1. Character and Independence: personal qualifications of objectivity, independence of thought, integrity to render an unbiased, objective report with full disclosure of pertinent facts
   
   
2. Mental Attributes: intelligence to handle diverse types of work; judgment to make decisions about extent of work, accounting principles, and methods of applying principles and reporting results; accuracy of observation, thought, and expression, including careful, orderly thought, and ability to express precisely and accurately and communicate the significance of numerical information; and analytical ability to analyze voluminous and complicated aspects of bus transactions; activities center around collection, collation, classification, and summarization of data from which opinions are reached
   
   
3. Breadth of Knowledge: ability to work successfully with people from different backgrounds; ". . . Technical training is of course important, but CPAs (and businessmen) are beginning to realize that a broadly trained person is, in the long run, likely to be a better prospect for employment than the individual with only technical training" (AICPA, 1956, p. 19)
   
   
4. Human Relations: concern with communication and exercise of considered judgment

Unlike GAAP that the CPA exam assesses, these standards emphasize the less technical aspects of accounting service. Perhaps, the sentiment behind these broad-based standards was presented more succinctly by the remarks of an analyst who stated,

Even more important than technical skills, we need to teach our students to think analytically and globally. This, in turn, implies the need for them to have stronger grounding in economics, finance, and quantitative analysis, not less. And we need to teach them to communicate effectively. This includes developing their "people skills" such as teamwork, sensitivity training (especially to other cultures), and leadership. (Choi, 1993, p. 423)

The broad skills and areas of knowledge that the accounting community appears to be promoting are similar to the SCANS ^[28] skills that have played a large role in current efforts to develop industry skill standards. Five of the six skills that the AICPA published in their website as "the skills needed for a successful accountant/CPA" are SCANS skills--problem solving, creative thinking, understanding business systems and computers, people skills, and high ethical standards. SCANS skills also include generic workplace competencies such as identifying, organizing, planning, and allocating resources and acquiring and using information. SCANS (1991) also identified the following foundations skills: reading; writing; performing arithmetic and mathematical operations; listening and speaking; thinking skills such as creativity, making decisions, solving problems, visualizing, knowing how to learn; and reasoning and personal qualities such as displaying responsibility, self-esteem, sociability, self management, and integrity and honesty. These skills have been classified as "employability skills and knowledge" by the NSSB and defined in their proposed framework as the skills and knowledge needed to function effectively in all high-performance work environments.

In the 1960s, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) established the Beamer Commission to define a Common Body of Knowledge (CBOK) for accounting. ^[29] The study endorsed a CBOK that included a broad range of topics such as behavioral science, economics, the humanities, law, math, probability, statistics, and functional fields of business.

In the late 1980s, the Accounting Education Change Commission (AECC), established by the American Association of Accountants and funded by the "Big Six" accounting firms, recommended an even broader list of skills areas than the Beamer Commission. The AECC's list extended the types of skills to include (1) a general cultural background, (2) business administration and economics, (3) written and oral communication, (4) standards of professional conduct, (5) principles of accounting (not accounting procedures), and (6) principles and standards of auditing. The AECC also suggested how these skills might be best taught and learned:

1. A general cultural background could best be gained through university or college work.
   
   
2. Business administration and economics, an understanding of basic economic principles, production, marketing, finance, statistics, and business law, can be acquired more quickly and effectively through formal academic training.
   
   
3. Written and oral communication can be integrated into course material.
   
   
4. Standards of professional conduct can be developed by incorporating instruction and guidance into all phases of accounting programs and not devoting a specific course to the subject.
   
   
5. Principles of accounting (not accounting procedures) are best learned by exposure to actual operating conditions and practices in the workplace.
   
   
6. Principles and standards of auditing can be better understood with exposure to actual accounting operations through internships or the like.

Based on its findings, the AECC recommended that students obtain a broad education integrating all aspects of the accounting discipline with an emphasis on real-world problem-solving and enhanced development of communication and interpersonal skills (Palmer & Gilfillan, 1996). These recommendations are similar to the "all aspects of the industry" stipulations found in the 1990 reauthorization of the Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Technical Education Act and the 1994 School-to-Work Opportunities Act. Instead of focusing on traditionally, narrowly defined jobs, programs funded under these Acts were responsible for exposing students to a broad range of occupations and career opportunities offered within industries. In this way, students could gain a better understanding of the industry as well as its employment requirement and academic and technical demands.

The AECC (1994) was to serve as a catalyst to stimulate demonstrable improvements in the education of accountants through curriculum restructuring, the development of alternative educational processes and materials, and effective utilization of faculty resources. Comprised of twelve educators, three representatives from business/industry, and three representatives from public accounting firms, it has become instrumental in shifting the emphasis in accounting education courses away from a preparer perspective (dealing with mechanics of recordkeeping, formatting, and following rules and procedures) and toward a user orientation. This perspective allows accounting students to better understand their role in business and society as well as their responsibilities to supply and use information for decisionmaking purposes. A broad-based, customer orientation is also an effective way to alter the non-accounting student's image of accounting and attract students who had not previously considered accounting as an option. The Commission also acts as a forum to identify, examine, and discuss issues related to academic preparation of accounting professionals and provides the focal point for assimilating and synthesizing the interests, concerns, and priorities of various interested parties regarding improvements in higher education in accounting. The AAA, its lead body, has allocated $2.5 million to thirteen colleges to revise and develop accounting curriculum and teaching methods (Flynn et al., 1995).

In stating directives for the AICPA in 1995, Chairman Ronald Cohen included the AECCs formula for a competitive profession. First, Cohen stated that the profession must attract talented people--those who are amply paid and capable of offering value-added services to clients. Second, the profession must be committed to proper education. This requires an academic community that is attuned to what the profession needs, better integration of education with practice, and increased education requirements--all done on a national level (Von Brachel, 1995).

The desire to attract more productive workers and better train them by teaching more real-world skills is also found in many of the industries involved in the current skill standards movement. A majority of the 22 industry-based skill standard pilot projects started in the early 1990s identified SCANS skills in their skill standards. Interviews with project directors indicated an indisputable need for these real-world skills if industries were to transform themselves and their workers. Despite this indisputable promotion of SCANS skills, there is no established, statistically validated method to assess such skills. Efforts to do so, however, are taking place in organizations such as American College Testing (ACT).

