BILL ANALYSIS �
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
AB 2247
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