CCE Timeline for Compliance Report Clarified

The Foundation for Vertebral Subluxation recently contacted the United States Office of Postsecondary Education (OPE) Accreditation Office for clarification on the timeline for the Council on Chiropractic Education (CCE) to file their compliance report.

According to OPE, at the December 2011 NACIQI meeting, CCE was given 12 months to come into compliance and 30 days thereafter to submit a report outlining what steps were taken to bring them into compliance.  The 12 months timeframe begins on the date the Assistant Secretary approves and signs the decision letter as recommended by committee. 

In the CCE's case, following the December 2011 NACIQI hearing, the Assistant Secretary signed a decision letter on March 15, 2012.  The 12–month period runs March 2012 to March 2013, and therefore the compliance report is due April 2013.

As reported previously the NACIQI staff reported 42 violations of recognition criteria in their preliminary report.

So significant were the sheer number of violations that the Vice Chairman of the Committee remarked during the hearing that the CCE had "hit the jackpot on deficiencies" and that the number and nature of the problems indicated "sloppiness" on the part of the CCE.

But more importantly is what has become known as the 43rd violation wherein NACIQI directed the CCE to demonstrate compliance with Section 602.13 of the Recognition Criteria dealing with the wide acceptance of its standards, policies, procedures, and decisions; and to address how its standards advance quality in chiropractic education.

So unique and unprecedented was the response by the NACIQI towards the CCE that the Chronicle of Higher Education reported:

"After four hours of public comments and deliberations, the federal panel that advises the education secretary on accreditation issues approved a standard motion recommending to continue a chiropractic-program accreditor's authority if it can clean up its act within a year."

The CCE was given one year to address all of the violations of the recognition criteria as well as to demonstrate to the NACIQI that there is widespread support for its Standards, policies and procedures and that their Standards actually improve chiropractic education. Other than the 43rd violation the remaining are in effect bookkeeping and administrative types of issues and should not be too difficult to remedy.

It was expected that the CCE might have had a great deal of difficulty demonstrating widespread support and buy-in from the profession unless the disparate factions that make up the subluxation centered aspect of the profession worked together, made demands and got those demands met. This seemed like a perfect opportunity to get the profession back in alignment with its core values.

Unfortunately, in a shocking development, the Assistant Secretary of the Department of Education overturned that recommendation, as depicted in the following paragraph on page 2 of their letter to CCE:

"I disagree with NACIQI’s concern about lack of wide acceptance of the agency’s standards in the field. The dissenting voices in my judgment are a small minority within the profession. Generally, I agree with the arguments presented by the agency in this regard. Accordingly, I am not requiring that CCE address 34 C.F.R. 602.13, or how the agency’s standards advance quality in chiropractic education, in its compliance report.”

The conservative faction of the profession is currently pursuing multiple avenues to determine exactly what the CCE told the Assistant Secretary and to mount a vigorous response.