Thursday, September 30, 2010

Accreditation

New approach The need for a new approach to higher education was validated by Stanford Business School Professor Jeffrey Pfeffer's widely publicized article, The End of Business Schools. His article, based on 40 years of research, was highly critical of how tenured professors at traditional business schools force students to study obsolete curricula that waste thousands of hours of their students' time on irrelevant courses. In his own words:
"Little of what is taught to students in business school prepares them for the corporate workplace. You have to question what goes on in the two years it takes to get an MBA, if someone can virtually be equivalent in two or three weeks. What that suggests to me is that if you take a smart person, and give them a relatively short course, a mini-MBA, if you will, they basically do as well as the MBAs." "One of the problems is that much of the business school curriculum has remained unchanged since the 1960s. Business schools rely on outmoded teaching methods and do not afford students an opportunity for practical experience." About Accreditation It is very important to understand the meaning of accreditation and the different kinds of accreditation that exist. The verb "accredit" means to accept, approve or recognize a person or organization for a particular purpose. A person or organization that has been accredited for a particular purpose is said to have accreditation in relation to that purpose. There are two kinds of accreditation, self-accreditation and independent accreditation. Self-accreditation Universities and other schools that are self-accredited are members of associations of schools. These schools self-regulate each other by deciding on the minimum standards which each member must meet in terms of faculty qualifications, number of books in the library, and other inputs to the educational process. Through the process of peer-review professors from three member schools will visit a fourth school member school to judge whether or not they meet the associations standards and thus may keep the accreditation they have from the association. The weakness of self-accreditation is that there is virtually no input into the process of accreditation (or of setting the standards for accreditation) by the students and alumni and organizations that support them financially through tuition reimbursement and promotions and raises. The performance of self-accredited schools has been horrible in most respects. In the USA the same large regional associations of schools that accredit colleges and universities also accredit K-12 grade schools. All self-accreditation associations claim that their stamp of approval via their peer-review accreditation guarantees parents and employers a quality product. The truth is that the self-accredited K-12 schools are turning out millions of graduates each year who cannot read, write, calculate, think and who are culturally illiterate. The evidence for this is overwhelming. A simple search of Google using "failure of American education" will reveal hundreds of articles on the subject for K-12 and higher education. Also see books at Amazon.com such as Prof Scam, Inside American Education and Dumbing Down Our Kids. The self-accredited universities for their part have failed to their standards for admissions. This has resulted in little pressure on the K-12 schools to change since the universities still accept their graduates. Many of the self-accredited universities have set up special remedial courses for many of these semi-literate students. Otherwise there has been a lowering of accepted standards in the classrooms so that many of the graduates of the self-accredited schools remain semi-literate with poor reading, writing and thinking skills. For more information on the self-accreditation associations see www.chea.org Of course not all self-accredited schools are failing. The reason the good schools stay in the same association as the bad schools is money. The Federal government grants billions of dollars of grants, scholarships, and loans (to their students) to self-accredited schools and universities. This is the fundamental reason for the existence of the self-accreditation associations. State and local governments also are also directly responsible for the failures of the US education system. The tax funded state and local monopolies finance, own and regulate the schools that 90% of K-12 students attend. As a result parents are deserting the government schools in droves, many turning to private schools and over three million choosing home schooling. The state and local governments also own the universities that over 75% of college students attend and regulate almost all of the other schools who educate the other 25%. Through regulation they prevent entrepreneurs from starting new universities that would challenge the self-accredited universities and eliminate the jobs of retired-on-the-job tenured professors. A problem of a different sort has invaded many university graduate schools, whose tenured professors are forcing students to study irrelevant curricula. The problems this has caused in the business schools are documented by Professor Pfeffer of Stanford. Again it is the self-accredited schools and universities (whose associations claim to uphold quality) who are in fact failing, thus wasting their students' time and money with their poor quality programs. A 56 page report based on a study by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (www.goacta.org), with the title "Can College Accreditation Live Up to Its Promise" was issued. Quoting from their website: "An investigation that finds the system of college accreditation has done more to raise costs than to improve or even maintain educational quality, and that it gives students, parents, and public decision-makers almost no useful information about institutions of higher education." History of Self-Accreditation Associations A little more than 100 years ago American universities, colleges, and secondary schools formed six regional associations: The North Central, the Southern, the Middle States, the Northwest, New England and the Western. Over the years these organizations also accepted as members elementary, secondary and other K-12 schools. Most of the Regional associations were created so that teachers at their member schools could receive pensions from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, which was funded by steel magnate Andrew Carnegie in 1905. In order to qualify for these pensions the Regional associations had to adopt the educational standards set by the Carnegie's foundation and force their members to adhere to these same standards. A school that was a full member of these associations was accredited for the purpose of its teacher's receiving pensions from the Carnegie Foundation. In other words these schools were considered to have accreditation. After World War II becoming a full member of these associations brought even more benefits. The GI Bill of Rights passed after the war gave millions of veterans the funds to attend schools that had self-accreditation by being full members of the Regional associations of schools. Almost all colleges and universities that were not members of Regional associations became one as soon as they could. If they did not have this-accreditation through membership they would not be able to attract Veteran's as students. In 1958 the new US Federal College Loan Program became another reason for self-accreditation. By becoming an accredited member of the Regional associations they would qualify their students. This program started small and has been responsible for over 100s of billions of dollars of guaranteed loans to college and university students. Once again self-accreditation by a Regional association became important as Federal law required schools that wanted to participate in the loan program to have self-accreditation. Independent Accreditation EBBS has independent accreditation. Independent accreditation is earned through performance. It is measured by the value a school delivers to their students and the organizations that employ them and pay their tuition fees. The evidence for our accreditation is the success of our students and alumni (including raises, new jobs, promotions and new business startups) and the support of the organizations that financially support them and reward them with raises and promotions. Because of the failures of self-accredited schools and the success of our entrepreneurs/students, EBBS International Business School degrees are likely to be accepted as well or better than degrees from self-accredited universities at almost all organizations in the world. The self-accreditation associations like to claim that degrees from their members have greater acceptance by employers. While this may be true in the areas of health and engineering (which we do not offer) it is not true in the areas of business and most of the social sciences. The fact is that employers very seldom investigate the type of accreditation that a potential employee's school has. Employers are much more concerned with confirming references and work experience. They are aware of the failure of most self-accredited schools and that many award degrees to semi-literate students and force their graduates to study irrelevant curricula. For this reason entrepreneurs/employers do not believe that the kind of accreditation a school has makes a difference in predicting how well an employee will perform. Self-accreditation associations also claim that their students will be able to easily transfer credits to other schools in their association. In practice this happens only to a limited degree for credits at the Master's level and almost not at all at the Doctoral level. For a good understanding of the difference between a job in a 'wage economy' and self-employed entrepreneurs please read about Self-Employment by Muhammad Yunus. EBBS International Business School is part of a network of innovative change agent business schools that together set a new standard for independent accreditation. As strategic advisor and co-developer of new innovative departments for existing schools part of our consultancy is focussed on creating the latest model of accreditation based on evaluating competencies.

Posted by Cute at 3:10 AM
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