Accreditation

One of the provisions I like about the recent voucher cap deal is the requirement that all schools participating in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program be accredited through an independent accrediting agency. As to where the accreditation will come from, news reports are listing the North Central Association, which accredits pretty much all public schools and post-secondary institutions in the state; Wisconsin Religious and Independent Schools Accreditation, which accredits mostly religious schools; and Howard Fuller's Institue for Transformational Learning.

I have a call in to North Central to ask about whether they currently accredit any MPCP schools; their website is extremely throrough in detailing what a school needs to do for accreditation. As for WRISA, they currently accredit 30 of the 125 or so schools in the MPCP, with several others listed as being in "application." The information on their website is also relatively good about what it takes to achieve the accreditation. As for the ITL, well, to date, all they offer schools is help with the WRISA; their website offers no information on any accreditation through them at all.

So I'm trying to put together a small little project that would do a compare/contrast among the three, once I have all the information about what is involved in receiving accreditation from the three sources, how much each will cost, how long it lasts, and so on. I'm waiting, basically, for ITL. In an email today, I was told, they "will be glad to forward our documents to you as soon as the legislation is passed and our designation is official." So the compare/contrast will have to wait . . .