The value of public school accreditation

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For the past eight years, I have had the honor of serving on the Committee on Public Schools of the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC). Currently, I represent the Committee on the NEASC Board of Trustees. I have been a member of 13 visiting committees that have assisted public schools during their accreditation process. Led by educators, NEASC has been a premier accrediting agency for over 130 years, accrediting a vibrant mix of public, private, independent and K-12 schools, colleges and universities across New England, with a growing base of international schools.

Every now and then in my work, I hear someone ask why accreditation is necessary in this era of increasing state and federal government involvement in public school performance.

From my work as an educational leader, I know that state and federal reporting requirements are not a substitution for accreditation. There are fundamental and critical differences between these assessments. Unlike state and federal requirements, the accreditation process does not reflect a school’s “grade” at a point in time, nor does it factor in the results of standardized testing. Instead, accreditation is a human process, based on whether an individual school meets the standards, established by educators, that make for good schools and colleges.

Accreditation reports provide both an objective analysis of the school as a whole and a framework for continuous improvement. To be accredited, each school goes through a rigorous self-study process, where teachers, students, parents and staff meet to explore their school’s strengths and needs. NEASC pairs this self-study with a process of external peer review that spans several days, during which trained educators from other districts assess curriculum, facilities and policies, and meet with members of the school community. By including input from a school’s students, teachers, staff and parents, among others, NEASC is able to discern, with credibility, important nuances such as leadership, school climate, culture and learning environment. State and federal requirements, including standardized testing, may reflect problems in some of these areas – but they certainly cannot diagnose and provide a roadmap to improving them the way accreditation can.

Achieving accreditation is not an end-point. Accreditation signals to parents, teachers, business leaders, and taxpayers that the school community embraces regular scrutiny and is willing to engage in the harder work of attaining the recommended improvements. Even the very best schools can improve and NEASC accreditation spells out concrete objectives for such growth – a benefit that is increasingly critical as we prepare our children and their educators to keep pace with ever-changing 21st century skills. Over the years, the NEASC accreditation reports have also been valuable tools for local elected officials, including school committee members, who may not have backgrounds in education and therefore rely on the credibility that accreditation reports provide to push for school improvements.

Accreditation is a valuable tool for measuring schools; it has stood the test of time, providing an independent evaluation that is not subject to political whim or public pressure. Peer review, based on human interaction and thorough study, should never be considered outdated when the futures of our schools are at stake. As we head into summer vacation, I encourage parents and local decision-makers to add their school’s most recent accreditation report to their summer reading lists, with an eye towards actively supporting its recommendations when they head back to school in the fall. Schools and teachers cannot do it alone.

Robert Littlefield is chair of the Committee on Public Secondary Schools and principal of Portsmouth (RI) High School.

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