Inspector General Critical of Online Learning Assessment Body
Laurie Morrow • December 18, 2009 • Uncategorized
The inspector general of the U.S. Education Department has issued a harsh assessment of the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, one of the nation’s six regional accreditors, recommending that the secretary of education consider limiting, suspending, or terminating the organization’s status.
The unusual action is in response to the Office of Inspector General’s examination of the commission’s standards for measuring credit hours and program length. The office completed similar reports for two other regional accreditors in recent weeks but has not recommended that the secretary consider taking any action against either of those groups.
In a heavily redacted memorandum released on Thursday, Wanda A. Scott, an assistant inspector general, questioned the Higher Learning Commission’s decision to approve accreditation of American InterContinental University, a for-profit college owned by the Career Education Corporation.
“This action by HLC is not in the best interest of students, and calls into question whether the accrediting decisions made by HLC should be relied upon by the Department of Education when assisting students to obtain quality education through the Title IV programs,” Ms. Scott wrote to Daniel T. Madzelan, acting assistant secretary for postsecondary education. (Title IV is the section of the Higher Education Act that governs the federal student-aid programs.)
You can read the rest here.
The concept of the “credit-hour” as a meaningful measure of knowledge is inherently absurd. It tells us nothing about what was taught or learned — merely how much time passed with, presumably, the student’s fundament making contact with a chair.
What is sorely needed, and what, for obvious reasons, will never be developed, is a series of standardized tests by an objective external agency, to measure the extent to which a body of knowledge has been acquired in each individual class taken. This would be neither a complete nor a perfect measure, but would at least be less silly than the current system. Right now, for example, students who take British Literature Survey and earn “3 credit-hours” at a dozen campuses can have a dozen different bodies of knowledge presented them. Were, however, there to be an external examining body to assess competency in, say, the knowledge of Shakespeare’s plays, or the Metaphysical poets, or the 19th century British novel, at least a college transcript would provide a modicum of meaningful information.
What’s wrong with online education is that often it targets the wrong population and offers the wrong, cheaply delivered services. The purveyors take a mass-market approach toward a niche-market product, and then are surprised when their poor quality product founders.
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