Accreditation? - 10 FAQs

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Accreditation? - 10 FAQs
by Great Books Academy
The Great Books Academy (GBA) a homeschool and charter school organization dedicated to liberal education based on the classic great books of Western Civilization. Liberal education, based on the Liberal Arts, takes its name from the Latin word liber, meaning free. This dedication to liberal education is borne of the understanding that it is liberal education, traditionally understood, that leads men to freedom and happiness. Hand in hand with this understanding of liberal education is the acknowledgement that freedom and happiness do not mean license and pleasure. Rather, freedom and happiness are found in the life of virtue. The GBA has been inspired by the educational initiatives of Dr. Mortimer J. Adler, who sees in classical liberal
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Q. What is accreditation?

Few can agree on one meaning – hence the plethora of accrediting bodies and standards. The dictionary defines it as: “The granting of approval to an institution of learning by an official review board after the school has met specific requirements.”

In the United States, accreditation is an entirely voluntary process, done by private, nongovernmental agencies, so the term official becomes problematic at the outset. As a result of this lack of central control or authority, there have evolved good accrediting agencies and bad ones, recognized ones and unrecognized ones, legitimate ones and phony ones. One accrediting organization is not legally designated as being superior over another. Consequently, the acceptance of diplomas, transcripts, and transfer credits for students who are home schooled or enrolled in a particular program are according to the requirements of the receiving institution.

Q. What does accreditation have to do with education and learning?

Nothing directly. Accreditation has to do with which school one attends, not with the student or what the individual student has learned. Ironically, some of the worst public schools and private schools are accredited, as are some of the worst colleges. Some of the finest are not – finding insufficient reason to seek accreditation. Their good reputations precede them. Since some accrediting bodies are established by the same school(s) which they subsequently accredit, the integrity of their accrediting process is sometimes seriously compromised.

Q. What then, is the purpose of accreditation?

Accreditation has one main function: to weed out “diploma mills” and other assorted educational scams – that is, most accrediting bodies have it as one of their stated purposes to “assure quality education,” in some manner, and to try to give parents, students, other schools or the government some assurance the educational institution being reviewed is legitimate and meets some, usually minimal, standards. How that is done or attempted widely varies, as do the standards used and the quality of the private accrediting bodies themselves.

Parents and students sometimes use accreditation as one means of determining if they wish to attend a certain school or educational program about which they know little. Schools and colleges sometimes consider accreditation as a factor in accepting transfer of credits earned at other colleges and universities. The US Department of Education considers accreditation as one factor in allowing Pell Grants and other forms of student loans to be used at colleges or universities.

Q. What usefulness does accreditation have for an elementary or high school level homeschool program?

The answer to this question, in our opinion, ranges from nothing to practically nothing.

When accreditation is sought below the college level, the primary reason is, generally, simply to provide parents with some comfort level that the program is legitimate (i.e., of at least some minimal quality) – not a scam of some sort. Some parents consider accreditation important due to confusion and misinformation about accreditation at the elementary and secondary level of education, which we hope this page will help dispel.

Predictably, some schools that do seek and obtain accreditation at the elementary or secondary level tend to tout that fact for marketing purposes by exaggerating its utility at that level. To be fair, some schools, and even some accrediting bodies, quite accurately state that the utility of accreditation at the elementary/high school level is simply a comfort factor for parents – assurance by a 3rd party the program or school is neither a scam nor a diploma mill, and meets some minimal standards.

If a parent or student has a real concern whether the homeschool program they are considering is legitimate or merely a diploma mill or scam, they really need to investigate the program more (such as read up on it, talk to others using the program, etc.), because if it is a scam or mill, it may have also created its own accreditation body or organization which has “Accredited” it. There is no more effort in creating a bogus program or school then there is in creating a bogus accrediting body, as there are no federally recognized accreditation associations for elementary and secondary schools (that includes the six regional accrediting associations, which are so recognized at the college level only).

Legitimate accrediting bodies (i.e., those making a serious attempt to determine which schools or programs they review are good or bad [as in diploma mills]) at the elementary and secondary (high school) levels, each set their own standards and criteria for making their judgments, and are not governmentally recognized at that level. So it is still left to parents to determine if, in fact, the accrediting body is legitimate (a task often more difficult than deciding if the school is legitimate), and if they value and agree with their standards and methods used to judge schools and programs. For instance, some accrediting bodies consider the teaching of creationism as an obstacle to accreditation, others do not. All of which begs the question: isn’t it easier and more reliable simply to examine and judge the school or program for oneself?

