A Presentation for the ABHES Annual Meeting with Guest Leah Matthews of the Distance Education Accrediting Commission DEAC Elise Scanlon Elise Scanlon Law Group Washington DC wwwelisescanlonlawgroupcom ID: 775994
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Slide1
A Changing Paradigm for Accreditation
A Presentation for the ABHES Annual Meeting with Guest Leah Matthews of the Distance Education Accrediting Commission (DEAC)
Elise Scanlon
Elise Scanlon Law Group
Washington D.C.
www.elisescanlonlawgroup.com
Slide2Legislative Landscape
Chairman
Kline (House Education and the Workforce Committee) announced goal of Bill by the end of 2014. Omnibus bill did not materialize despite call for comment, series of hearings. Smaller bills introduced late in the year died with previous congress
.
Accreditation continues as part of the debate
Mentioned in 2013 SOTU (change it or replace it) and subject of House and Senate hearings
White House charges NACIQI with revisiting earlier recommendations for
reform
Senate
Alexander succeeds Harkin as Chair of HELP Committee
HEA likely to take second place to ESA (NCLB) but possible bill by the end of 2015. If not, reauthorization unlikely in 2016.
Alexander favors simplification of federal student aid process, support for innovation, focus on greater transparency and accountability in accreditation. Concerns regarding cost/debt continue
.
House
Kline remains Chair
Ranking member: Bobby Scott (Judiciary Committee)
Advancing competency-Based Education Demonstration Project introduced by Susan Brooks (R-IN), Jared Polis (D-CO) and Matt Salmon (R-AZ) in the last congress. Bill directs the Secretary to implement competency-based demonstration projects.
Slide3HELP Task Force Recommendations:
General Theme: Simplification of federal regulations and concerns about Department of Education overreach
More will be asked of accreditation to hold institutions accountable and to be transparent about effectiveness
Education quality, student learning and institutional innovation are responsibilities of accreditation and areas where accreditors should play the greatest role.
Boundaries should be established for appropriate and inappropriate tasks for accreditation through the recognition process (Ex: fire code requirements for T-4 compliance)
Department’s tendency to micromanage accreditation is distracting from their central mission.
Regulation often acts as a barrier to innovation
Credit Hour: “academic definition that varies by necessity across campuses”
State authorization discourages institutional
expansion
Differentiated Review (minimized regulatory burdens on high performing institutions).
http://www.help.senate.gov/newsroom/press/release/?
id=bf4d4f89-062c-4403-83b6-fbf6581c692a&groups=Chair
Slide4Senate HELP Committee Hearing
All
senators and witnesses (with the exception of Senator Warren) agree that requirements for state authorization in every state in which a school has a student is unnecessary. Authorization to operate in one state demonstrates quality
.
Zeppos
suggests re-codifying state authorization rules to only require state authorization for the state in which the school
operates
University
of Maryland Chancellor
Kirwan
suggests accreditors need to improve transferability of credit
rules
Kirwan
believes credit hour regulations need to account for higher education trends toward competency- based education and credit for prior learning
Slide5NACIQI Proposed Policy Recommendations
Released on January 2, 2015Ask accreditation agencies (both programmatic and institutional) to develop common definitions of accreditationRequire a periodic Departmental review of the criteria for recognitionDirect NACIQI to identify the essential core elements and areas of the recognition review processGrant accrediting agencies greater authority to develop standards tailored to institutional missionMake accreditation reports about institutions available to the publicEstablish that the recognition review process differentiate among accrediting agencies based on risk or need with some identified as requiring greater levels of attention, and others lesserAllow for alternative accrediting organizationsEstablish less burdensome access to Title IV funding for high-quality, low-risk institutionshttp://www2.ed.gov/about/bdscomm/list/naciqi-dir/2014-fall/naciqi-draft-recomendations-report-01012015.pdf
Slide6GAO Report on USDE Oversight of Accreditation
Report requested by Rep. George MillerAccreditors most commonly cited financial rather than academic problems GAO’s analysis raises questions about whether the standards accreditors use ensure that schools provide a quality education, and whether the Department of Education is effectively determining if these standards ensure educational quality http://www.gao.gov/assets/670/667690.pdf
Slide7Innovation
Carnegie Report on innovation
The credit hour may not be "the impenetrable barrier" to change some have suggested.
The federal government’s financial aid rule requiring colleges and universities to measure student progress using Carnegie Units are a barrier to the spread of flexible delivery models
http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/resources/publications/carnegie-unit
/
AEI on Competency-based education
Evaluated the costs of competency based education
https://www.aei.org/publication/landscape-competency-based-education-enrollments-demographics-affordability
/
The Department of Education is granting regulatory waivers so that
institutions
can allow students to receive federal student aid as they experiment with
competency based education
Slide8American Council on Education
The Currency of Higher Education: Credits and Competencies
http://images.email.blackboard.com/Web/BlackboardInc/%7Bb8a86eaf-b213-4ae0-aad2-fddd033cb071%7D_The_Currency_of_Higher_Education-_
Credits_and_Competencies_copy.pdf
Credit for Prior Learning: Charting Institutional Practice for Sustainability
http://
www.acenet.edu/news-room/Documents/Credit-for-Prior-Learning-Charting-Institutional-Practice-for-Sustainability.pdf
Slide9DEAC Comments on Experimental Sites and Competency Based Education
DEAC approval of program to be advanced to the Department for direct assessment approval.
Complexity
Logistics of monitoring student learning activity difficult (regular and substantive interactive, but students no longer in cohorts).
Operational side of financing (earned and unearned tuition could be addressed through curriculum benchmarks)
Expectations for education quality remain the same. DEAC will look at assessment in different ways – standards scalable to all delivery modalities.
Slide102015 Outlook
HEA Unlikely in 2015
Interesting conversations around reining in regulation
Re-emergence of accreditation’s traditional role in quality assurance???
Tension between legislative and regulatory solutions continue
Regulatory architecture to support innovation including CBE
State and federal regulators will continue to push agendas
State authorization, misrepresentation, state
consumer
statutes
Slide112015 Outlook
Doug Lederman from Inside Higher Ed and Kelly Field and Eric
Kelderman
from the Chronicle of Higher Education discuss the 2015 Outlook on Radio Higher Ed.
http://radiohighered.com/2015/02/08/2015-predictions-from-the-higher-ed-press
/