kicked in the pants hard and told to stop shooting at some of the wrong people. Case in point, SCUPS dutifully submitted to the ODAs individual review and passed. Doesn't it strike anybody that SCUPS is approved under a body of law and regulation of sufficient rigor in its home state and that schools that meet that standard could be efficiently given consideration with that in mind? Can you imagine what would happen if not only all of the CA approved schools requested their special review, but schools from around the country did as well? You wouldn't be able to get an approval in 10 years! It's only because Oregon has been generally ignored or is little known that they can pursue this damned dumb policy.

To the second part, I disagree with this buck passing. The ODA has been given sufficient latitude to enact policies to handle appropriate exceptions. Alan chooses his organization's behavior and is responsible for it.

 

The issue with me is that even Oregon doesn't claim the unaccredited schools on their website are degree mills. The schools are guilty until proven innocent.

Just for my information, would a degree from one of the Oxford colleges outside London be considered illegal? They're not US accredited and not Oregon approved.

 

Oxford University is the degree granting authority for the Oxford colleges. Does Oxford University even teach any classes itself?

Mr. Contreras may have some shortcomings but he isn't stupid enough to list Oxford lest his somewhat meaningless list become truly meaningless.

I don't even think our favourite Liberian accredited schools are on the list. Snoozing at the keyboard Alan?

 

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No, it's the simple observation that Mr. Contreras and his office are periodically attacked in a rather insulting and personal manner because the attacker disgrees with policies that were actually created and defined by the Oregon State Legislature.

I think that the periodic attacks directed at Mr. Contreras are misdirected. But he does put a human face on the legislature's policy, and it's a lot easier, emotionally, to attack a person than it is to criticise an abstraction.

You seem to be repeating your demand that California schools all be given blanket approval.

I addressed this in an earlier post, and my opinion hasn't changed.

On one end you have places like the Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Sciences. This is a high-powered start-up which is already a member of the Clarement consortium and has an advisory committee full of stars like the president of the National Academy of Sciences, the president of the Carnegie Foundation and a host of bigtime biotech executives.

And you also have the American International University of Management and Technology, which by all accounts seems to have suddenly appeared on the CA-approved list after it was driven from Hawaii by Mr. Brunton.

My point is that given the tremendous variety in the California-approved ranks, the span from the National Test Pilot School with its worldwide government and military contracts, to Friends International Christian University with its ACI accreditation and its life experience credit, considering them individually, on a case-by-case basis is probably very prudent.

 

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Yes, I think a blanket approval is far more efficient and meets the stated intent. ...and my opinion hasn't changed either. Under the existing logic, Oregon could disavow driver's licenses by other states claiming the testing methods are illegal until proven to be otherwise through individual testing. What a nightmare. Wouldn't work in that case and it doesn't work for this one.

I'm not sure of your point given your examples... are you suggesting some schools are better than others? No revelation there... that's true for RA or DETC or whatever. Are you suggesting that CA state approval isn't good enough for Oregon? What standards does Oregon require that are not met by a CA approved school?

Guess we'll just have to disagree.

 

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Has the Oregon ODA Prosecuted Anyone?

First off your analogy is fatally flawed. The analogy should be if a another state didn't have standard testing required before issuing a drivers license then they would be required to to take the standard test elsewhere before they could use their drivers license in Oregon.

Regarding the Oregon laws in general. I believe that the overall view is that RA is the standard and the norm within this country. There are a minority of people that try to utilize substandard degrees. The vast majority of the unaccredited degrees are substandard. Oregon is simply trying to minimize the use of these substandard degrees. Like a reverse osmosis filter, you by default reject all unaccredited degrees but after a review by the ODA some unaccredited degrees may be accepted.

 

I find it ironic that the supporters of unaccredited schools will argue for Wyoming's "state's right" to approve anything claiming to be a university, but against Oregon's "state's right" to regulate the use of diplomas within their borders.

Oregon's law is a new application of an old concept. States are not required to accept the standards of another state. If this was the case, the state with the lowest standard would become the national standard.

There are many certifications in education and professions which are acceptable in one state but not another. Some include:

Medicine
Engineering
Construction Contracting
Law
Real Estate
Accounting
Teaching

In some cases states accept certifications from another state, based on similiar quality. In other cases they don't. Why should Oregon not have the right to set its own educational standards.

It all comes back to the same argument regarding unaccredited degrees, their utility.

If you choose the easy route, find a job outside of Oregon.

 

Approved schools have been around for many years now, and I'm sure there are thousands of diplomas within Oregon. I'm not aware of anyone being prosecuted in Oregon. We'll just have to wait and see if Oregons law is a growl or if it has teeth to it. I doubt if any resources will be allocated for enforcement.

 

As of last year, no one had been prosecuted by the ODA. From the dearth of information presented here, it appears that the situation hasn't changed any. Looks as if they just publish a website and review the few schools that apply.