Problems Developing Accounting Curricula

Despite the apparent consensus among members of the accounting community that accountants need broad-based skills to function effectively in the workplace, the community has failed to reach agreement about how those skills should be classified and taught. Several issues have complicated a specific discussion of accounting curricula. First, the ambiguity surrounding exactly what accountants do has created disagreement over what they need to know and how they should learn. Second, the constant broadening of accounting activities has made it difficult to develop timely education, especially when educators in colleges and universities often lack contemporary marketplace experience that they can bring into the classroom. Third, even to the extent that planners have understood what accountants need to know, the relationship between that body of knowledge and abilities on the one hand and any educational program on the other is not always clear. All of these issues are common to the occupations and groups that are trying to set standards and determine the most effective strategy to equip aspiring practitioners with appropriate skills.

In the late 1980s, the Accounting Education Change Commission (AECC), established by the AAA and funded by the Big 6 accounting firms, investigated the reasons why employers (particularly the large accounting firms) appeared to be displeased with the caliber and abilities of new accounting graduates. They also sought to identify why accounting programs were not able to enroll quality students. The AECC was directed to "change accounting education in such a way that many of the brightest students will decide to major in accounting" (Carcello, Copeland, Hermanson, & Turner, 1991, p. 1). Its official mission was to

. . . be a leader in improving the academic preparation of accountants, so that entrants to the accounting profession possess the skills, knowledge, and attitudes required for success in accounting career paths . . . to enhance the quality of accounting education . . . (to) foster continuing improvement in the education of accountants by working in collaboration with other stakeholder organizations. (AECC, 1994, p. 3)

Their findings indicate the prominent feeling that most current college accounting programs are not appropriate for today's business needs. AECC cited too little emphasis on the following:

• accurately reflecting practice by integrating all aspects of the accounting discipline throughout the curriculum
  
  
• avoiding the one-right-answer syndrome by reflecting real-world problem solving
  
  
• focusingon learning how to learn
  
  
• developing students' communication and interpersonal skills to ensure that students are active participants in the learning process (Williams, 1993, p. 77)

The findings of the AECC, when compared to many earlier studies that focused more on narrowly defined skills, represent the ambiguity that exists in the profession's view of itself and its requirements for practice. The 1974 Whitman study of 546 randomly selected practitioners and managing partners in CPA firms found that the respondents favored a relatively narrowly defined education focused on procedural skills. Among other things, the accountants who were surveyed tended to believe that there was too much emphasis on conceptual understanding rather than the acquisition of procedural skills. This resulted in less proficient entry-level accountants. They also stated that there was no need to teach beginning CPAs the history of SEC laws since this was information only used by seasoned accountants in financial reporting for publicly traded companies. The ability to diagram an information system, they felt, was superfluous. There was no need for a background in economics. Reducing the requirements for behavior-oriented classes could also save time (McGee, 1987).

The training that young accountants need for the workplace is often not available in the classroom since practitioners are often not the ones teaching college and university courses (McGee, 1987). Academic accountants, those with Ph.D.s in accounting, often do not represent the partners in CPA firms and officers in accounting's professional associations. The disjunction between accounting educators and practitioners is further demonstrated by the fact that accounting has established two primary professional associations--one for accounting educators and one for accounting practitioners. It stands to reason that the educators that train students may not be the individuals with the most recent technical expertise but rather academic researchers who study more long-range conceptual concerns (Leisenring & Johnson, 1994). There is, therefore, a huge gap that emerges in training; it is difficult for academics to teach the practical skills they do not deal with on a daily basis.

According to one critic of accounting education, practitioners "assert that the accounting graduates they are receiving do not possess the necessary skills, and educators state that students should be educated for life, not for a particular job" (McGee, 1987, p.1). This disparity was proven in a study in the late 1980s that indicated that students encountered different workplaces than the ones for which educators prepare them. A survey of accounting students six months from graduation and accounting professionals with 1.5 to 3.5 years of experience, indicate that students expected to use more broad-based skills such as communication and interpersonal relations than semiseasoned practitioners found they needed (Carcello et al., 1991). Students' expectations were higher than individuals with workplace experience, especially in the areas of public service provided to clients, on-the-job opportunities to learn more about business, perceptions of the profession by the general public, and overall interesting aspects of the profession.

There are clear parallels in the issues facing accounting educators who attempt to prepare an accounting curriculum that resembles today's workplace and education reformers who attempt to restructure curriculum to utilize applications from the workplace that will better engage and motivate students to learn. How does an educational program require rigorous academic skill standards and at the same time train workers with the high level of technical skills that will allow them to enter the workplace ready for work? Even though accounting educators often have more academic credentials than practitioners, their professional activities and occupational exposure does not necessarily offer them opportunities to remain current on the "nuts and bolts" of accounting activities. This is a dilemma that is confronting the school-to-work movement as reformers attempt to develop applied curricula that are less relevant to academic teachers who lack exposure to the business community. McGee (1987) points out that these issues do not seem to be present in training programs in other professions such as law and medicine because practitioners are also student instructors. Medical residents are trained by the same doctors who hold attending positions at hospitals and law students take their courses from professors who often spend part of their time as partners in area law firms. Likewise, the dissertations of students pursuing Ph.D.s in the social sciences receive their instruction from professors that have pending research projects and strong ties to the research community. These fields have been able to close the practitioner/educator gulf that has hurt accounting and is becoming an obstacle for current education reform movements such as school-to-work.

A similar gulf between educators and practitioners (employers) has taken place in contemporary workplace reform efforts. In the 22 skill standards pilot projects, for example, educators, considered one of the three key stakeholders in skill standards development (along with employers and union representatives), tended to become involved late in the skill standards development process when curriculum and assessment were being planned and discussed. Educators, on the whole, were not active in the development of the standards themselves. (See Bailey & Merritt, 1995, for a detailed discussion of the skill standards development process for the 22 pilot projects.) A 1996 NCRVE conference, Integrating Academic and Industry Skill Standards, brought together educators and employers to discuss their attempts to develop academic and technical standards. Ironically, what was perceived to be "conflicting" goals of educators and employers proved to be misperceptions resulting from a lack of communication and coordination--not major philosophical differences. Relying on word-of-mouth or second-hand communication, educators and employers are often misinformed about the priorities that each place on the skills required for the world of work or, simply, the world.

