The Gathering Storm:
Accreditation and the Search for Accountability in American Higher Education
Author: John H. Morgan
ISBN: 978-1-929569-50-2
Copyright: 2008
Pages: 121
Binding: Paperback
Imprint: The Victoria Press
Price: $19.95 Available
Book Description
With respect to issues of academic
freedom, America’s colleges and universities have often trampled upon
the federal government’s desire for them to provide an accounting of their
practices to tax payers and students who pay tuition. The government’s
familiar call to the academy to explain both the cost and the benefit
of education is long-standing. Today, however, the call has become rather
insistent under the leadership of Margaret Spellings, U.S. Secretary of
Education, who believes that American higher education should be doing
better than it is. A series of national and international assessments
of American colleges and universities have provided empirical evidence
that the quality of our higher educational product is poor and getting
poorer, but Secretary Spellings believes that with proper help and collaboration
this downward trend can be reversed. She has appointed a blue ribbon panel
of academic, professional, and business leaders, called
the Commission on the Future of Higher Education, to tackle this pressing
issue. The Commission is calling for some identifiable and quantifiable
system of accountability by higher educational institutions.
The argument is simply stated: If American colleges and universities are permitted to encourage their students to take advantage of the federal government’s $90 billion student loan program, then those same institutions should be required by the government to give an accounting of their product, that is, the competency level of graduating students.