Issue One--Accreditation

The Department of Education has already begun to move forward on the recommendations of the report, "A Test of Leadership: Charting the Future of U. S. Higher Education." Secretary Spellings' action plan listed three issues she would address; accessibility, affordability, and accountability. The first issue on her agenda is accountability, and the first item under that umbrella is accreditation. On November 29, 2006, the DOE held the "Accreditation Forum" to begin the discussion. Secretary Spellings emphasized when she charged the commission in the fall of 2005 that this would be the beginning of a dialogue, and that was reinforced both by the Forum's organizer, Vicky Schray, Senior Advisor, Office of the Undersecretary, DOE and Secretary Spellings at the Forum. Schray said that we are not here to lay blame or to come to consensus, but to spell out the issues that we should address. Spellings said that she was heartened by the response to the Forum and the work of the members, and that she wanted the higher education community to address the issues.

I must confess that I was initially ambivalent about this meeting, as I assumed accreditation would only include accreditors. But the roomful of invited participants, and Schray's opening comments, showed otherwise. She said that the Forum was convened to address the accreditation process with all the players, not just the accreditation agencies. In attendance were about 70 higher education professionals from around the country representing some of the major accrediting agencies, university/college system officers, institutional officers, policy/think-tank associations, and some of the higher education associations.

If you have not already read the Inside Higher Education and Chronicle of Higher Education stories on the Forum, they give a full picture of the meeting. I will comment on where our place is in this discussion.

Jane Wellman, a Senior Associate at The Institute for Higher Education Policy, in framing the day’s work, emphasized that the accreditation process is an evolved process, not a designed one. Peg Miller, the Director of the National Forum on College-Level Learning stated that one of the conclusions she has come to is that campus assessment cannot serve accountability. Peter Ewell said this in a different way when he said that there is a tension within the accreditation process between three roles: improvement-based peer review, quality assurance, and public information. He contended that current accreditation processes are pretty good at the first of these roles, but they diminish through the other two. Ewell’s concluding point was that maybe the assessment process is being asked to do too much, or if it is to fulfill all those roles it is woefully resource-poor to do it.

The working structure of the Forum was two sessions of discussion tables for the invited participants to address two issues: 1) student learning outcomes, and 2) institutional inputs (resources) and process standards. Not being an invited participant, I had to wait until the groups had worked through their questions and reported out. Kind of like watching student group work.

The report-out revealed that the discussions had been complex and generative. On the issue of student learning outcomes, the groups called for multiple measures, complex processes, establishment of clear outcomes, external audits, clarification between student achievement and student learning, need for common definitions and comparable data systems, clarification of expectations of learning for various degree levels, and the question of whether institutions or student learning should be the center of accountability. Like most good group work, the process prompted strong discussions.

The input or resource issue discussion, coming at the end of the day, still elicited good responses. First off, most of the groups argued with the question, saying that inputs cannot be established until outcomes are clarified. In that light, almost all of the groups said that outcomes trumps inputs. One group said that if the institution can document good outcomes, who cares what the inputs are. Another group said that institutions should be able to make the case for varying from input standards if they can achieve good outcomes. The argument, and we have heard it before, was that by establishing very strong input standards, you stifle creativity and innovation to achieve outcomes. One group did remind us that it is a balance between inputs and outcomes. You cannot have good outcomes if you do not have good inputs. The tension between inputs and outcomes is, of course, problematic. Too often we have agreed to focus on results, and the result has been an incomplete outcome clarification that shortchanges us. On the other hand, too strict an adherence to input standards increases the bureaucratic stasis too often found in our work.

Coming out of this discussion was a stronger and stronger argument for establishing outcomes, particularly in the core expectations for a degree. Writing, reading, and numeracy were specifically cited. Interestingly, no one from any of the discussion groups said we need to talk to disciplinary folks. When I said at the beginning of this report that it was a mixture of higher education professionals and stakeholders, two major groups were not at the table--faculty representing disciplines, and students.

The Forum did succeed in placing good stuff on the table. DOE will sift through all the notes, do a report, and then, in the words of Ms. Schray, "see what comes next."

So, where are we? There was a strong call for more meetings on this issue, and DOE heard that, loud and clear. The discussion raised come good issues, but a full explication of the issues and a clear articulation of progress will require that more stakeholders are at the table. If standards or outcomes are going to be articulated for reading and writing, we need to be part of that discussion.