Many employers believe that educators are training students according to an esoteric and abstract view of education. To the contrary, educators feel they are responsible for developing well-rounded citizens who possess a variety of skills, including the ability to perform productively in a wide range of possible career options in the workplace. ^[30] In the same vain that employers believe that educators are too concerned with abstract, conceptual, or "academic" skills, educators consider employers' goals to be short-term and narrow. They often hesitate to get employers involved in the educational process for fear that employers will narrowly define educational goals that meet their immediate workforce needs and consequently pigeon-hole students into dead-end jobs rather than promising careers. More opportunities for partnership will remedy these misperceptions and promote the seamless system that all reformers appear to want.

A Battle for "More" Accounting Education

Attaining "professional" status through education has been a long-standing preoccupation of accountants. Although for years experience was the primary source of accounting training, the accounting community has grown to believe that requiring a strong educational background is the most effective strategy for gaining the status afforded other professions. College education slowly stopped being a substitute for experience as it was when the profession was first established in the United States. One accountant wrote in the Journal of Accountancyin 1905,

If the accountant is to be simply a man of figures, expert in practical calculations, adept in finding mistakes in trial balances, and similar routine matters, and in detecting an erring cashier or bookkeeper, he will occupy a respected and useful position in the community, but he cannot claim for himself the rank of a professional man. A profession has been well defined as a calling which demands of its members a high order of intellectual attainment which can be acquired only by long and arduous preliminary training. (Sterrett, 1905, p. 2)

Ironically, states and even national organizations were slow to formally require increased education for accountants. Experience, as will be discussed below, was often used as a substitute for education and, therefore, minimized the importance of exact educational standards for professional practice. Despite the fact that 13 universities and colleges had accredited courses in accounting by 1906 (Allen, 1927; Oliverio, 1996), it was not until 1945 that the AIA Committee on Education even recommended that candidates have a high school education (Leland, 1945, p. 228). Although most major universities offered business administration degrees with a major in accounting by 1920, only seven states required general education beyond high school by 1959 (Edwards, 1960). At that point, Connecticut, Florida, New Jersey, and New York required four years of college study. California, North Carolina, and Tennessee required two years of college study (AICPA, 1956, p. 13). ^[31] Clearly, the profession had not made much progress in standardizing educational requirements. Approximately ten years passed before accounting education again became a topic for discussion. This time, the movement was to make the professional education of accountants more like the education of other professionals--namely physicians and attorneys.

The Beamer Commission's second report in 1969 concluded that, at a minimum, it would take a CPA five years to obtain all of the elements in its recommended "common body of knowledge" (McGee, 1987). In 1974, the AICPA's Commission on Auditor's Responsibilities (the Cohen Commission) extended the amount of time required to complete an accounting program further, recommending that individuals admitted to the AICPA complete a four-year liberal arts undergraduate program and a three-year graduate professional program (Alford, Strawser, & Strawser, 1990; McGee, 1987). In 1983, the AICPA's Committee on Standards of Professional Conduct (the Anderson Committee) proposed a five-year educational requirement for all CPAs. The Committee's official 1986 report, Restructuring Professional Standards To Achieve Professional Excellence in a Changing Environment, makes the completion of a 30-hour program beyond the bachelor's degree a requirement for individuals applying for membership in the AICPA (Alford et al., 1990). This requirement, now commonly referred to as the "150-hour rule," was approved by 82% of AICPA membership in 1988, and the bylaws of the AICPA were amended to include the rule (Flynn et al., 1995). It is to take effect by the year 2000. The 150-hour rule is now accepted by most states. Data published by the AICPA indicates that 35 states have implemented or plan to implement the 150-hour rule by at least January of the year 2001.

Research by accounting organizations has suggested that bachelor's and graduate degrees do increase chances for success in the accounting profession. In 1981, the Commission of Professional Accounting Education, a broad-based committee comprised of representatives from the American Association of Accounting (the national group of accounting educators), the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the American Association of Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy, and the Federation of Schools of Accountancy, set out to validate the recommendations for additional training for CPAs. The Commission evaluated how CPA exam performance and promotion records varied by educational level--bachelor's and graduate degrees. Their study revealed that CPA exam candidates with graduate degrees were more successful than those with BAs and were promoted more rapidly within firms. A 1994 study of CPA candidates in Texas found that SAT scores, accounting GPA, hours of self-study, and graduate accounting hours had significant and positive relationships with exam performance (Dunn & Hall, 1984). Wright (1988) found that MBAs advanced more rapidly to all levels of the accounting firm implying that post-baccalaureate education may enhance an individual's chances of success in public accounting practice. Alford et al. (1990) studied partners in Big 8 accounting firms and revealed evidence similar to that of Wright. The study showed that post-baccalaureate education enhances the probability of success in public accounting firms. Almost 45% of partners in U.S. offices from 1978 to 1987 held graduate degrees. The study indicates that graduate education has become more important over time as a greater percentage of partners with graduate degrees were found from 1983 to 1987 than from 1978 to 1982. Surprisingly, fewer auditing partners (29.9%) held graduate degrees when compared with consulting/management (65.4%) and tax (57%) partners. This disparity may reflect an age difference between the groups, but it may also suggest that accountants engaged in consulting need a broader educational background than those focused on the more narrowly defined auditing activities.

Problems in Emphasizing More Education

Despite consensus for increased educational requirements, there has been some opposition voiced to the 150-hour rule as it is now stated. Many employers and educators question the necessity of increasing education, especially without agreement on what actually constitutes the additional education--structure and substance. Moreover, accounting firms differ in their needs. Small firms, for example, may be concerned about the costs (increased wages) that additional training implies. They are in less of a position to use many of the broader-based skills that such programs could provide because many focus on traditional accounting services. Large firms, on the other hand, want a more integrated curriculum and more training in the liberal arts and general employability skills since they are in better positions to take advantage of these new skilled employees.

