Accreditation Facts - OpEd: Accreditation-Distance Learning Homeschools

Accreditation Facts
by The Trent Schools

Fact:
The Trent Schools wholeheartedly supports and endorse legitimate, state-recognized accreditation. The Trent Schools lends its full support to the fight against unrecognized and vanity accreditation mills*.

*Accreditation Mills are dubious providers of accreditation and quality assurance
or operations that offer a certification or accreditation and/or a certification of quality instruction
that is considered bogus.
Legitimate accrediting associations can be identified by the US Department of Education.
Many correspondence and distance education schools claim to be accredited.
Fact:
Most American public grammar, middle, and high schools are not accredited by any federally approved agency. They are "recognized" as legitimate by each state's department of education.

Fact:
When you register to home school, you and your home are given the same state recognition.

Fact:
There is no accrediting agency recognized by states or by our federal government, or by the United States Department of Education that grants recognition to home-school programs. Not one! By applied definitions, no home nor home school program can ever be certified as a school meeting recognized accreditation criteria.

Fact:
There are many self-acclaimed and profit-making accrediting mills that do grant accreditation to homeschooling services, but none of them is recognized by our federal government or by your state. Trent regards them as vanity agencies whose primary function may be to create an illusion of official approval and sanction. We, as most other reputable homeschooling institutions, refuse to participate.

Accrediting Bodies NOT Recognized by the United States Department of Education
(a partial list)

Accrediting Commission for Specialized Colleges
Accrediting Commission International (ACI)
Alternative Institution Accrediting Association
American Association of Accredited Colleges and Universities
American Education Association for the Accreditation of Schools, Colleges & Universities
American Psycotherapy (sic) Association
Arizona Commission of Non-Traditional Private Post Secondary Education
Association of Career Training Schools
Commission for the Accreditation of European Non-Traditional Universities
Council for the Accreditation of Correspondence Schools
Council on Post Secondary Alternative Accreditation
Council on Post Secondary Christian Education
International Accreditation Association
International Accrediting Association
International Accrediting Commission for Schools, Colleges,
and Theological Seminaries
International Association of Non-Traditional Schools
International Commission for the Accreditation of Colleges and Universities
Middle States Accrediting Board
National Accreditation Association
National Association for Private Post-Secondary Education
National Association of Alternative Schools and Colleges
National Association of Open Campus Colleges
National Association for Private Nontraditional Schools and Colleges
National Council of Schools and Colleges
Pacific Association of Schools and Colleges
West European Accrediting Society
Western Association of Private Alternative Schools
Western Association of Schools and Colleges
caution: (the above is also the name of a legitimate regional accreditor)
Western Council on Non-Traditional Private Post Secondary Education
World Association of Universities and Colleges
Worldwide Accrediting Commission

Please check the following link for another excellent listing of so-called accrediting agencies: http://www.degree.net/guides/non-gaap_listings.html