El Chronicle of Higher Education de 18 de julio 2007 informa sobre la reciente publicación del documento Why Accreditation Doesn’t Work and What Policymakers Can Do About It. Señala The Chronicle que:
The American Council of Trustees and Alumni, a conservative-leaning lobbying association led by Anne D. Neal, proposed in a report released on Tuesday (Julio 17) that a process of “expedited accreditation” might begin to repair a system that the council regards as detracting from academic quality rather than improving it.
El estudio publicado concluye que:
The federal government’s system for accrediting colleges is a misguided failure that should be largely replaced with a simpler method that relies on key institutional data about cost and quality, a trustees group is arguing.
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El Prólogo de este estudio, firmado por Anne D. Neal, Presidenta del American Council of Trustees and Alumnies (ACTA) es el siguiente:
Th is paper is intended as a primer for policymakers on lessons learned from decades of experience with the federal system of higher education accreditation. It streamlines, updates and expands ACTA’s 2002 investigation, Can College Accreditation Live Up to Its Promise? At that time we found that accreditation did not ensure quality, was not protecting the curriculum from serious degradation, and was giving students, parents, and public decision-makers almost no useful information about institutions of higher education.
Our new investigation fi nds that things have only become worse. Recent stories abound— illustrated in “Stories from the Front Lines”—about the ills visited upon schools by accreditors, and about lapses in academic programs that accreditation has failed to prevent. Accreditation is giving students and parents a false sense of confi dence that certifi ed schools have passed a meaningful test when they have not.
Today, accreditation is bad education policy that undermines the autonomy of our educational institutions while doing nothing to ensure academic quality. Congress rightly wants to ensure that federal student aid funds do not go to “fl y by night” operations. But there are other and better ways to achieve that result—at less cost and with less damage to higher education. In the following pages, we outline “Why Accreditation Doesn’t Work” and “What Policymakers Can Do” to fi x the accreditation system now.
Ver más abajo Índice de Contenidos del documento.
Recursos asociados
Acreditación para el aseguramiento de la calidad: un informe mundial, 12 marzo 2007
Encuesta Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez-Fondecyt: Las universidades se autoexaminan, 24 diciembre 2006
Tendencias del aseguramiento de calidad en la educación superior de países de la OECD, 20 noviembre 2006
IESALC: Informe sobre la Educación Superior en América Latina y el Caribe 2000 – 2005, 12 julio 2006

Índice de contenidos del documento
STORIES FROM THE FRONT LINES
A Travesty Accreditation Failed to Prevent
A Teaching Accreditor Run Amok
Who’s in Charge at Auburn?
Law School Accreditor’s Illegal Standards?
WHY ACCREDITATION DOESN’T WORK
Accreditation does nothing to ensure educational quality
Accreditation examines inputs and ignores outputs
Accreditation undermines institutional autonomy and diversity
Accreditation contributes to ever-mounting education costs
Accreditation creates an unaccountable, federally-mandated monopoly
Accreditation is largely a secret process
Accreditation is a conflicted, closed, and clubby system
WHAT POLICYMAKERS CAN DO
Break the link between federal student aid and accreditation
Make accreditors prove their worth
Break the accreditor monopoly
Ensure student achievement
Tell the public what it deserves to know
Stop the homogenization of higher education
Create a consumer-friendly expedited alternative for reaccreditation
Don’t replicate a failed model
Reduce the cost of higher education
END NOTES
Nota de prensa que comunica el lanzamiento de este estudio
HIGHER EDUCATION ACCREDITATION. A FAILURE, NEEDS OVERHAUL
ACTA Tells “Stories from the Front Lines,” Calls for Reform
WASHINGTON, DC (July 17, 2007)—Federal accreditation is bad education policy and deserves a massive overhaul, according to a policy paper released today by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni. The paper—“Why Accreditation Doesn’t Work and What Policymakers Can Do About It”—finds that federally-mandated accreditation does not ensure quality and gives students and parents a false sense of confidence. The paper, which has been delivered to every member of Congress, calls on policymakers to revamp the flawed system.
“Accreditation does not ensure quality—and it often visits all sorts of ills upon colleges,” said ACTA president Anne D. Neal. “Congress rightly wants to make sure that federal student aid funds don’t go to “fly by night” operations. But there are other better ways to achieve that result—at less cost and with less damage to higher education.”
ACTA’s paper opens with four recent stories illustrating how accreditors undermine educational quality by interfering with academic freedom and institutional autonomy. One case shows how it is possible for colleges and universities to be accredited and yet have one or more academic departments that are weak or dysfunctional. Another case recounts recent efforts by the accrediting arm of the American Bar Association to pressure law schools to skirt the law.
The paper then puts these stories into perspective by explaining why accreditation doesn’t work. It finds that federal accreditation fails to ensure educational quality, examines inputs while ignoring outputs, undermines institutional autonomy and diversity, contributes to ever-mounting education costs, creates an unaccountable (and federally-mandated) bureaucracy, and perpetuates a conflicted, closed, and clubby system. ACTA calls on policymakers to:
Break the link between federal student aid and accreditation.
Make accreditors prove their worth.
Break the accreditor monopoly.
Ensure student achievement.
Tell the public what it deserves to know.
Stop the homogenization of higher education.
Create a consumer-friendly alternative.
Don’t replicate a failed model.
Reduce the cost of higher education.
The American Council of Trustees and Alumni is a bipartisan, national nonprofit dedicated to academic freedom, academic quality, and accountability in higher education. ACTA has a network of trustees and alumni around the country and has issued numerous reports including Can College Accreditation Live Up to Its Promise?, The Vanishing Shakespeare, Intellectual Diversity: Time for Action, The Hollow Core, and Losing America’s Memory: Historical Illiteracy in the 21st Century. For further information, contact ACTA at 202-467-6787 or visit www.goacta.org.