McGee (1987) argues that those requiring additional education only serve to restrict entry to the field, thus giving consumers fewer options. Instead, he recommends the use of subject matter and not "seat time" as the criterion for education. Flynn et al. (1995) state that, although the requirement specifies the amount of additional education required, no specifics are placed on the type or form of education to take place during that time. Indeed, the amendment, although making time frames uniform, does nothing to add uniformity to a structure that varies so significantly across schools and states. Thus, accountants and their organizations are having difficulty understanding that simply increasing educational requirements will not guarantee professional status or better professional performance from practitioners.

These issues are also present in the current skill standards movement, as reformers have become more concerned with the outcomes of education than they are with the traditional inputs. Secondary and postsecondary education reform movements at local and state levels have also been striving to achieve accountability and some sense of uniformity in their educational processes. While increased technology and new workplace demands have clearly given support to increased educational requirements, structuring those requirements around traditional measures such as seat-time, GPA, class rank, or Carnegie Units has lost appeal in many reform circles. Instead, many areas of the country are moving toward more competency-based approaches to student training and assessment. Basing education on solid knowledge and skill requirements (standards) provides students with clear indications about what they should learn and offers clear data to employers on what employees are capable of doing. Although there are many fears regarding the "teaching to the test" phenomenon, standards-driven training and assessment will undoubtedly force education to become more accountable to various constituencies and make education more comparable across regions and schools. ^[32]

Experience Requirements Compete with Education Requirements

". . . it is unrealistic to assume that an experienced CPA can ever be produced entirely through the academic route." (AICPA, 1956, p. 56)

Experience is a firmly rooted aspect of an accountant's education. Indeed, most early accountants received their initial training via an apprenticeship model that, at least primarily if not solely, utilized workplace experience. Even after educational programs in accountancy were strongly established in universities throughout the country, states continued to view accounting experience as vital to successful practice and considered it a substitute for recommended educational experiences. Emphasis on increasing the professional status for accountants, however, has created tension between those who believe in the importance of workplace experience and those who stress more college level, academic training.

As early as 1900, most states made experience a requirement in the practice of accounting. An AAPA bill in 1916 required five years of experience, at least two of those years in public accountancy. In 1945, an AIA committee recommended two years of experience for college graduates. In the 1950s, the Commission on Education and Experience re-established the importance of experience for CPAs. Their recommendations focused on practical applications in the classroom as well as internships while in school and practical experience following admission to the CPA exam. Indeed, the Commission clearly stated that an accountant who was designated as a CPA on the basis of prescribed education preparation and satisfactory completion of the exam was not an experienced practitioner (Edwards, 1960, p. 225). By 1956, all but three jurisdictions (Delaware, Montana, and Nebraska) required practical experience of one to five years for eligibility to sit for the CPA exam, for issuance of the CPA certificate, or for a license to practice as a CPA. Based upon published AICPA data, all states still require at least one year of experience in either public or private accounting to hold a license to practice public accounting although the actual requirements vary significantly by state.

Similar to formal and CPE requirements, critics of experience requirements in accounting argue that they fail to specify the nature and quality of the work that must be performed. Simply specifying an amount of work experience, without providing additional parameters, can lead to very different acquisitions of skills and knowledge depending on the nature of the work being carried out.

The uncertainty about the quality of work experience is also a problem for current school reforms such as the School-to-Work Opportunities Act that encourage internships. In most school-to-work programs, there is very little control over the nature of the workplace experience. Given that workplace experience is a sound pedagogic tool, parameters need to be established regarding the characteristics of that experience. The Institute on Education and the Economy is currently investigating the characteristics of employer participation in school-to-work programs to determine the motivations of employers involved in work-based learning activities. ^[33] Simply establishing time requirements for work-based training will not necessarily provide students with the quality of training that they need--schools must work with employers to structure programs and establish educational benchmarks that will create the strong connections between the workplace and the school.

To gain the kind of control and understanding of the work experience that school-to-work implementers must gain, the Accounting Education Change Commission (AECC) established an Early Employment Experience (E ³) Task Force in the late 1980s. The Task Force was to develop a strategy to improve the interface between the education of new accountants and the first two to three years of employment experience. It was to make certain that "the improved educational outcomes fostered by the AECC dovetail neatly with complementary changes in accounting practice" (Elliot, 1991, p. 119). The E ³Task Force also set forth a set of recommendations designed to improve the transition from education to practice and the nature of the early experience:

1. Transition from education to practice:
   
   
   1. take advantage of the opportunities to blend study and practice more effectively to minimize the abrupt transition from student to practitioner through internships, cooperative work-study programs, and employers' release of summers in the early career for full-time studies
      
      
   2. provide internships to students for a better understanding of the business world; a better appreciation and integration of subsequent education; more realistic expectations of the workplace; and more informed employment choices
   
   
2. Changes in personnel management:
   
   
   1. eliminate lock-step pay, promotions, and job evaluations that focus on traits rather than skills
      
      
   2. teach employees how their work fits into the big picture by explaining how assignments meet organizational objectives and the implications of various findings and outcomes
      
      
   3. institute upward evaluations of superiors to increase the sensitivity of superiors to the developmental needs of their workers and help them become more effective bosses instituting mentoring (Elliot, 1991, pp. 116-117)

According to Elliot (1991), three major functional changes must take place in accounting organizations if they are to upgrade the educational value of the early work experience, become more consistent with student expectations, and function more effectively overall. First, accounting needs to be considered less labor intensive and more human capital intensive. Employees must no longer be considered a substitutable expense to be minimized but rather as valuable human capital to work along with information-technology capital and be treated as an asset that must be developed and protected. Second, the new organic organization must replace the old industrial, inverted-tree structure with standardized products, interchangeable parts (including workers), and cost minimization all connected to market share. This organic network consists of people and their specialized content- and network-process knowledge. Organizational components become more specialized, differentiated, and valuable as information and customer or client demand becomes more complex and specialized--they are no longer interchangeable. Third, the type of accounting information must be reconceived so that the accounting enterprise will be broadened to provide decision-support information adaptable to the demands of the customer and necessary to establish a value-creating environment in which robust, challenging, fulfilling careers in professional accounting can be realized (p. 119).

