The Spellings Report Update

Janell Lang, Ed.S.Dean, School of Health Sciences

Owens Community College / Toledo & Findlay, OH

Janell_Lang@owens.edu Anne Loochtan, Ph.D.

Assistant Dean of Health and Public SafetyCincinnati State Technical and Community

Collegeanne.loochtan@cincinnatistate.eduNN2 20th Annual Meeting

Cincinnati, OHOctober 10-13, 2007

Spellings Accreditation

Janell Lang, Ed.S.

Dean, School of Health Sciences

Owens Community College / Toledo & Findlay,

OH

Janell_Lang@owens.edu

The Ancient Accreditors’ Curse:

“May You Live in Interesting Times”

Margaret Spellings

Spellings’ Commission Report

Aligning K-12 and higher education expectations

Increasing need-based aid for access and success Using accreditation to support and emphasize student-learning outcomes

Serving adults and other non-traditional students Enhancing affordability, decreasing costs, and promoting productivity

September 2006 Report

National Higher Education Transformation Summit “Making Colleges Affordable, Accountable and Accessible to More Americans”

The Summit

A 25-point list of “action items,” focusing upon these recommendations, was the result of a day-long Summit sponsored by the USDE on March 22.

For additional information, refer to: http://www.ed.gov/news/pressreleases/2007/03/03222007.html

Truman vs. Spellings(1947) (2006)

Truman Commission Report was focused upon "getting students in."

Spellings Commission Report focuses upon "getting students out."

*more accountability

*graduation rates

*more analysis

*completion rates

*more data

*more transparency in published reports

*and, of course, rule making authority.

And more…

In short, "No Child Left Behind Goes to College"

Oasis College

Midwest HallWest Hall

East Hall

South Hall

Spring Meeting of the Association of Specialized and Programmatic Accreditors

(ASPA)

Vicki Schray, Senior Advisor, Office of the Under Secretary, USDE, and lead negotiator in the accreditation rule-making process, spoke about the need for:

Greater transparency of student success, focusing upon results

Increased evidence that we’re helping students achieve their goals

Vicki Schray

“Accreditation is undercapitalized by peers and volunteers”

“While the general public may not understand accreditation, it needs to”

“We need to balance the needs of the institution with the needs of the public”

Vicki Schray

Use accreditation to support student-learning outcomes

Embrace and use the “powerful lever” of accreditation as a means to address the public’s knowledge

“Kick the tires” by external stakeholders

Negotiated Rule Making on Accreditation

In her Discussion Paper: "Assuring Quality in Higher Education: Key Issues and Questions for Changing Accreditation in the United States," (February 28, 2006), Vicki Schray writes: "The lack of consistency and transparency in the accreditation system has now created major concerns about whether the accreditation community is able to assure consistent levels of quality and be counted on to support national and state efforts to improve performance, promote innovation and expand credit transfer."

In an August, 2006 letter, Judith Eaton, President of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA) wrote: "...We have a clash of expectations. The accreditation community envisions itself as primarily serving higher education; the Spellings' report envisions accreditation as first serving the public."

Among the proposed rules . . .

Paul Gaston, Trustees Professor, Kent State University, 2007-08 Chair, Association of Specialized and Professional Accreditors, Fall 2007 ASPA Conference

Accrediting agencies would have been required

To establish “minimum quantitative standards . . . for prebaccalaureate vocational programs and for . . . programs that prepare students for . . . certification or licensure.”

To establish “specific quantitative and qualitative measures of student achievement and an expected level of performance.”

To develop “a set of evaluative rubrics for groups of institutions with similar missions . . . ” and to “weight the components of the rubric for each institution and specify an expected level of performance on each component.”

Accrediting agencies would have been required

To establish “minimum quantitative standards . . . for prebaccalaureate vocational programs and for . . . programs that prepare students for . . . certification or licensure.”

To establish “specific quantitative and qualitative measures of student achievement and an expected level of performance.”

To develop “a set of evaluative rubrics for groups of institutions with similar missions . . . ” and to “weight the components of the rubric for each institution and specify an expected level of performance on each component.”

and . . .

To ask each institution it oversees to establish “quantitative and qualitative measures for each of the programs it offers, and an expected level of performance . . . .”