Some of the other points raised here are interesting though. It has been suggested that Oregon has very high educational standards. And they have an Office of Degree Authorization to enforce those standards (well, ...see above). So, if you are not accredited by a US DOE recognized body, your school must submit to the ODA for a standards review to be legal in that state. If the ODA approves you, it would suggest that the school in question is deemed to have met those high standards (which are clearly centered around US DOE accreditation). So, one could make the association that to be approved by the ODA is to be considered approved in a manner consistent with US DOE accreditation. Wow, congratulations to SCUPS!!

If that's not the case, and poor SCUPS is still "substandard", would someone please tell me what those high ODA standards are? And why are those high standards different from the accreditation standards the ODA already subscribes to? And, if they allow multiple standards, why aren't the clearly defined standards that California (a significant state in the Union) uses sufficient to qualify? And please don't tell me to go talk to the ODA, they haven't been able to answer these questions. They revel in making policy statements with little or no explanation.

 

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Requiring out-of-state drivers licenses to meet Oregon standards would be completely justified if some states were licensing dangerous and incompetent drivers that were hazardous on Oregon roads.

Yes. I would have thought that was obvious from the examples, which were pretty extreme.

I'm suggesting that California approves a number of schools that Oregon might not want to accept.

I don't know.

But I have looked at the kind of school that Oregon approves, and found that the list of OR-approved schools looks rather different than the list of CA-approved schools.

http://forums.degreeinfo.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=8642

Given the small number of OR-approved degree-granting institutions, I'd speculate that it's harder to receive approval in Oregon than in California. It also appears that most of the OR-approved schools are new schools that are on an accreditation track. One (Birthingway) says that somebody in the Oregon state government explicitly told them that they should be pursuing recognized accreditation.

 

Given that the ODA isn't staffed with prosecutors and litigators, I don't think that it was ever intended to be a law enforcement agency. As I wrote in a previous post, I think that it is part of an effort to define what kind of academic degree is legal for use in the state of Oregon.

It isn't necessary that every violator of the law be arrested and charged. But should they ever be served with an Oregon lawsuit in which their degree is relevant, or should they themselves sue for something like wrongful termination, the status of their degree is already defined by state law.

Oregon doesn't require that in-state OR-approved schools already qualify for recognized accreditation. Oregon seems to use its in-state approval to approve new schools that seem to have a realistic chance at eventually achieving accreditation, and then apparently the state continues to push them to actively pursue it. I'm not sure that Oregon wants OR-approval to be a permanent resting place for degree-granting schools.

Expecting out-of-state non-accredited schools to meet Oregon approval standards seems to suggest that Oregon wants those state-approved programs to be within realistic striking distance of recognized accreditation standards. In other words, schools that could put in place the kind of changes that would make them them accreditable by at least one of the recognized accreditors, without having to totally remake themselves in the process.

Perhaps SCUPS doesn't yet qualify for any recognized accreditation, but could if it put some necessary changes into effect. It's close, but not there yet.

In the case of in-state schools, OR-approval seems to be aimed at licensing new schools to operate while they pursue accreditation.

Because California approves a tremendous variety of schools, ranging from schools that are a lock on achieving accreditation in minimal time to schools that would likely require some major changes in order to be accreditable.

 

It seems that you keep trying to minimize the Oregon laws that established the ODA by pointing at stuff that, in my opinion, it doesn't really try to do. I really don't think the point is that the ODA is supposed to be a police force and prosecuting arm of the law that hunts down substandard degree users. You keep making this claim and then say that it isn't working. My view is that Oregon has taken a broad stroke and interesting approach to the problem of substandard degrees. Here's what it accomplishes, in my view.
1. The ODA helps inform and warn the public about substandard degrees by their excellent website.
2. They prevent some degree mills from even attempting to rip off Oregon residents.
3. It legally defines what is a substandard degree within Oregon and declares them illegal for use. This helps protect people that might be sued by academic frauds for things like wrongful termination, etc. Academic frauds can be very persistent and dedicated to their own denial of any fraud. They are amazingly agile in their use of warped logic when justifying their substandard degrees. While at the same time, they seem quick to blame and attack others that don't accept their substandard credentials.

 

Bill & Bill... those are plausible but I think baser instincts are at work here... I think Oregon is taking perverse pleasure in sticking it to California...

 

Perhaps I should raise an army to engage in some of this state versus state action myself. My quandry now is should I be loyal to California or should I raise a rebel force within California. Hmm ...

 

California probably has the highest per capita ratio of Birkenstocks to people, while Oregon probably has an equally high firearm to person ratio.

My money's on Oregon.


Bruce

 

This has been going on for some time, as exemplified by the battle cry I heard when visiting the state:

"Don't Californicate Oregon."

 

nup nup ... the Office of Firearm Authorization will only permit accredited firearms or those approved by the OFA... as everyone knows this will essentially disarm the Oregonians and they will be helpless to repel the onslaught of marauding sandal vikings... bwa ha ha ha ...then again maybe not....

 

It seems to me that there must be a number of 'Kiwi' bureaucrats
living in Oregon and North Dakota, who spend a great deal of tax/rate payers funds dreaming up completely unworkable/unenforceable laws.

 

I don't think FN realized you were joking.

In reality it is quite easy to get a concealed weapons permit and Rose City Gun Club has gun "shows" every 3 months were a person could outfit an army.