Accjc gone wild


Major Reasons for ACCJC Sanctions



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Major Reasons for ACCJC Sanctions

According to their own published report, the following were the reasons given for the ACCJC sanctions of January 2012:



  • Six colleges did not have adequate procedures and did not appropriately implement program review of instructional programs and services.

  • Twenty colleges failed to meet requirements regarding the use of assessment results in integrated planning.

  • Twenty colleges were sanctioned for deficiencies in governing board roles and responsibilities; seven of these were colleges in multi-college districts where the key deficiencies were in district governing board operations.

  • Fourteen colleges lacked appropriate and sustainable financial management.

  • Thirty colleges had miscellaneous other deficiencies, primarily related to staffing (6), library and technology resources (4), and evaluations (4).

In the Summer 2014 ACCJC newsletter it was reported that “the main deficiencies for sanctions are related to Program Review, Planning, Internal Governance, Board Roles, and Financial Stability or Management. Common sanctions new to 2014 were related to Student Learning Outcomes Implementation and Employee Evaluation.


None of the above areas of concern should be used as a reason for denying accreditation and effectively closing down a college as was done in the cases of Compton and the Community College of San Francisco.
In addition, the ACCJC policies and letters to colleges are vague as to what is actually required of a college and what is merely a recommendation being suggested to improve the college. This vagueness was cited as one of the ACCJC violations in the August 13, 2013 letter from the Accreditation Group of the U.S. Department of Education. The level of vagueness on the part of ACCJC has been duplicated around the state of California.
Most recently, the ACCJC has entered a stage of micro-managing of district-level operations through sanctions on the colleges of multi-college districts. This includes attempting to dictate to college governing boards how they should operate and how district chancellors should operate in relation to local college presidents. It has even gotten to the point where Beno is calling college presidents and district chancellors on the telephone and demanding changes be made immediately or harsh sanctions will follow. A record of these direct conversations are not publically available in contradiction to the requirements of 34 CFR 602.15(b)(2).
Carl Friedlander (President of the Community College Council (CCC), writing in the March 2013 issue of the CFT’s Community College Council Perspective, called for the ACCJC to “stop using the threat (or fact) of accreditation sanctions to undermine California's system of locally elected board of trustees. Providing training to trustees about accreditation and their role in it is a good thing. However, it is an affront to democracy to tell trustees that they put at risk the accreditation of the colleges they were elected to represent if they speak out on issues they care about or communicate with a wide range of individuals, constituencies and interest groups rather than relying almost exclusively on the perspective of their district's chancellor/ superintendent.
These kinds of behaviors by ACCJC leadership compound the problem of the federal pressures and make many faculty feel that accreditation in California today has almost nothing to do with "peer and professional review" and is instead about ACCJC spearheading an aggressive (and, many believe, misguided) "reform" agenda. Spearheading a "reform" campaign is not the business of an accrediting commission.”

Secrecy in ACCJC Operations

The ACCJC operation is cloaked in secrecy with all involved required to sign a pledge that they will not reveal the inner workings of the college visiting teams or how the ACCJC itself operates in determining what level of sanctions to impose. The minutes of their meetings are not made public. After the visiting team issues its report, all actions of the ACCJC are done out of the public view. The votes on sanctions by the Commission are never disclosed. Even the meetings of the ACCJC are held in places and at times difficult for the public to find out about or attend and comment. The time for public input is agendized for the third day of their meetings - after the decisions on sanctions have been made. The ACCJC limits public discussion at their three day meetings to a total of 15 minutes and only allows 20 members of the public into their meetings. The lack of public access to ACCJC information is stunning. The Commission has paid little attention to its own timelines for posting the agendas for their meetings or for posting the resulting actions of the Commission, including even where their meetings will be held. In June of 2013, important policy proposals were not made available until the time of consideration and attendance by the public was strictly curtailed. As a result of this behavior on the part of the ACCJC, due process rights of colleges are barely available. This is a violation of 34 CFR 602.25.


It is now becoming commonplace for the ACCJC to impose sanctions that are much harsher than those suggested by the visiting teams. The latest such incidents occurred at the January 9-11, 2013 meeting when the Commission placed Northern Marianas College and College of the Sequoias on SHOW CAUSE in contradiction to what the visiting teams had suggested. One wonders what has happened to the recognition of the work of “peers” in the accreditation process. It also puts into question either a lack of training of visiting team members or a vagueness in the requirements for different levels of sanction. Either of these cases would be a violation of 34 CFR Section 602.
In short, the ACCJC has become, in words taken from a report by the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity (NACIQI) on accreditation agencies, “unnecessarily intrusive, prescriptive, and granular in ways that may not advance system goals nor match institutional priorities, and is costly in resources such as time, funds, and opportunity.



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