Paul Gaston, Trustees Professor, Kent State University, 2007-08 Chair, Association of Specialized and Professional Accreditors, Fall 2007 ASPA Conference

To ask each institution “to make available to the public, and to each prospective student, information about its mission and each program’s objectives, expected levels of performance on measures of student achievement, and actual performance.”

Doug Leaderman, Editor of Inside Higher Education, has coined the Spellings Commission Report, "...the Education Department's full-court press on accreditors in a desire to have the agencies ratchet up the pressure they, in turn, place on colleges to measure (and prove) that their students are learning and, importantly, to try to find ways to compare the institutions' success to one another."

Recall some of the headlines!

Commission Chairman Blasts Accreditation

Spellings Promises Fast Reforms In Accreditation

Paul Gaston, Trustees Professor, Kent State University, 2007-08 Chair, Association of Specialized and Professional Accreditors, Fall 2007 ASPA Conference

Spellings Wants To Use Accreditation As a CudgelSpellings: Use Accreditation

To Hold Colleges Accountable

Accreditation Official Out of a Job

Lack of ConsensusOn Lack of Consensus

Sen. Lamar Alexander and Rep. David Obey stepped up!

In late May, Sen. Alexander announced he would introduce legislation preventing the DOE from enforcing accreditation rules prior to HEA reauthorization. “Congress needs to legislate first.”

In early June, Rep. Obey added to a House spending bill set for passage a provision prohibiting the DOE from using any funds to “promulgate, implement or enforce” new federal rules regarding accreditation.

Paul Gaston, Trustees Professor, Kent State University, 2007-08 Chair, Association of Specialized and Professional Accreditors, Fall 2007 ASPA Conference

What next?

National benchmarking? National accreditation? National general education exit

exams/measures? National database of information

concerning student, instructional, programmatic, and institutional outcomes

Publication of all accreditation actionsBarbara Jones, PhD, Dean of Instructions Louisiana Delta Community College, AACC Presentation, 2007

•None of the issues addressed so far likely to go away

•Transparency•Comparability•Exclusivity

Paul Gaston, Trustees Professor, Kent State University, 2007-08 Chair, Association of Specialized and Professional Accreditors, Fall 2007 ASPA Conference

Has the Spellings’ Report been responsible for any

changes in American higher education?

"Something is changing out there," says Patrick M. Callan, president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education. After initial criticisms of the Spellings commission and the sometimes caustic tone of its yearlong deliberations, many college leaders are recognizing common ground.

Source: Basken, P. A Year Later, Spellings Report Still Makes Ripples, Chronicle of Higher Education, Sept. 28, 2007.

Among recent developments which may have stemmed from the Spellings Commission Report: “Hundreds of U.S. colleges are using standardized

student-achievement tests, allowing comparisons between institutions, while investigating options for creating more such tests.

Several major college groups are set to outline in coming weeksprojects in which their members will post to their Web sites specific performance-related data to allow direct comparisons between institutions.

Congress, with broad bipartisan backing, this month approved the largest increase in federal student aid since the GI Bill in 1944.

The 15-institution University of Texas system have been testing students, in groups of freshmen and seniors, using an exam known as the Collegiate Learning Assessment. Results are publicly posted.

Another Texas campus, Permian Basin, in Odessa, has been advertising its scores on the Collegiate Learning Assessment after results showed that the small and little-heralded university, which accepts 95 percent of students who apply, had the system's highest rate of academic growth between the freshman and senior years.”

Source: Basken, P. A Year Later, Spellings Report Still Makes Ripples, Chronicle of Higher Education, Sept. 28, 2007.

“For all the work remaining, the commission has "started to provoke a

long-overdue public discussion," Ms. Spellings said. "We have put the

elephant in the middle of the dining-room table, and we're starting to

talk about stuff that we ought to be talking about.“ “

Source: Basken, P. A Year Later, Spellings Report Still Makes Ripples, Chronicle of Higher Education, Sept. 28, 2007.

What elephan

t?

But… “She suffered one major setback when

she proposed new regulations requiring outcomes-based assessments as part of the federal accreditation process. Colleges, which need that accreditation to remain eligible for the government's $83-billion student-aid program, lobbied lawmakers who then persuaded Ms. Spellings to abandon the effort.”

Source: Basken, P. A Year Later, Spellings Report Still Makes Ripples, Chronicle of Higher Education, Sept. 28, 2007.

Questions? Comments?