Governor DeSantis Proposes New College Accrediting Board

Public universities in Florida, Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee are eschewing long-standing accrediting bodies like the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC) to create their own certification panel, officials announced Thursday.

The formation of the new Commission for Public Higher Education (CPHE) follows Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s battle with SACSCOC over its standards as he pushed his state’s colleges to adopt more conservative approaches to education.

“[The new body] will upend the monopoly of the woke accreditation cartels, and it will provide institutions with an alternative that focuses on student achievement, rather than the ideological fads that have so permeated those accrediting bodies over the years,” DeSantis said at an event at Florida Atlantic University on Thursday. “We care about student achievement; we care about measurable outcomes; we care about efficiency; we care about pursuing truth; we care about preparing our students to be citizens of our republic.”

DeSantis said leaders of the new body have been working with the Department of Education under the Trump administration to receive expedited federal approval for the new accreditation model to undergo a “trial run” that will entice more states to join.

6 Southern public university systems form new accreditation body

I love it when monopolies are weakened. DeSantis understands how academic power works, and this seems like a good first step in dismantling the leftist stranglehold over education in the US. Now we can see a little academic freedom and academic diversity in the American education landscape. I’m sure many here will hate this, but that is predictable. It is also great that Trump will have the Department of Education cooperating in their recognition of this accrediting body in no time…haha.

 

Who are you kidding? This clown show will just be to infect institutions formerly of research and learning with right-wing kookery.

The first tenet of Meatball Ron's "accreditation" board; All professors and graduates must clearly state that Donald Trump won the 2020 election.

Second; Covid-19 was a Democrat hoax, created solely to cause Donald Trump to lose the 2020 election. Even though he won it.


Won't be long until these kooks have professors leading extra-curricular militias of students on hunting trips to blue-state pizzerias, in search of pedophiles.

 

Calling it " accreditation" when it will actually be following what the party wants. Orwellian .

 

At my orientation as a Sophomore (there were not freshman) in HIGH SCHOOL, the first thing I heard - in an auditorium full of fellow sophs - was I Love Jesus, the Georgia Bulldogs & the Robert E. Lee Generals*, in that order. In 25 years as a college prof, I have only heard a student (at Tx A&M) complain about their econ prof railing against abortion IN CLASS.

* my grandma was in the first graduating class at REL in 1927!!

about 10 years ago, I spent a week at U. of Cal Berkeley. Before I went, a colleague told me (his wife graduated from there), it is not what you think. It is a bunch of nerds with their heads down studying. It was. Yeah, there were hippies at the gates handing out pamphlets, etc.

Perceptions are curious things. EX. Harvard had the #1 ranked geography dept. Harvard does not have a geography dept.

edit. I have a colleague that has a sticker on her door that sez, Gender is not Binary. I think that that is utterly wrong at a public uni & she should have to remove it.

edit #2. I saw this at Berkeley too. there are like 7 in a row. I thought it was a cool flex.

 

I wouldn't stress over it too much. The political yo-yo is starting to swing the other way.

 

My daughter already graduated from UF, another son set to graduate this fall and my youngest will be going there in the spring most likely. I'm sad for Florida to be losing an amazing Governor like DeSantis, has probably been one of our best

 

It is ironic seeing a bunch of people lamenting the politicization of academia and simultaneously cheering it being commandeered by literal politicians.

 

The clown show is seen in accreditation agencies shoving DEI down the throats of every educational institution in the country that wants to be accredited and then hitching an institution’s agreement to DEI to the ability of students to get student loans to attend that institution. The party guilty of kookery and politics is the left, and the game plan is accuse any party who opposes or pushes back against that of being political. It is a 1984/Stalinist/communist style disinformation campaign.

The left made education political with their political accreditation standards. It is time for some push back.

 

You didnt think anything about accreditation agencies your whole life until like 30 seconds ago when you got your marching orders

 

Wrong…I’ve been involved in the accreditation process with SACS before. They force DEI on schools if they want to be accredited. This puts very real pressure on institutions to conform because many educational institutions cannot survive without being accredited.

The question is should we tolerate this totalitarian political arm twisting that holds educational institutions hostage, given how essential accreditation is to the survival of many educational institutions?

 

You victims and your complaining about things being "shoved down your throats" became tiresome about 15 years ago, when you all falsely applied that Freudian metaphor to the Affordable Care Act.

As we see this nuttery implemented by Meatball Ron on the state level, and by the sexual assaulter on the federal level ....... one can only hope that the pendulum will swing back equally far in the other direction as soon as culture warrior hacks like them are out of office.

But after seeing the kookery from both Ron and the felon, there's close to nothing I wouldn't support. Maybe President AOC will require everyone to turn into a lesbian. Won't bother me, I'll just remember how politicized and weaponized everything became during the regimes of the people of the false morality.

 

You didnt even know what DEI was until like last year either, you probably supported it until people told you not to lol. If you think accreditation is totalitarian or coercive, why do you want to do your own version? Doesnt that make you a totalitarian?

 

SACS has literally no policy for DEI. The one board that didn't in 2023. But they investigated Florida for political interference.

Political attacks on college accreditors began with SACS

BTW, "totalitarian." LOL! You can always go to a different board. Each of them is allowed to work nationally now.

 

Yay! Long overdue!

 

I’m shocked that you support this. Shocked!

 

Provide a reliable link showing that DEI was forced on colleges via accreditation please. My research has not provided that.

 

I don’t inherently believe accreditation is wrong or bad. In fact I am a big believer in accreditation because academic standards and academic quality are critically important in education. I have no doubts that DeSantis shares the same convictions I do about the importance of educational quality.

This move is not meant to degrade academic standards. The debate is over silent gradual political creep in these accreditation bodies that has happened behind closed doors outside of the view of the public. DEI is the clearest example, though, and is one Trump and DeSantis will slam dunk in the realm of public opinion IMO. When DEI accreditation standards were added that was not a news story, and it was simply part of the political fad chasing that happens in our society.

https://sacscoc.org/app/uploads/2019/08/DiversityStatement.pdf

 

Read what you posted:

Oh no, they are encouraging thoughtful discussions. How dare they!