Background
Reviewing recent reports surrounding the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC) reveals that there are many issues that have been proposed in regard to the efficiency and efficacy of their accreditation processes (CITE). For this reason, many feel that the ACCJC is not meeting their obligation to maintain institutional quality. In the following sections, I will discuss what issues specifically the ACCJC is having in terms of maintenance of institutional quality and what recommendations have been suggested for the commission to improve it’s accreditation processes. These recommendations were derived—in some cases—by comparing the ACCJC to other accrediting commissions and modeling …show more content…
This has been noted as important because the number of sanctions the ACCJC gave out is high in comparison to other accrediting agencies with the ACCJC sanctioning at a 53 percent rate in comparison to 12 percent rate for other regional accrediting agencies (CITE). This huge disparity between the ACCJC and other accrediting agencies has caused people to reflect on the ACCJC’s faults and how they might improve in this …show more content…
The CCCCO (2015) report revealed that there was a general sentiment that the ACCJC’s process of accreditation laced the use of consistent application of standards by visiting teams. What is more, the RP Group report stated, “there is a great deal of variation in the way that institutions understand and internalize the accreditation standards and the success they have in implementing the standards” (p.77). Ultimately, not only are colleges facing difficulties and differences in upholding the accreditation standards, but the ACCJC is also having issues of inter-rater reliability, which are combining to create issues of inconsistent and inequitable treatment.
Unclear Expectations Unclear expectations are certainly playing a role in the ACCJC’s inflated use of sanctions and inequitable treatment of colleges. While the ACCJC does have rubrics in helping to assess whether colleges are adhering to the accreditation standards, the RP Group report noted that “that more instruction may be needed on how the rubrics connect back to the standards and how to use the rubrics and standards in concert” (p.79). Ultimately, the visiting teams and colleges are experiencing confusion in regard to whether the colleges are meeting the standards satisfactorily. This is due to expectations being