In its review of complaints lodged against the Accrediting
Commission for Community and Junior Colleges and its parent Western Association
of Schools and Colleges, the Accreditation Group of the Department of
Education, Office of Postsecondary Education, found the following with respect to an ongoing review of City College of San Francisco (CCSF):
1) A lack of reasonable representation in the
composition of review teams, where faculty employees were under-represented.
2) A conflict or appearance of a conflict of
interest in the composition of the review team, where the spouse of the
ACCJC President was a team member.
3) An inadequate conceptualization of two types of
action - those to “meet the standard” or compliance and those “to increase
institutional effectiveness” or improvement - where accreditation reports provide
ambiguous direction that thwarts due process with respect to compliance or
improvement action required by review.
4) An inappropriate use of corrective timeframes,
where issues of non-compliance are considered serious enough to warrant
sanction but without provision of the recognized timeframe for correction.
These DOE criticisms do not speak directly to the substance
of the review and their rectification is unlikely to affect the finding that
CCSF is not a sustainable institution.
This is because accreditation is a product of the reigning
model for higher education - a triad consisting of institutional service
providers (universities and colleges), public funding and union representation. Operating within this model, accreditation has
evolved to concern itself with input evaluation criteria such as institutional
resources and their management.
Due to substantial cutbacks in public funding, input resources
and their management are now strained to the point of breaking. CCSF epitomizes the effects this has had on higher
education institutions across America.