Thus, there continues to be a tension between the realities of accounting practice and the ideals of accounting for which some educators hope to prepare their students. This also reflects the variation in practice among accounting organizations. As in many other industries, some firms have introduced innovative human resource practices while others maintain a more traditional approach. How skill standards can correspond to future employer needs (on the assumption that firms will move towards innovative organizational practices) or still be consistent with the needs of the current majority of employers who maintain more traditional practices is a problem that the NSSB must also tackle.

An additional concern for the NSSB and those involved in school-to-work transition programs, a concern that the accounting community has also failed to sufficiently address, is how to make the workplace experience an integral part of the formal educational process. Indeed, accounting programs have not been as successful as other professional schools such as medicine, law, and engineering in using workplace experiences to integrate the academic and technical skills learned in the formal education portion of a student's professional development. Medical students, for example, are required to take part in internships, residencies, and often fellowships that are at least as long as their medical school training. Likewise, law students are strongly encouraged to take part in clerkships during their summers in law school. While not a formal requirement in most law schools, experiences in law firms and judges' offices are known to increase the competitive advantage of students entering the job market. Engineering students are also encouraged to participate in cooperative (co-op) experiences at some time in their college experience.

For all of these professions, the workplace experiences provide an opportunity for the student to bring together all of the abstract and conceptual pieces of information accumulated during their coursework and become the diagnosticians and independent practitioners that the public expects. Without this workplace opportunity, as has been previously mentioned, accounting students are disillusioned by a workplace that the educational system did not correctly represent and employers are disappointed with the skills of their new recruits. Employers who hire high school students for entry-level technical jobs experience similar disappointment as students come to them without the skills necessary to successfully tackle problems and confront situations that do not have one correct, textbook answer. Clearly, this is one area of most education, training, and certification programs that needs great improvement. The effects of the detachment of the educational system from the accounting community also add strength to the current school-to-work arguments that emphasize more and better institutionalized workplace experiences for youth.

CONCLUSION

Throughout this report, parallels have been drawn between the historical standards-setting process in accounting and contemporary efforts to restructure standards in a wide range of industries and occupations. Although the efforts of the NSSB have generated a great amount of support for what many consider to be a new activity, the standards-setting processes in many U.S. industries have histories that nearly equal accounting's 100-year legacy. Contemporary efforts directed by the NSSB and various educational agencies have one unique characteristic that separate them from past attempts to develop higher standards in schools and workplaces. Unlike historical trends that tend to dichotomize the restructuring of work and school, those involved in current workplace and education reform initiatives recognize and support the development of solid links and partnerships between key stakeholder groups such as educators, employers, union representatives, and community-based organizations. Efforts to develop stable partnerships have led to a more natural integration of education and workplace reform efforts. For example, the joint sponsorship of the 22 industry-based skill standards pilot projects in the early 1990s signifies an unprecedented partnership between the U.S. Departments of Labor and Education. Strong bonds now seem to be emerging between the National School-to-Work Office and the NSSB as they work together on initiatives such as the Building Linkage project.

Although the accounting profession has been successful in creating a widespread, national system of skill standards and assessments, the community has not succeeded in developing the same type of seamless preparation system that contemporary workplace and education reform efforts now require. What follows are some of the lessons that the accounting profession's extensive experience with skill standards and assessments can offer for those groups that are now working toward education reform and a national system of industry-based skill standards.

1. Skill standards developed for high-performance, professional workplaces have philosophical obstacles to overcome.

   Efforts to broaden accounting skill standards and re-align educational requirements have presented reformers with a series of philosophical obstacles that go beyond the actual development of high-performance standards and requirements. Individuals and organizations have been forced to rethink traditional definitions of work and appreciate the boundaries that traditional industrial categorizations have created. Furthermore, in order to promote the full development and maturity of high-performance workplaces, those involved with contemporary skill standards development must understand the cultural changes necessary to expand the often-limited roles held by individuals in traditional occupational hierarchies.

   These philosophical adaptations are particularly difficult for industries that have operated in isolation and pigeonholed workers into narrowly defined, technical job responsibilities. Workers' roles must be expanded so that they will be encouraged, allowed, and required to apply all of their skills and knowledge (technical, academic, and real world) to more proactive, more expansive, less supervised, and less routine job responsibilities. Standards must not be merely tolerated; organizations must be educated and convinced that the drastic restructuring and the development of different relationships between and among workers and managers is not only beneficial but necessary for success and survival in a new, competitive global economy. Assessment tools and educational programs must be developed so that employers and educators can be confident in a worker's ability to perform proactively with minimal supervision. Workers must become lifelong learners, willing and able to stay current on technological and workplace changes.

2. Standards setting must be an ongoing and constantly evolving process that emphasizes continual communication between stakeholder groups.

   In rapidly changing industries, standards can actually become obsolete before they are published and well before educational programs can be adjusted to prepare students appropriately. Standards-setting efforts that dissolve after an initial set of standards has been produced have doomed those standards to imminent obsolescence. Even worse, groups that support such one-shot activities may eventually hold people to standards that fail to represent reality. Standards, assessment, and training tied to such a static certification process has little, if any, worth to practitioners, educators, employers, or the lay public. In the end, the most valuable contribution of the standards-setting process may simply be the continuing dialogue between practitioners, employers, customers, and educators. The most important characteristic of any standards-setting process is that it promotes, or indeed requires, constant updating and communicating.

   The accounting community's criticisms of their own educational system and examination process offer evidence of the problems that can arise from a lack of consistent communication between stakeholder groups and periodic revisions of all aspects of the certification system. The disjointed relationship that exists between accounting's education and practitioner communities has slowly eroded the confidence that has traditionally been placed on accounting's professional credentials (the university diploma and CPA exam). The CPA exam, no longer capable of evaluating all of the broad-based, advisory responsibilities that accountants must assume, is not supplemented by a dynamic educational system that can adjust its curricula with changes in the marketplace. Employers are dissatisfied with the inadequate skills and abilities of their new recruits. Students are dissatisfied with their poor preparation for and lack of understanding of the workplace. Educators are frustrated by the mixed signals they are receiving to stay abreast of new workplace dynamics, yet continue to produce research that has long-term, conceptual implications.

