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6 | JULY26-AUG. 8,2013 |
Relinquish accreditation from private agencies
To the editor,
What is the proper role of an accreditor?
In the Sandy Springs Reporters’ July 12-25 editions, we
heard from Mark Elgart, the CEO of AdvancED, parent com
pany of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools
(SACS) about the “proper role of a board member.”
With the power and influence that AdvancED wields in
Georgia, why is it that our state is permanently parked at or
near last place in student achievement? This is especially trou
bling because our spending on education remains in the Top
10 in the nation.
What is being accredited and what does it mean? What
is the proper role of an accreditor?
AdvancED/SACS has a great deal of power in our state.
There are even laws linking the HOPE
scholarship to graduating from a
SACS- or GAC-accredited school.
Ironically, there is no law that re
quires a school or district to be ac
credited at all. Most people seem to
believe that accreditation means some
thing about the quality of the aca
demic product within the schools and
some minimum standard for results.
Unfortunately, this commonly held
belief is wrong. SACS “accredits”
schools and districts based on “stan
dards” and “indicators,” none of which
require rigorous instruction or basic proficiency for students.
SACS’ accreditation methods were criticized by a former
U.S. Senator from Colorado, Hank Brown, in a Wall Street
Journal article earlier this year. Brown decried the lack of ob
jective measurements by SACS, as well as their bullying tac
tics used to protect college administrators. He’s seen this first
hand. In addition to being a former senator, he was also the
president of the University of Colorado.
The American Council for Trustees and Alumni (ACTA)
has also illuminated the shortcomings of the accreditation pro
cess and the political agendas that play out with AdvancED/
SACS. ACTA has filed an official complaint with the U.S.
Department of Education regarding accreditation as currently
practiced by our regional accreditor.
In his article, Sen. Brown pointed out that regional ac
creditors have threatened removal of accreditation based on
salary and benefit cuts to administrators. ACTA points out
that many universities with six-year graduation rates below 50
percent are fully accredited while the University of Virginia,
known for the quality of its product and students, was sanc
tioned for governance issues.
These critiques and others emphasize that accreditation is
meant to be a designation of quality assurance but has strayed
from this responsibility. ACTA calls for a reformation of the
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
E-mail letters to editor@reporternewspapers.net
accreditation process so that Americans can rely on objective
measurements of academic rigor and success.
Many states accredit their own K-12 schools based on ob
jective criteria. Virginia’s state Department of Education has
a page with listings of their accreditation standards and the ac
creditation status of all schools in the state.
Recently Virginia’s DOE revoked the accreditation of
a high school in Manassas because their achievement levels
failed to reach the state’s standards. In an interesting twist, af
ter losing state accreditation, the high school community con
tracted with AdvancED/SACS in an effort to buy their accred
itation product. AdvancED/SACS
found them highly functional and
granted accreditation to the school.
Our state Department of Edu
cation does not accredit schools. I
haven’t been able to find a listing of
schools that are accredited by SACS
or GAC anywhere on the state DOE
website. Do they keep one? It makes
me wonder how they would official
ly know if there is a change in the ac
creditation status of a school or dis
trict.
So our state doesn’t require a school
or district to be accredited, but links accreditation by a private
agency to receiving the HOPE scholarship, and then doesn’t
even keep a public list of these schools. This doesn’t even be
gin to address the fact that HOPE is a merit-based scholar
ship, and accreditation is not based on any objective measures
of student achievement and/or academic rigor.
There is a wide gap between what the public generally be
lieves accreditation means and what is really going on. It ap
pears that our legislators and DOE officials may also suffer
from this confusion. Shouldn’t the proper role of accredita
tion be to convey an objective assessment on the quality and
outcomes of a school?
Our state should quit abdicating this role to a private agen
cy and, as many other states do, accredit our own schools
based on concrete, objective standards and achievement data.
It is clear that the recent declination of Georgia’s academ
ic standing has come in tandem with the growth and power of
AdvancED/SACS. It’s time that we join with other states and
informed leaders to restore the proper value to accreditation.
Our taxpayers and parents deserve real quality assurance,
and our children’s futures can only be built on these honest
assessments.
Rick Cattihan
SACS ‘accredits’ schools and
districts based on ‘standards’
and ‘indicators,’ none of which
require rigorous instruction or
basic proficiency for students.
Assist the poor
To the editor,
With the election of a new Sandy
Springs mayor and City Council this
November, it’s time for candidates to
talk about issues outside of their com
fort zone.
For example, Atlanta’s poor don’t
just live in city of Atlanta anymore. The
number of suburban poor has skyrock
eted 158 percent from 2000-2011, ac
cording to a Brookings Institute report.
Also, nearly one out of every four chil
dren statewide lives in poverty. This sit
uation is unacceptable.
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Two of the biggest obstacles for low-
income working families include a scar
city of affordable housing and inad
equate educational opportunities. A
quick survey of apartment complexes
in Sandy Springs shows a typical rent
of more than $850 for a 2-bedroom,
2-bath unit. But the average wage for
people living in apartments is less than
that needed to afford that rent. Our
next mayor and council should adopt
policies that would ensure an adequate
quantity of affordable housing units in
our city.
On the education front, our city
could benefit from a nonprofit techni
cal college. There are currently no tech
nical colleges conveniently located to
most of our residents. Graduates from
technical colleges earn substantially
more than their less-educated counter
parts. As such, these new grads would
more easily afford to live and work in
Sandy Springs.
A favorite mantra of those running
for office is how they will pursue “pro
growth” policies. Candidates should
support policies that will encourage
business development, but they should
also expand their list of objectives to
specifically address the issues of poverty,
affordable housing and education.
Don McAdam
ss
