The Scrutiny Continues

Please know that I am in NO WAY condoning bad behavior on the part of any institution (for profit, non profit, or public).  However, quality programs have the potential to be penalized because of the actions of others exposed for unethical practices.

The news continues in InsideHigherEd:
The August 9th article, Has the Conversation Changed, still has the for profit institutions in the news.  What I want to highlight is the attach on accreditors and the ideas of thinking the "entire orchard" is bad. 

"Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and other members of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee voiced concerns about the GAO's findings and cornered the leader of a national accreditor, who insisted that his agency’s standards were “rigorous,” even though the accreditor had given approval to some of the campuses where the GAO found problems. (While it’s not an accreditor’s responsibility to hunt for fraud, some senators wondered how people examining the institutions could miss such seemingly endemic problems."

“Are we talking about a few bad apples or are we talking about the entire orchard being contaminated by a business model that churns students, that provokes the kind of recruitment and unethical conduct we saw in the GAO, because of a need to increase profits?” Harkin asked, rhetorically, at the hearing. His repeated use of "systemic” to describe the problems suggested that he is going after the whole orchard.

This view of higher education is upsetting for all educational professionals in the field.  All CAP institutions should be documenting their quality and writing their Senators and Congresspersons. Tell the the good side of the story.  It seems the "bad" is the only one being shared.