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The Education
Department didn’t draw much attention when it quietly granted the
powerful status of accreditor to a small organization called The
American Academy for Liberal Education. Till now, all such
accreditors have been regional organizations, such as the Middle
States Association. This is the first to focus on a specific kind of
program, the liberal arts college, and to offer itself as an
alternative certifying mechanism for schools that may wish to show
they excel in such a field. It’s a small move, and the effects are
likely to be minor. But the appearance of such new groups and - more
important, the readiness of the Education Department to embrace one
-hints at larger battles on this issue.
The past few
years have seen several fights over accreditation agencies as
political divisions have increased on the question of what
constitutes quality and legitimacy in higher education - and by
extension what’s legitimate for accreditors to require.
Accrediting agencies are in an odd position:
gatekeepers for large sums of government money (since such aid can
flow only to “accredited” institutions) but themselves not part
of the government. That has meant an absence of close supervision,
with a resulting wide variety of what, if anything, colleges
required for a bachelor’s degree and what students and their
bill-paying parents could expect in return for tuition.
Such regional
organizations as the Middle States Association have been responsible
for giving the seal of approval to a broad spectrum of schools
rather than seeking to hold them to any particular model. The newly
accredited academy is thus a real departure. Its founders, who
include such big-name professors as Columbia’s Jacques Barzun and
Harvard’s E. 0. Wilson, want to offer an accreditation with a more
specific and prestigious meaning to liberal arts institutions that
offer what the academy considers real teaching and a core
curriculum. In a statement, the Washington-based group expresses
concern about the prevalence of remedial courses on campus and says
schools that opt for its accreditation will be held to standards
that include contact with senior faculty, math and science
requirements and “emphasis on substantive learning as well as
cognitive development.”
The group declares it
has no connection with the politically tainted fight of a few years
ago, when a few schools challenged the Middle States accreditors
over standards they felt were slanted - and that in fact overstepped
educational questions in mandating levels of “diversity” and the
like. The liberal arts
group is more of an add-on, an optional gold star from the experts,
luckily free of wider disputes over what can be called a college
education.
Copyright 1995, The
Washington Post
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