   Solid and continuous input from both practitioners and educators is required if education and workplace requirements are to be constantly re-defined and re-aligned. A strong complementary relationship must exist between standards, training, and assessment activities. A technical credential such as the CPA exam will contribute more to the status of the profession if the practitioners developing and updating it work with academic educators who can share their knowledge of a wider range of disciplines and improved assessment techniques. Accounting curricula will, in turn, be improved if educators work more closely with practitioners to construct a learning environment in which students are required to demonstrate broad-based competencies that are consistent with changing workplace expectations.

   The current skill standards effort, under the direction of the NSSB, must strive to create a system comprised of educational and assessment components that can and will be continuously updated and improved. The 22 skill standards pilot projects were required to develop partnerships between educators, employers, and labor unions and allocate time and resources for periodic updates. Unfortunately, employers took an early leadership role in the development of standards in the pilot projects and sought to involve educators in the process only when it moved toward the development of curricula and assessment tools. Educators, for the most part, were handed a final document from which to develop support materials without much industry background or knowledge to guide them. Furthermore, the pilot projects appeared to establish a process that offers only vague plans for keeping the standards current. Perhaps taking lessons from these early attempts to establish standards-setting processes, the NSSB funded the development of industry coalitions or voluntary partnerships in 1997. These partnerships, which were established early in the process, will constitute a project management structure that will ultimately guide system development. Although the development of standards is to remain industry-driven, key stakeholders must be involved in all phases of the standards-setting process so that their input can be considered and included throughout the development of standards, curriculum, and assessment tools.

3. Professional workplace performance requires standards that offer conventions or conceptual guidelines rather than narrowly defined methods and procedures.

   It is hard to deny the parallels between the professional evolution of accountants over the past century and the current movement to professionalize the workforce in a wide range of U.S. industries. As is now the case in many contemporary industries, accountants are required to perform an increasingly broader set of duties that offer less guidance and more ambiguity. Accounting jobs now require skills such as the ability to judge, problem solve, investigate, clarify, and communicate--what contemporary skill standards developers refer to as SCANS skills. The complexity and depth of these skills cannot be adequately represented by technical standards that merely list and measure the performance of isolated tasks and procedures. Instead, standards must offer guidance for the professional workforce and a conceptual basis for which to make non-routine, intricate activities and decisions.

   Despite the difficulties that accounting standards-setters have experienced in attempting to develop standards systems that reflect broader responsibilities, the call for them grows. Although there is no agreement on the form and format of such standards, accountants, employers, educators, students, government regulators, and the lay public appear to support standards that resemble conventions or conceptual principles rather than narrowly defined rules and procedures.

   Unlike the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) that has not made significant progress in their attempts to create a conceptual framework for accounting, the NSSB has proposed the guidelines or standards framework that will be used to endorse the standards created by voluntary partnerships. Their framework, comprised of core, concentration, and specialty knowledge and skills, provides a consistent structure and terminology for those developing the standards. It is broad enough so that standards-setters can develop the specific skills and competencies of the standards in an autonomous and independent fashion. If anything, the structure for standards, as it is being developed by the NSSB, will gain the support of the various stakeholders since it embodies the philosophy that skill standards need to be industry-driven and flexible enough to adapt to the changing demands of the high-performance workplace. Standards, although there is no empirical evidence to support them, are thought to play a central role in a new system of education and workforce preparation by providing timely and accurate information to educators, employers, and workers.

4. A solid standards-setting system requires strong support from constituency groups and adequate time for planning, research, and experimentation.

   Skill standards do not function in a vacuum. They affect many individuals and organizations. The success and sustainability of standards systems demands adequate time for initial planning, research, and experimentation. Standards-setters need to understand and appreciate the sweeping effects of their efforts: the threats standards pose, the territories that will be infringed upon by standards, and the dynamics that surround the institutionalization of standards. Understanding such issues requires time and coherent direction. More importantly, understanding requires solid communication and support from all of those involved.

   The accounting profession has often been given inconsistent signals from government regulatory agencies and the public regarding their latitude to set and govern their own standards. Although the FASB has been established as the profession's sole standards-setting body, it is constantly criticized for taking too long to establish standards. Regulatory efforts often threaten to overturn their power and authority.

   The NSSB has taken proactive steps to guarantee the support of the constituency groups that, if not supportive, could ultimately present insurmountable obstacles for the development of a national system. First, the NSSB has established itself as the governing body that will endorse, direct, and promote standards, but that it will not develop and implement the standards. Second, the NSSB has, since its inception, stressed the importance of firmly establishing voluntary partnerships among those that will be ultimately responsible for the skill standards and certification process--educators, employers, union representatives, and community-based organizations.

   Despite a master plan that appears to be well-planned and orchestrated, the NSSB may suffer from many of the difficulties that the FASB experienced in attempting to develop a solid basis for and understanding of the standards-setting process before acting. Without proper understanding, the NSSB may be accused of acting too slowly, addressing the wrong issues, and handling issues incorrectly. They must, therefore, stress the necessity of adequate time to develop and pilot test different aspects of a national skill standards system. Although not used to produce tangible results, having adequate time will allow the NSSB to avoid costly mistakes that could jeopardize the entire effort.

5. Certification has potential positive and negative effects that must be balanced.

   With the expansion of accountants' duties, the certification process in accounting has been subjected to increasing criticisms for not reflecting actual work experiences--a well-known controversy in all certification systems, especially those in which certified practitioners have traditionally had limited formal responsibility. Narrowly defined assessments do not provide all of the information that consumers need to make informed decisions and therefore fail to protect public interest by limiting risks. They limit consumer choice by decreasing the supply of practitioners and, therefore, increase the prices that consumers must pay for services. Although there is no established gauge to monitor the magnitude of these disadvantages to consumers, advocates of the current national skill standards movement hope that the negative aspects of certification will be minimized by the benefits that a better trained workforce offer to society and individual consumers. In addition, the NSSB's new certification scheme resembles more of a stepladder approach to certification than a one-time examination. Workers will be progressively evaluated as their knowledge becomes more occupationally specific (after attaining broad- and industry-specific skills). Their credentials and job opportunities will match their level of skill advancement.

