BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    Ó



                                                                  AB 2247
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          Date of Hearing:   April 22, 2014

                       ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON HIGHER EDUCATION
                                 Das Williams, Chair
                AB 2247 (Williams) - As Introduced:  February 21, 2014
           
          SUBJECT  :   Postsecondary education: accreditation documents.

           SUMMARY  :  Would require all campuses serving California students  
          of public and private postsecondary educational institutions  
          that receive state or federal financial aid funding to post  
          specified accreditation documents (self-study report, visiting  
          team report, and accrediting agency final action letter) on the  
          institution's website.       

           EXISTING LAW  :

          1)Requires, as a condition of participation in state financial  
            aid programs administered by the California Student Aid  
            Commission (CSAC), an institution to be accredited by an  
            accrediting agency recognized by the United States Department  
            of Education (USDE). 

          2)Requires the Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education (BPPE)  
            to issue an approval to operate to private institutions that  
            are accredited by a USDE-recognized accrediting agency. 

           FISCAL EFFECT  :   Unknown

           COMMENTS  :    Background on accreditation  .  Accreditation is a  
          voluntary, non-governmental peer review process used to  
          determine academic quality.  Accrediting agencies are private  
          organizations that establish operating standards for educational  
          or professional institutions and programs, determine the extent  
          to which the standards are met, and publicly announce their  
          findings.  Under federal law, USDE establishes the general  
          standards for accreditation agencies and is required to publish  
          a list of recognized accrediting agencies that are deemed  
          reliable authorities on the quality of education provided by  
          their accredited institutions. 

          Both accredited and unaccredited education and training programs  
          are allowed to operate in California.  However, only accredited  
          institutions are authorized to participate in federal and state  
          financial aid programs and private accredited institutions are  








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          provided a streamlined pathway to approval by the BPPE.  There  
          are three basic types of accreditation:

          1)Regional Accreditation: There are six USDE-recognized regional  
            accrediting agencies. Each regional accreditor encompasses  
            public, the vast majority of non-profit private (independent),  
            and some for-profit postsecondary educational institutions in  
            the region it serves. California's regional accrediting agency  
            is separated into two commissions under the Western  
            Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC): the Accrediting  
            Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (WASC-ACCJC) and  
            the Senior College and University Commission (WASC-Sr.). 

          2)National Accreditation: National accreditation is not based on  
            geography, but more focused to evaluate specific types of  
            schools and programs. National accreditation is designed to  
            allow nontraditional colleges (trade schools, religious  
            schools, certain online schools) to be compared against  
            similarly designed institutions.  Different standards and  
            categories are measured, depending on the type of institution.  
             

          3)Specialized/Programmatic Accreditation:  Offered by  
            accrediting agencies that represent specific fields of study,  
            these agencies do not accredit entire colleges but instead  
            accredit the programs within colleges that prepare students  
            for the specific field or industry.  In most cases,  
            specialized accreditation alone does not enable participation  
            in state and federal financial aid programs.

          While accreditation remains the primary method for evaluating  
          and assuring educational quality, concerns regarding the  
          disparate quality and reliability of USDE-approved accrediting  
          agencies have led the USDE advisory committee on accreditation  
          to look at changes to the role of accreditation. Further, while  
          accreditation can be used as a measure of program quality,  
          consumer protections fall outside of the scope of accreditation.  
          States are responsible for enacting laws that protect students  
          against fraud and abuse.

           Purpose of this bill  .  According to the author, California  
          relies heavily on accrediting agencies to ensure that colleges  
          and universities are providing quality educational programs for  
          students.  By obtaining accreditation, private (including  
          for-profit) institutions are guaranteed the ability to operate  








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          in California, and both public and private institutions are  
          provided access to billions of dollars in state and federal  
          financial aid funding.  The state's ability to monitor the work  
          of accrediting agencies themselves, however, is virtually  
          nonexistent.  This bill is aimed at ensuring a basic level of  
          transparency in the accreditation process by providing public  
          access to the substance of accreditation reviews.   
           
          Documents required for public disclosure  .  This bill would  
          require both public and private institutions that receive public  
          funding through state and federal financial aid programs to post  
          the following documents on their institutional websites:

          1)Institutional Self-Study Report.  Performed at the outset of  
            the initial and renewal accreditation process, the self-study  
            requires an institution's faculty, staff, administrators, and  
            students to review the entire university and document its  
            strengths and weaknesses in a written report.  The report is  
            submitted to the accrediting agency visiting team for review  
            prior to the accrediting visiting team site visit.

          2)Visiting Team Report.  Visiting teams are generally composed  
            of faculty and administrators from the accrediting agency's  
            member schools and are chosen based upon skills and knowledge,  
            interests, and abilities, depending on the needs of the  
            individual visiting team.  Service is voluntary and done with  
            the understanding that by helping another school in the  
            accreditation process, such service will be reciprocated when  
            the individual's own school is in the accreditation process.   
            At the conclusion of a visiting team's institutional review  
            and site visit, a visiting team report is generated and  
            provided to the accrediting commissioners to assist in the  
            commission's decision to provide, continue, sanction or  
            discontinue an institution's accreditation.     

          3)Accrediting Agency Final Action Letter.  Action letters are  
            provided to an institution from the accrediting agency  
            memorializing the agency's decision/action regarding the  
            institution's accreditation status.   

           Accrediting agency practices  .  A non-exhaustive search by  
          committee staff revealed only one accrediting agency currently  
          requiring all three documents to be made available to the public  
          (WASC-ACCJC) and one additional accrediting agency (WASC-Sr.)  
          currently posts the visiting committee report and final action  








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          letter to their website.  For other accrediting agencies,  
          committee staff was able to find very little information  
          regarding the substance of institutional accreditation reviews,  
          including for institutions currently facing sanctions from their  
          accreditor.  Despite the differing requirements of accrediting  
          agencies, most public institutions and several private  
          institutions (including USC, USF, St. Mary's and Loma Linda  
          University) have made these documents available to the public  
          through a website managed by California Competes.     

           Suggested amendments  .  To ensure ease in accessibility of  
          documents, committee staff recommends an amendment to specify  
          that the institution is required to provide accreditation  
          documents in a prominent location on the website, with a link to  
          these documents on the institution's main page.  

          To ensure consistency with the author's intent, committee staff  
          suggests an amendment to clarify that institutional  
          accreditation documents, and not programmatic accreditation  
          documents, are required to be disclosed under the provisions of  
          this bill.  

           REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION  :   

           Support 
           
          California Competes
          Center for Public Interest Law (CPIL) at the University of San  
          Diego School of Law
          Children's Advocacy Institute (CAI) at the University of San  
          Diego School of Law
          Public Advocates
          The Institute for College Access and Success (TICAS)

           Opposition 
           
          None on file.
           

          Analysis Prepared by  :    Laura Metune / HIGHER ED. / (916)  
          319-3960 












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