Brice W. Harris, chancellor of the California Community Colleges, is among those scheduled to comment on Wednesday as a federal panel considers a request from the agency that accredits his system’s colleges.Jeff Chiu, AP Images
The chancellor of California’s community-college system is scheduled to be in the Washington region on Wednesday to criticize the accrediting agency that oversees the system’s colleges.
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Brice W. Harris, chancellor of the California Community Colleges, is among those scheduled to comment on Wednesday as a federal panel considers a request from the agency that accredits his system’s colleges.Jeff Chiu, AP Images
The chancellor of California’s community-college system is scheduled to be in the Washington region on Wednesday to criticize the accrediting agency that oversees the system’s colleges.
The chancellor, Brice W. Harris, is expected to speak to the federal panel that advises the education secretary on accreditation matters, called the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity. The Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges, which incited a controversy by trying to revoke the accreditation of the City College of San Francisco, is seeking the federal panel’s permission to accredit two-year colleges that offer baccalaureate degrees.
Mr. Harris’s open criticism is unusual, to say the least. While higher-education leaders occasionally grouse about the costs and inconvenience of accreditation, they also usually defend their own accrediting agencies and the peer-review process itself as a hallmark of quality improvement in academe. Accreditation is required for colleges to receive federal financial aid.
In this case, however, a public rebuke would represent the latest chapter in the long-running political battle between some of the state’s community colleges and the accrediting commission, which has faced a backlash for its 2013 decision on the San Francisco college. The ACCJC, as the commission is known, eventually created a new status for the college and gave it until January 2017 to come into compliance with the commission’s standards.
Acknowledging the pressure on accreditors, one California college leader says the problem is ‘how you react to that pressure: Can you get institutions to move along without harming them in the process?’
But the anger and bitterness over the 2013 decision has lingered, in particular among the unions representing faculty members. Mr. Harris has also joined the critics and is promising a plan to find a new accreditor for the system’s 113 colleges by the time he retires, in April.
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“There are widespread calls within our system for a new model of accreditation,” Paul Feist, a spokesman for the community-college system, said in an email to The Chronicle. “As chancellor he is articulating those.”
Finding a new accreditor, though, is no small task. It could take several years to do so, or to create a new accrediting organization, as some have suggested. And even the idea of replacing a regional accreditor has worried others in higher education that the colleges are trying to loosen oversight at a time when accreditors and colleges are under pressure from lawmakers and the public for more accountability. In addition, the move could undermine the regional accreditation system that prevents institutions from “forum shopping” — seeking the least-restrictive agency.
“Accreditation shouldn’t be easy,” said Mary Ellen Petrisko, president of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges’ Senior College and University Commission, which accredits four-year colleges in California and Hawaii. “It must stand for institutions’ meeting the standards the members have established.”
Too Tough or Too Easy?
The ACCJC, one of the nation’s seven regional accrediting agencies, isn’t the only such organization under pressure.
The education secretary, Arne Duncan, has called accreditors “the watchdogs that don’t bark.” For several years now, the White House, the U.S. Education Department, and members of Congress have hammered accreditors to crack down on low-performing colleges. Many of those efforts have been directed at the national accreditors that oversee career-oriented proprietary institutions.
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But the latest moves by federal officials have constituted an effort to more closely link accreditors to the outcomes of all the institutions they oversee. Last month the Obama administration publicized a new federal website that includes data on the performance of each college, sorted by accrediting agency. In addition, the department would like to eliminate a legal provision that bars the government from setting specific performance standards for accreditors to enforce.
In California, however, the complaint against the community-college accreditor is that it has put too many colleges on sanction, and that it did so at a time when they were facing budget restraints during the recession. A 2014 report by the state auditor, prepared at lawmakers’ request, found that the commission has imposed sanctions against the colleges it oversees at a much higher rate than any of the six other regional accreditors.
Ron Galatolo, chancellor of the San Mateo Community College District, said leaders of California’s two-year colleges had become fearful of the accrediting process, which is now focused too much on complying with black-and-white rules, rather than improving the areas of teaching and learning.
“I’m sure there is pressure coming from the White House and the Education Department,” he said. “It’s how you react to that pressure: Can you get institutions to move along without harming them in the process?”
Jeffery M. Freitas, secretary-treasurer of the California Federation of Teachers, which represents many faculty members at the community colleges, said the result of sanctions has often been a reduction in students attending the penalized college, further cutting into revenue. In the case of the City College of San Francisco, an estimated 80,000 students would have had to find another institution, perhaps a for-profit college, if the accreditor’s decision had been finalized, he said.
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“What we’re asking for is not a less-rigorous process, but a fairer process and less animosity,” he said.
Leaders’ Concerns
The ACCJC and its president, Barbara Beno, have faced their own share of animosity over the decision to revoke the City College’s accreditation, though it is not clear that the desire to jettison the commission is unanimous.
Raúl Rodríguez, a member of the accrediting commission and chancellor of the Rancho Santiago Community College District, said that there is more support for the commission among college leaders, but they fear reprisals from union members. Behind closed doors, he noted, several presidents who attended the Community College League of California convention, in November, indicated that they were not interested in getting rid of their accreditor.
He thinks they are interested in another change. “A large part of it is about Barbara,” said Mr. Rodríguez, referring to the commission’s president.
Many of the commission’s critics have charged that Ms. Beno controls the commission, but she says that isn’t true, or even possible.
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Ms. Beno said she doesn’t feel that the backlash is aimed at her: “If it is, it’s largely symbolic,” she said. “Some people think that the executive can direct the commission’s decisions, but she can’t.”
But Mr. Galatolo, the San Mateo chancellor, said the commission had become more punitive under Ms. Beno, who “sees things in black and white.” And with that view, the number of sanctions and emphasis on compliance has gone too far, he said, and the commission’s members have “lost their way.”
Given the renewed focus on accountability and student outcomes, the colleges and whichever accreditor they end up with may have a difficult time finding their way back.
Eric Kelderman writes about money and accountability in higher education, including such areas as state policy, accreditation, and legal affairs. You can find him on Twitter @etkeld, or email him at eric.kelderman@chronicle.com.
Eric Kelderman covers issues of power, politics, and purse strings in higher education. You can email him at eric.kelderman@chronicle.com, or find him on Twitter @etkeld.