Sparring with Spellings Over Accreditation

Last week, Higher Ed Watch questioned why Education Secretary Margaret Spellings had granted the accrediting arm of the American Bar Association (ABA) continued recognition as the sole Education Department-approved law school accreditor. We had hoped that she would take tougher action against an entity that has bucked compliance with federal standards for over a decade. Despite a history of Departmental inaction, we believed that the time was finally ripe, with all of Spellings’ talk of accountability, for the ABA to be held to account.

Well, to be fair to the Secretary, other developments on Capitol Hill related to accreditation may have changed her calculus. In recent months, Congress and Spellings have been sparring over the Department’s authority to make significant changes to the federal rules governing accreditation. While the jousting has had nothing to do with the ABA in particular, Congress has repeatedly warned the Department not to exceed its authority. And these warnings appear to have made Spellings uncharacteristically gun-shy.

For months, Spellings had planned to use her regulatory power to make changes to the federal rules governing the accreditation process. Her primary aim has been to get accreditors to judge colleges more on their effectiveness in educating students.

But Ms. Spellings’ plan ran into resistance from Democratic and Republican lawmakers alike who said that it was inappropriate for the Secretary to act while Congress was in the process of considering its own changes to the accreditation system as part of legislation to reauthorize the Higher Education Act. And so they told herin no uncertain termsto back off. For example:

• The House appropriations subcommittee in charge of the Education Department’s budget included a provision in its 2008 spending bill that would prevent the agency from using any of its funds to “promulgate, implement or enforce” new accreditation rules.

<li>Eighteen of the 21 members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee <a href="http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/06/18/senators" target="_blank">signed a letter</a> to Spellings asking her to "respectfullyrefrain from proposing new regulationsuntil after the Higher Education Act is reauthorized."</li>
<li>Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) <a href="http://alexander.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Speeches.Detail&Speech_Id=136" target="_blank">voiced his concerns on the Senate floor</a> about the Departments aggressive stance on accreditation, and said that he would offer an amendment to the reauthorization legislation "prohibiting the Department from issuing any final regulationsuntil Congress acts."</li>

<li>The Senate reauthorization bill <a href="http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/06/19/hea" target="_blank">included a proposal</a> to get rid of the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity (NACIQI), which advises the Education Secretary on accreditation issues, and replace it with a committee equally appointed by the Education Department, the Senate, and the House (instead of all panel members being appointed by the Education Secretary).</li>

Spellings got the point. On the very day in which the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee was to take up legislation renewing the Higher Education Act, she had a letter hand-delivered to Senator Alexander promising not to publish any regulations regarding accreditation until Congress had completed work on the reauthorization bill.

All of this pressure (and bad press) likely caused her to rethink making any controversial accreditation moves, such as revoking the ABAs accrediting authority.

Whats ironic is that Congress and the Bush Administration are not so far apart on this issue. While Congress is unlikely to go as far as the Education Secretary might like, Congress certainly is not backing away from accountability. In fact, Spellings and the lawmakers in charge of the reauthorization legislation want to reach a similar goal (although in different ways): providing more data-driven and outcome-oriented information to policymakers, students, and families about college quality.

Like the Secretary, the lawmakers want colleges to start reconsidering the current input-based definition of college quality. For example, in the HEA reauthorization bill that is being debated on the Senate floor today, colleges are encouraged to use “empirical evidence and external indicators, with respect to criteria regardingstudent retention rates, course completion rates, program completion and graduation ratesresults on State licensing examinations, job placement rates,” and, as appropriate, “other student performance information selected by the institution.”

Spellings and Congress are getting at the same thing: the accreditation process needs transparency and needs to take into account better indicators of college quality. In order to be eligible for federal financial aid, institutions of higher education must be accredited by a federally-approved agency. Because the government is pumping taxpayers dollars into colleges based on the evaluations of these accreditation agencies, taxpayers have a right to know the criteria on which the agencies are basing their decisions. Students also have a right to know, as their higher education options may be restricted by an accreditation agency’s decision.

With the support of the Education Department and Congress, more outcome-based accountability and transparency in accreditation appear to be around the corner. We think they both won’t come a moment too soon.