Confusion about U.S. Department of Education State Authorization Rules

Submitted by jshanika on Tue, 01/10/2017 - 15:33

As many of you know, the Department recently released new rules on the state authorization of distance education. Those rules contain what we and many others have viewed as a troubling definition of a "state authorization reciprocity agreement."

Recent conversations that our friend and colleague Russ Poulin of WCET has had with Department staff indicate that we're misinterpreting what they intended with that definition.

Russ' blog on these unusual communications can be found here.

As Russ indicated in his post, WCET, WCET/SAN and NC-SARA have written the Department seeking official clarification. That letter can be read here. We hope to have a reply before the change in administration, after which we may have to repeat this exercise!

We'll let you know more as we know it.

Marshall A. Hill
Executive Director
NC-SARA