Here are the criteria often examined by accrediting bodies (note that, having been designed for physical colleges, very little of it has much to do with evaluating homeschool education programs):

Curricula
Faculty
Facilities, equipment, and supplies
Fiscal and administrative capacity
Student support services
Program length, tuition, and fees in relation to academic objectives
Program length, tuition, and fees in relation to credit received
Student achievement (job placement, state licensing exams, etc.)
Student loan repayments
Student complaints received by or available to the accreditor
Compliance with student aid rules and regulations Everything else, including recruiting, admissions practices, calendars, catalogues and other publications, grading practices, advertising and publicity, and so on.

Q. Is the Academy’s homeschool program accredited?

No. There is a common misconception that homeschoolers are actually attending a “school.” By definition, that is not the case. Homeschooling (perhaps an unfortunate label to define what is better described as home education) does not involve attending a school – in fact, that is precisely why most parents opt for it. At most, besides providing their particular curriculum for use at home, homeschool programs offer some educational counseling, minimal tutoring, and grading. Homeschooled students attend to home, not to a school (except as a legal fiction in some states).

As private homeschoolers, the parents are the ones who provide "accreditation" for their child’s education. That is to say, the quality of home education depends, and is assured, not by some 3rd party or accrediting body, but by the parents. It cannot be otherwise and still be homeschooling. Homeschooling is legal in all 50 states (subject to various requirements in many of them). It is scarcely credible that a parent would conduct a scam in the education of their own children. By its very nature, home education should be independent of the kind of oversight by the state (or private accrediting bodies) necessary for them to verify that your child has completed whatever standards you choose to use.

Since, apart from part of our online Socratic discussion classes, students using our program are educated at home by themselves and their parents, there is no logical reason to seek accreditation as a school. We are not a school. Rather, we offer a complete homeschool program or curriculum, which parents and students utilize to assist them with their own home education (or homeschooling, if one prefers that term).

Homeschool programs which boast of accreditation, are, in most cases, simply piggybacking a separate homeschool program onto the accreditation of a brick-and-mortar (i.e., physical) school somewhere, which their homeschooled students rarely if ever see, much less attend. Besides those, there are a few, new private accrediting bodies set up to review independent elementary and high schools, which may review homeschool programs. We have discovered no sufficient reason to join these to date, which simply offer some minimal level of “peer” review. Some accrediting bodies have actually been established to avoid dealing with existing accrediting bodies considered objectionable. None are government-recognized accrediting bodies for the elementary or secondary level.

Q. What about your online classes?

Our online discussion classes are different. They are a distance education program conducted, not by parents, but by moderators. As you may wish to read on links on our homepage, our high school Great Books Program was recently recommended for college credit by the American Council on Education (ACE) for 6 hours of college credit per semester. Unlike accreditation at the high school level, college credit recommendation is very meaningful for students later moving on to one of the many hundreds of colleges and universities which accept ACE recommended credits.

Q. Does accreditation of a secondary (high) school level homeschool program make courses taken from them eligible for college credit?

No. To our knowledge, only AP (Advanced Placement) or ACE (American Council on Education) recommended courses would ordinarily be considered by a significant number of colleges and universities for college credit. Accreditation of an elementary or secondary level homeschool program has nothing to do with college credit. Obtaining accreditation from one of the private elementary or secondary accrediting bodies would not result in any college credit.


Q. What about transferring into a public or private high school after homeschooling for a number of years? Does lack of accreditation affect that case?

In six years we have had one student (we know of) decide to return to public high school. In that case, the principal of the school took the position that since the student had not attended an accredited school, the school would do their own evaluation of the educational level of the student. Using a homeschool program accredited by some body or other could, and probably would, have resulted in precisely the same reaction – homeschoolers are not appreciated by most school officials as they lose significant revenue for each student taken from the school system. One can therefore expect occasional, punitive reactions from some principals, using various excuses to justify such.

However, that is not altogether unreasonable. If a student or parents decide to get back into the educational establishment at the elementary or high school level, then they will have to play by the rules of that school. It is within the competence of the school systems to determine where they wish to place students in their systems, and whether or not to accept transcripts, or require new testing such as placement tests or SATs. etc. In the US the county superintendent, or another school district official, is usually responsible for approving what will be accepted at local schools, where such approval is needed, whether accredited or not.


Q. Is it necessary to have attended an accredited high school (or high school level program) to apply to or attend a college or university?

No. The great majority of students are accepted into colleges based on an evaluation of their application (the student essay has recently taken on significant screening importance), the results of their Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) or American College Testing (ACT) scores and their high school Grade Point Average (GPA). The high school's accreditation or non-accreditation status is not a factor in the evaluation of a high schoolers eligibility for college admission, except perhaps in the increasingly rare case. A school's accredited status from any accrediting organization does not provide a legal guarantee that a student will be accepted in any private or public transfer institution. It only demonstrates the school's voluntary self-examination assisted by an independent third party.