   Despite the potential for certification to act as a gatekeeper and keep supply down and drive up the prices of services, it has many advantages that skill-standards advocates hope to achieve through the work of the NSSB. Established standards and assessments facilitate employment mobility and provide consistent information about skills and abilities to prospective employers or clients. An established and consistent certification process, as demonstrated by the Automotive Service Excellence initiative created by the National Automotive Technician Education Foundation, increases the public's trust in practitioners and helps promote a sense of professionalism.

6. Skill standards are most effective if they are industry-driven.

   One conclusion that emerges clearly from this analysis is the importance of an institutional standards-setting infrastructure that is led by practitioners. Professional organizations, founded and comprised of practicing accountants, have directed the discussion about accounting skill standards and educational requirements since the profession was established in the late 19th century. Despite the fact that regulatory agencies have periodically threatened the private sector standards-setting infrastructure, the system has managed to maintain its distance from non-accountant business interests and governmental regulators who conspire to define accounting procedures and, therefore, accountant skills to meet their short-term needs. One important motivation for keeping standards setting in the private sector is the ability to control and upgrade the professional image of accountants through standards. Accountants have been particularly interested in trying to achieve the same status and prestige as professions such as medicine and law that direct their own standards and certification processes. Outsiders in the standards-setting process often limit the prestige and image of the profession.

   Pressures to manipulate professions and trades from the outside have been important in strengthening the drive of practitioners to maintain control over their standards-setting processes. Although the NSSB has taken a less threatening, adversarial position than the SEC in influencing standards development, one reason for what appears to be overall industry support for the current skill standards movement may be to maintain industry control and limit the potential of outside influence. Certainly the NSSB has strenuously emphasized that all of the standards developed under their auspices will be voluntary. Indeed, much of the NSSB's efforts are actually directed towards gaining industry's favor and support. Industry leaders, however, may be slow to accept the promises of quasi-governmental agencies such as the NSSB. Instead of waiting for outside regulatory bodies to find fault with their industry's performance and workforce training and development efforts and attempt to take control, many industries have chosen to take a proactive role in the development and institutionalization of skill standards.

7. A seamless preparation system that offers academic and workforce training to meet the demands of a high-performance society must be comprised of education, hands-on experience, and examination requirements.

   No set of standards can specify all of the knowledge and skills necessary to perform in a complex workplace environment. Similarly, no singular set of experiences (be them classroom or workplace) can ensure the ability to apply the necessary skills, knowledge, and insights in the most efficient, effective manner. A broad-based certification that encourages the type of professional performance required in high-performance workplaces must, therefore, be comprised of three components: (1) education, (2) hands-on experience, and (3) an examination process to demonstrate the skills that educational and workplace experiences develop. All of these components must be improved if they are to work symbiotically and ensure that employees are capable of complex workplace roles and responsibilities.

   Accounting educators and practitioners, realizing the growing gap between the training that accounting students receive and the skills employers need, are currently revising their curricula and certification requirements. Initially, policymakers focused on increasing the number of hours required in school and work experiences without specifying what those increases meant in terms of added skills and knowledge. This approach has been criticized, however, for not supplying sufficient information to build a uniform training program and ensure consistent accounting services. There is a similar thrust for outcome standards in the current skill standards movement as industry leaders and the public demand better quality performance at the workplace and are less satisfied with the traditional efforts by educators and trainers that stress seat-time and hours of training for workers.

   Today's employees need a mix of classroom and workplace experiences that are tied to exact outcome measures. The quality of classroom and workplace experiences must be specified and firmly established. Specifying educational requirements that are in line with new workplace demands has been especially difficult for academic programs, which are run by educators that often have little first-hand experience with the workplace. The experience of schooling must support internship experiences in the workplace. Given constant communication and partnership between the academic and practitioner communities, a young person who goes through all of the requirements will gain a variety of experiences that together will provide a broad background and preparation--a professional preparation. The relationship that is being developed between the NSSB and the National School-to-Work Office offers hope for such a combination of experiences and a well-balanced, productive training experience. Such relationships between education and business/industry must continue and grow.

   Although the content of the CPA exam has been criticized, its format has much strength. The exam has varied parts and requires the candidates to demonstrate a wide variety of knowledge and to apply that knowledge to complex situations. Although many of the questions are objective, one-answer questions, others require essays and the demonstration of technical, writing, and higher order thinking skills. Therefore, the exam is more likely than multiple-choice exams to develop into a test that can assess the judgment and problem-solving abilities that are increasingly important in accounting, and in many other occupations. Although they have yet to develop the assessment tools for their standards, many developers of industry standards are using complex scenarios to articulate standards and plan to assess the standards by requiring candidates to demonstrate their ability to perform the duties the scenarios require.

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^[1] The standards endorsed by the NSSB cover entry-level through first line supervisory positions.

^[2] Under the original Goals 2000: Educate America Act, the U.S. Department of Education was to establish a National Education Standards and Improvement Council to act in unison with the U.S. Department of Labor's National Skill Standards Board. This body, created to "certify and periodically review voluntary national content standards and voluntary national student performance standards that define what all students should know and be able to do" (Title II, Section B, Goals 2000: Educate America Act of 1994) was never formed.

^[3] Although many areas of accounting practice have established certification systems, this report will focus on the skill standards and certification efforts that were initially directed towards public accountants--those that report on the financial positions of publicly held companies.

^[4] Estimations on the number of American firms that employ high-performance strategies range from 5 to 30%. Although there is great hope for the potential of high-performance workplaces in transforming the American economy and the skills of the American workforce, data that pinpoints the extent of actual growth is inconclusive at this time.

^[5] See Chapter 2 of Olson (1982) for a brief synopsis of the litigation against auditors in the 1960s and 1970s and its impact on professional standards and the profession's ability to be self-regulating.

^[6] In his presentation of accountants as business advisors, Grollman (1986) points out the array of business functions that accountants "have always served" (p. 3). Such activities include accounting systems, inventory control systems, electronic data processing, tax and estate planning, budgeting, and financial control and reporting systems.

^[7] British auditors came to the United States after realizing professional status as chartered accountants in their homeland. See Edwards (1960) for a description of the professional legacy that was handed to U.S. accountants from their British counterparts.

