"Martha J. Kanter, the No. 2 official in the U.S. Education Department, took higher-education accrediting organizations to task on Tuesday for being too secretive about how they assess colleges and for using outmoded standards that don't give enough weight to measuring student learning," The Chronicle of Higher Education reports. "'Accreditation isn't transparent enough, it just isn't,' Ms. Kanter said here at the annual meeting of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation. 'And it takes too long.' In her remarks, Ms. Kanter, the under secretary of education, said accreditation was a crucial part of maintaining quality in higher education as the United States strives to attain President Obama's goal of being atop the world by 2020 in terms of the share of its residents with college degrees. The council, an association of about 3,000 accredited colleges and universities, recognizes 59 accrediting organizations; in that sense, it accredits the accreditors."