Giving Compass' Take:

· The U.S. Department of Education recently announced that it will be taking a look into accreditation. According to the Christensen Institute, Diane Auer Jones is leading the project with student outcomes and employment as the top priority.   

· Why is it important for higher eduction institutes to account for difference in students? How will this improve student outcome and U.S. employment?  

· Read more about the impact of accreditation in higher education.

The Department of Education recently announced that it will be taking a fresh look at accreditation. Such a review is sorely needed: as Michael Horn and I argue in a new paper that was published originally as a chapter in the book Accreditation on the Edge: Challenging Quality Assurance in Higher Education, accreditation as it currently stands is a major obstacle to developing innovative programs that can improve access, affordability, and workforce alignment in higher education.

At the center of the Department’s efforts to rethink accreditation is recent hire Diane Auer Jones, who has specialized in a range of issues including accreditation, Career and Technical Education (CTE), and apprenticeships. Auer Jones’ track record should be encouraging to anyone interested in loosening the grip accreditation holds on innovation, without losing sight of student outcomes.

Auer Jones has her work cut out for her. If we want the education system to look different—more affordable and more likely to yield employment outcomes—we’ll need to see more than just tweaks to accreditation policy. The Department’s thinking on accreditation also needs to take into account the growing list of alternatives to traditional higher education. Put differently, we’ll need both innovative delivery models and innovative quality assurance models.

Read the full article about accreditation by Alana Dunagan at Christensen Institute.