[nagdu] schools

[Dan Weiner]

Hi, guys.

This brings up another interesting question.
Bob mentioned "certified schools". Now those of you who know me know I'm not
somewhat who splits hairs, but I would ask "certified by whom"?  As far as I
can tell, the guide dog industry is a self-regulating  industry here in the
US at any rate.
The only certification I could think of other than the US council of Guide
Dogs schools here would be that many of the schools are members of the
International Federation of Guide Dog Schools.

Also, would we want schools certified, I mean regulated, and then by whom?
Do we want the government involved like in some countries?
I suspect not but I'm just throwing it out as it's an interesting question.

I know the state of California has a guide dog board, but to be blunt what
I've heard about it is that it's a rubber stamp pretty much for the
California schools.
Enough for now but I have more thoughts on this.
For example, let's say someone got bad service and many people from a
particular school got bad service.  There's no certification or regulation
so what stops a particular school from producing more slip-shod work.
I'm not citing anyone here as I've met people with dogs from all the US
schools, I think, well with the exception of Ocupaws, and I've met people
who've had stellar experiences with all of them and people who have had
really, really bad luck from any and all.

We really have no way of knowing, for example, if let's say school X has a
lot of dissatisfied customers and as a result their applications go way down
one year, do we?
What if, say, a lot of people had unsafe dogs from School X and were
retiring them, we wouldn't know that either, you get my drift, I think.


Dan W. and the happy hounds 
-----Original Message-----
From: nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nagdu-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf
Of Tracy Carcione
Sent: Thursday, February 19, 2009 8:33 AM
To: NAGDU Mailing List,the National Association of Guide Dog Users
Subject: Re: [nagdu] schools

Hi Bob.
I think the Council of Guide Dog Schools has some kind of standards its
members are supposed to adhere to, but, within that, I think there is a wide
variance.  Like, Princeton and Montana State are both accredited
universities, but they're very different.  But people can attend one or the
other, and be very happy.  Or attend the one that's supposed to be better,
and be very unhappy, I suppose.

The Eames's book A Guide to Guide Dog Schools, in the edition I read 20
years ago, tried to give statistics about dogs returned and such, but I
don't know how successful their attempt as objective assessment was.  I do
remember that it made schools I think are bad look good, and schools I think
are good look bad.

It would be nice to have some kind of objective assessment of schools'
quality, but, as with colleges, maybe it's a hard thing to do.  I guess the
best way to assess a school is still to talk to graduates, decide for
yourself if their dogs do what you think a guide dog should, and talk to the
school staff, and decide if you feel they are treating you as you wish to be
treated.  All highly subjective.
But it would be nice if one could get some idea of how successful School X
is.  Like, what percentage of their dogs are returned, or retire young, due
to work or health reasons?  That might be a fairly useful statistic, if one
could get it.

Tracy

> Good Morning:
>
> I believe that there are approximately 10 certified schools in the 
> United States.  Is anyone aware of any qualitative assessment of these 
> various schools?
>
> Thank you in advance for your input.
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