Assessment & Accreditation: The Frog is Coming to a Boil!

Wow. As the water went from cool to warm, we weren't led to expect that someone would reach over and turn the heat up to "high": A plethora of activities relating to accountability and quality issues are quickly going from simmer to boil!

This (requires subscription or pass purchase) is just one:

A dispute over the federal agency charged with reviewing college accreditors may come to a boil at a key review session next month, when the waning Bush administration will have one of its highest-profile chances to try to force colleges to do more to demonstrate how well they help students learn.

The federal agency is scheduled to assess five of the six main regional accreditation bodies and decide if they deserve renewed recognition.

Some of the accreditors say the session has the potential to play out as a politically explosive showdown between the Education Department and the accreditors and colleges that have been seeking to take control of decisions about how institutions' performances are measured.

This is another:

“I’m shocked at the stupidity of the accreditors in opening up an issue that had been settled in a positive way,” Becky Timmons, assistant vice president for government relations at the American Council on Education, said angrily Wednesday night. The Association of American Universities sent a letter to its members late last week opposing the change, and the association’s weekly summary of developments explained its rationale this way: “The elimination of this important provision opens the door to alternatives that are likely to be unsatisfactory or harmful to the ability of institutions to continue to set their own standards of student achievement based on their institutional mission.”

Hot stuff, indeed.

Note: If you'd like to read some thoughtful, related articles from Planning for Higher Education, collected in one PDF before the heat got turned on, you may wish to purchase this SCUP Portfolio on Assessment & Quality.