RespectableGent Wrote:The DoEd's Inspector General was kicked to the curb and replaced a few days ago.
The current IG is
Kathleen S. Tighe, who was sworn in March 17, 2010. Before this she was the Deputy Inspector General for the Ag Dept. Her background appears to be in law and law enforcement, not education, which probably is a plus as far as actually developing and applying actual standards of accreditation.
The controversy between the IG's office and NCACS goes back at least as far as 2002. According to the IG's report:
Quote:
In 2002, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) issued a final management information report entitled, North Central Association of Colleges and Schools’ Accreditation Standards for Student Achievement and Program Length (ED-OIG/A09-C0016). The review found that HLC’s standards that encompass student achievement and program length were general and did not include specific measures to be met by institutions. The report stated that, as a result, HLC’s established standards inherently limited the agency’s ability to compare institutional performance and distinguish between compliant and noncompliant institutions. We suggested that HLC develop standards that are sufficiently concrete and specific to permit it to determine whether an institution is compliant or noncompliant; describe the Carnegie formula in written guidance and explicitly state that institutions should use this method or submit written justification of any deviation; and provide guidance on documenting deviations from the Carnegie method. HLC did not concur with our conclusions or our suggestions.
http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/oi...3j0003.pdf
It appears that (at least recently) the DofEd has been trying to get accreditation agencies to establish concrete and specific standards for evaluating institutions, and that the accreditation agencies (or at least, one in particular) are resisting that notion at every turn.
So if by "diploma mill" you mean an institution that operates without any concrete or specific standards, sounds like the DofEd's IG agrees with you. But it's the accreditation agencies themselves that are in love with them, because accreditation agencies are operated by the very institutions they accredit. It's a total conflict of interest, which is why accreditation is not by any stretch the measure of quality that naive people believe it to be.
The notion of "quality" requires some system of standards and measurements. The accreditation agencies, as tools of the wealthy higher ed cartel, resist that because once people started keeping score the charade would be over. Then the Excelsiors and TESCs would be exposed, along with the Ivy League Dumbass Factories.
