Texas legislation wipes out many CE options, leaves InterNACHI as main provider of CE

[Nick Gromicko]

http://www.nachi.org/documents/texas...egislation.pdf

[Nick Gromicko]

The session ends next week and unfortunately this Bill may not pass.

[Michael R. Boyett]

Nick...your take on that bill is just not right. I sent that heads-up to you earlier today and just read your e-mail response as well as others I have received from other sources. The consensus is that HB3738 is targeted towards accredited education providers, i.e. colleges & universities. iNACHI is not an accredited education provider; that would require a 3rd party accreditation that iNACHI just does not have...don't confuse that with being a TREC approved provider...two totally separate things. In any case, I now believe that this bill will not affect any trade association's CE offering in Texas even if it does pass. There are several others, like TAREI and TPREI, that also provide CE here and I'm relatively certain now that no trade association will be impacted by this bill..only Core & CE correspondence courses from colleges/universities.

[Nick Gromicko]

InterNACHI is already the most accredited school in the inspection industry (see right column of www.nachi.org/education.htm), is getting all its courses IDEC accredited (http://www.nachi.org/ben-gromicko) and will be an actual college offering 2-year college degrees this Fall.

[Michael R. Boyett]

Those are not accreditations! Those are 'approved courses'....once Ben gets IDEC accreditation then iNACHI will be an accredited education provider. Accredited means you are recognized by one of several authorities (is IDEC on that list?) as having the proper curriculum and controls. I don't know what International Distance Education Center(ARELLO) is capable of...maybe they have that recognized authority but I doubt it. You have a long ways to go before being able to offer 'college degrees'. I'm sure you will get there however!

The bill is a moot point anyway, looks like it will not make it to the floor for vote.

[Nick Gromicko]

ARELLO no longer does it. They spun it off to the IDEC.

once Ben gets IDEC accreditation then iNACHI will be an accredited education provider.

Ben already got it: http://www.nachi.org/ben-gromicko

[Michael R. Boyett]

Great...now what does IDEC accreditation provide? Is IDEC recognized as a legitimate accrediting organization by anyone? Are they on the US Dept of Education list of accrediting agencies? I'm sure they are but that name isn't jumping out for me, do they go by another name?

[Nick Gromicko]

I think the U.S. Department of Education handles public schools and does not accredit private schools (like InterNACHI). This from the link you provided:

Those accrediting agencies recognized by the U.S. Department of Education are recognized for purposes of obtaining federal dollars.

Furthermore, the field of inspections is so narrow and specialized that even ARELLO set up IDECC to handle it: http://www.idecc.org/Content.cfm?page=AboutIDECC outside of real estate education. It is simply too unique of a discipline for other professionals to evaluate.

Other than the individual state approvals and accreditations www.nachi.org/education.htm that we already possess, there simply are no other prominent organizations that specifically accredit online inspection courses other than IDECC... or in other words... we have every inspection-specific accreditation and approval that exists.

And finally, our online education system, in particular our exam system, is truly on the cutting edge of education. With regard to inspector competence testing, we are out in front and all alone.

[Michael R. Boyett]

Actually the USDOE doesn't accredit anyone...they just provide a list of nationally recognized accrediting agencies and I was having trouble finding IDEC on their lists. I'm sure they are a fine organization and they've been around for awhile so there is legitimacy to them. So, then does that mean that with their accreditation that iNACHI is now authorized by them to offer college degrees or does that take some other level of approval from another regulatory agency of some kind?