Accreditation Reform Is Alive in North Carolina | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This post appears here courtesy of The James G. Martin Center. The author of this post is Jenna A. Robinson.

    On April 10, three N.C. senators filed a bill to reform college and university accreditation in North Carolina. Though the bill was recently pulled from this week's legislative calendar, its introduction remains a positive sign for education reformers. If adopted, Senate Bill 680 would make significant changes to the accreditation processes for UNC institutions and public community colleges in the state.

    Specifically, the bill would prohibit all public institutions from "receiv[ing] accreditation by the same accrediting agency for consecutive accreditation cycles" in most circumstances. In practice, this means that all of North Carolina's public colleges and universities would have to leave their current accreditor, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC), in the next 10 years.

    The new law would also allow institutions to bring a civil action against any person "who makes a false statement to the accrediting agency" if certain criteria are met. If such a provision had been in place at the time, it's possible that UNC-Chapel Hill could have used it to bring an action against Former Education Secretary Margaret Spellings for comments she made to SACSCOC President Belle Wheelan earlier this year about the proposed School of Civic Life and Leadership. Spellings drew Wheelan's attention to accusations from faculty that the school was out of compliance with governance norms, an assertion that was questionable at best.

    Similar bills have been filed in Florida and Texas. Florida's Senate Bill 7044, which was signed into law by Governor Ron DeSantis earlier this month, requires Florida universities to change accreditors at the end of every accreditation cycle. Texas's Senate Bill 2335 would create a new commission to evaluate and approve accrediting agencies and mandate that institutions switch accreditors after, at most, 20 years.

    Such bills are being offered in response to policies put in place by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to ensure competition in accreditation. Before DeVos took action, universities were tied to regional accreditors. Colleges and universities in the Southeast could only use SACSCOC. Now, DeVos has ensured that institutions can choose between accrediting bodies.

    North Carolina's bill has already come under fire from a local faculty group. Members of the North Carolina American Association of University Professors (AAUP) planned to protest the bill yesterday at the General Assembly. A flyer advertising the protest said the bill would "place university accreditation into partisan hands." In an email to local AAUP members, Jay M. Smith, who is president of the N.C. conference of the AAUP and a professor at UNC-Chapel Hill, called SB 680 "hostile to our state." (The protest was postponed when the bill was pulled from the calendar.)

    Others have praised state efforts to reform accreditation. Adam Kissel, visiting fellow in the Heritage Foundation's Center for Education Policy, told the Martin Center, "Colleges should be allowed to choose high-quality accreditors and also should choose a new one every so often to stay accountable. The days of the SACS monopoly should end."

    The Martin Center's extensive work on accreditation reveals that the system is broken. The process is costly, time-consuming, and fails in its primary purpose-to ensure that institutions are providing students with a valuable learning experience. State reforms are one tool to address these critical issues. Competition in accreditation, if done right, can provide benefits for students, taxpayers, and postsecondary institutions.

    Jenna A. Robinson is the president of the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal.
Go Back


Leave a Guest Comment

Your Name or Alias
Your Email Address ( your email address will not be published)
Enter Your Comment ( no code or urls allowed, text only please )




North Carolina House Bill Would Require More Election Transparency Educational Realities, Educating our People, NativeFront, James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal, Editorials, Op-Ed & Politics Trump Threatens To Skip Republican Debates


HbAD0

Latest Op-Ed & Politics

After suffering a record-tying 28th straight loss, basketball fans across the country and the other 29 NBA teams voted unanimously to demote the Detroit Pistons to the WNBA.
David Draiman, the lead singer of the heavy metal band Disturbed, paused in the middle of a concert to give an impassioned speech about Israel, saying of Hamas’ claims that they were “freedom fighters,” “Freedom fighters, my f***ing a**.”
The North Carolina Supreme Court heard arguments recently in a lawsuit brought by The Society for the Historical Preservation of the 26th North Carolina Troops against the City of Asheville over the removal of a monument
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has secured a spot on the ballots in Arizona and Georgia, according to the political action committee backing his White House bid.
Like many other states, the North Carolina has received a lot of money from the federal government to address the impacts of the corona virus pandemic.
A local wife began training to join her regional women's hockey team when she discovered the grand prize for winners of the National Hockey League is a Stanley Cup.
it is time to prosecture them for election interference

HbAD1

A Chinese national was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement after the bust of a massive marijuana operation in rural south Georgia last week.
Felon voting advocates argue in a new court filing that North Carolina's new election law should have no impact on their federal lawsuit.
That is one that was stopped how many weren't stopped
The game show “Jeopardy!,” in which gives contestants must give answers in the form of a question, embraced the woke agenda by including so-called “neo-pronouns” as an answer.
City employing all-of-government effort aimed at finding work for illegal immigrants, emails indicate
Embattled former New York Congressman George Santos has landed on his feet following his ouster from the U.S. House of Representatives, with the announcement that he has been hired as a fact-checker at The New York Times.
Former President Donald Trump won Michigan’s Republican Party presidential primary on Tuesday night, beating former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley by more than 30 points.

HbAD2

 
Back to Top