A student may petition for admission to any public education entity and request to be accepted based on any of his transcripts, course descriptions, attendance records, diploma, standardized test results, and any other documentation. The student may also request to subject himself to standardized academic tests to confirm his mastery of the subject area(s) that he claims to have mastered, at the grade/education level or competency he claims to have achieved.

Perhaps 20-25 years ago, colleges and universities did consider the accreditation status of the applicant's high school. But few now. Why not? The answer may be summed up in one word: homeschooling. Because of the growing number of homeschooled students that are applying for college admission, as well as the fact that the best colleges and universities across the country are actively recruiting homeschooled students, the accreditation issue is moot in the college admission process (there may be and probably are a few remaining exceptions to this). The ever-increasing numbers of homeschooled students (up to 2.1 million now) and the demonstrated quality of their education documented in the eloquence of their application essay, their stellar achievements in a wide variety of extracurricular activities, and in their outstanding SAT and ACT scores and GPAs have required nearly all colleges and universities to eliminate school accreditation as a criteria in their admission policies. Keep in mind, virtually all public schools are accredited or certified by one entity or another - and colleges well know such accreditation guarantees absolutely nothing – it is truly meaningless.

Q. Does accreditation of a college or university have any more importance than it has for elementary or high schools or homeschool programs?

Yes. Accreditation of colleges and universities (rather than of elementary and high schools and homeschool programs, which we have discussed above), has some important, though indirect, benefits:

1. The US Department of Education will not approve student loans to attend most non-accredited colleges and universities. So if one is anticipating applying for a student loan, one probably ought to select an accredited college or university. Here again, even the accrediting body may be bogus, so one has to make sure the accreditation is accepted by the US Department of Education (such as by one of the six regional college accrediting bodies or the American Academy of Liberal Education).

2. Foundations sometimes will not consider grants to non-accredited colleges or universities. This is, of course, largely irrelevant to parents or students.

3. There are a number of bogus colleges and universities – diploma mills - with which parents and students are completely unfamiliar and cannot easily discover much about. A serious college level accreditation review by a legitimate review team can certainly weed out the worst of the lot, to be avoided.

4. Students often transfer from one college or university, or later select a graduate or postgraduate program at a college or university different from the one initially attended. Naturally, they want their credits from the original college or university accepted/transferred to the latter one. Colleges and Universities, with few exceptions, are entirely free to accept or reject transfer of credit for courses taken elsewhere, and very often reject some or all of the college level work done elsewhere. In making their decision about whether or not to accept transfer of credits from another college or university, accreditation is one factor often considered. However, there is no predicting this, as standards and methods vary widely. It is up to the individual college or university to accept or reject official records from another school or program, based on their own internal policy. It is definitely best to check with the particular colleges and universities one plans to attend to determine what their transfer of credits policy is, before one invests much time and treasure at one, hoping to transfer later. Simply assuming one can freely transfer credits from one college to another has often resulted in serious disappointment. Even different departments in the same university often have different transfer of credits policies and standards. It is not something one should leave to guesswork, if one can avoid that.

SUMMARY

Our Academy homeschool curriculum is used in all 50 states, and in over 30 foreign countries by thousands of students. It can fairly be said, and we often hear, that parents and students widely regard it as the most serious and academically challenging (and rewarding) of homeschool programs available. You may judge that for yourself. It is fairly easy to find parents or students familiar with our program (now in its sixth year), and we have literally hundreds of pages of information, testimonials and articles on our approach online at our website. Our materials are, for the most part, from major publishers and include as a core the well-known great classics of literature. We believe seeking some form of accreditation for our elementary or high school level program – particularly since it is intended for home education - would be a waste of our time and provide parents with nothing worthwhile. Recall that the existing accreditation of public schools, and many private schools, is completely meaningless from the point of view of authentic, worthwhile education.

On the other hand, accreditation of colleges and universities does have some indirect relevance and utility, for them, listed in four points, just above. There are a number of problems with the accreditation process in the US, even at the college level – such as the tendency to uniformity and to stifle creativity and new educational approaches and technologies (such as online education). But none of this has any bearing or relevance to our seeking some form of accreditation, or not, at the elementary or secondary level, for what is a home education program.
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With respect to our online classes, we decided that obtaining the recommendation of the American Council on Education for college credit was worthwhile for our students, and made sense, since moderators, not parents, do conduct those classes online.
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The Academy expressly makes no claims regarding the acceptance of our diplomas, courses or transcripts by any specific state or public school district, state, government agency, community college, private or public transfer institution, parent, military branch, or any other organization. Information concerning the acceptance of our diploma, courses and/or transfer credits should be directed to the admissions official at the public or private transfer institution well in advance, prior to seeking enrollment in their institution or programs. Parents enrolling their students in the Academy homeschool program still need meet all applicable local and state homeschooling requirements.