^[8] See Bailey and Merritt (1995) for an extensive analysis of the 22 industry-based skill standards projects.

^[9] The three-part set of mathematics standards developed by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics is comprised of Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics (March 1989); Professional Standards for Teaching Mathematics (March 1991); and Assessment Standards for School Mathematics (May 1995).

^[10] This was one of the most important events in the establishment of management accounting as an accounting specialization requiring public accountants and auditors to assume more holistic responsibilities to their corporate clients.

^[11] Generic, employability, or SCANS (named for the Secretary's Commission on Necessary Skills in the Workforce) skills will be discussed in more detail later in this report.

^[12] The 16 economic sectors that the NSSB has developed are agricultural production and natural resource management; mining and extraction operations; construction operations; manufacturing, installation, and repair; energy and utilities operations; transportation operations; communications; wholesale/retail sales; hospitality and tourism services; financial services; health and social services; education and training services; public administration, legal and protective services; business and administrative services; property management and building maintenance services; and research, development, and technical services.

^[13] The industry's interest in new service areas is, perhaps, predicated on occupational data that shows no growth in auditing. Nevertheless, in 1994, the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics predicted that accounting would be one of the ten fastest growing industries during the next ten years. This growth can most likely be explained by auditing's close connection with consulting and specialty services that have recently experienced exponential growth as accounting services have expanded to cater to a more complex and demanding business community. For example, 25% of total combined revenues from Coopers and Lybrand LLP and Price Waterhouse (now merging) in fiscal year 1996 came from consulting (Burton, 1997). Arthur Andersen has created a two business unit infrastructure for its worldwide operations consisting of Andersen Consulting and Arthur Andersen. In 1996, $4.7 billion of Andersen Worldwide's $9.5 billion in revenues came from consulting (Arthur Andersen on the internet, 1997).

^[14] Forensic accounting, investigative accounting, or fraud auditing is one of the hot growth areas for CPAs in public accounting. The area involves anything from setting up preventative systems to ensure compliance and avoid future claims and disputes, to handling the claims and disputes once they are made. It also allows accountants to look beyond the face value of accounting records and search for evidence of criminal conduct or the determination or rebuttal of claimed damages. Investigative accountants are also being used as consultants to advise companies on actions to take to remain solvent or declare bankruptcy.

^[15] Requirements for the PFS certificate include a valid CPA certificate, good standing as a AICPA member, at least 250 hours per year of PFS practice experience for each of three years prior to the exam, statement of intent to comply with re-accreditation requirements (72 hours of CPA in financial planning every three years and completion of internal review questionnaire), and six references to substantiate PFS work experience ("PFS Test Scheduled for September," 1995)

^[16] The American Institute of Accountants (AIA) first established the CSEE in the early 1950s. It was comprised of practitioners and members of the AIA, members of the various state accountancy boards and state boards of examiners, accounting teachers, and educational administrators.

^[17] Core skills and knowledge, as stated by the NSSB, are those common to and essential for an entire, broad-based economic sector. Concentration knowledge and skills cover a broad area within each economic sector to be more targeted than the core level but less specific than the specialty level (NSSB, 1996).

^[18] These organizations were both incorporated under New York State laws. A third association, The National Society of Certified Public Accountants, was created in 1897. It merged two years later with the AAPA. The Federation of Societies of Public Accountants was developed in 1902 because accountants practicing in the western U.S. felt that the AAPA, based in New York, was not fulfilling its purpose as a national institute. The Federation merged with the AAPA in 1905 after it had firmly established the need for a national organization of accountants. The American Society of CPAs was formed in 1921 due to dissatisfaction with the policies of the American Institute of Accountants (AIA). It later merged with the AIA (Edwards, 1960).

^[19] Given that "many of the CPAs at the time were self-made men who had had relatively limited formal education, but had through apprenticeship and self-study developed technical knowledge as bookkeepers and accountants" (Oliverio & Newman, 1996, p. 253), the Bill was drafted as "permissive legislation." It only restricted unqualified individuals from using the CPA title, not from practicing public accounting.

^[20] The AICPA began in 1897 as the American Association of Public Accountants (AAPA). In 1915, the organization was renamed the American Institute of Accountants (AIA) and later became the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA).

^[21] Although the AICPA was instrumental in creating the FASB, the structure that officially funds and oversees the FASB is the Financial Accounting Foundation (FAF) that represents a broad base of associations in business and investment, securities, and accounting communities. This structure imposes some sense of independence between the AICPA and the FASB.

^[22] Jurisdictions include the 50 states, Puerto Rico, District of Columbia, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Guam.

^[23] Ray Groves, former chair of Ernst and Young calculated that if disclosure rules keep piling up, over the next twenty years the typical big company's annual report will have grown by 234% in pages and 1700% in footnotes.

^[24] The AIA published a model bill to regulate the practice of accounting in 1916. A substantial number of state accountancy laws now follow principal provisions of follow-up bills written by the AIA's predecessor, the AICPA. In 1980, NASBA used the experience of its State Boards in administering existing laws to publish a Model Public Accountancy Act reflecting legislative policies.

^[25] Oregon's Workforce Quality Council is focusing on the academic and business skills found in Oregon, California, and Washington. Utah is working with health care and academic skills formulated in Utah, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia. Indiana has spearheaded the effort to integrate academic and manufacturing skills in Indiana, Arizona, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Nebraska, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Pennsylvania.

^[26] See Bailey and Merritt (1995) for details on the pilot projects.

^[27] This evidence comes from a survey commissioned by the AICPA, so its conclusions should perhaps be viewed with some skepticism.

^[28] In 1991, the SCANS report, published by the Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills, examined the demands of the workplace and questioned whether American students could meet such demands. The Commission concluded that the high-performance workplace required higher order thinking and problem-solving skills--skills beyond those traditionally taught in schools (U.S. Department of Labor, 1991).

^[29] The AICPA and the Carnegie Corporation of New York sponsored the first Beamer Commission in 1963. Results of the Commission were published in Horizons for a Profession in 1967.

^[30] This is based on the comments of an English professor who attended the conference.

^[31] New York State passed a law in 1929 that by January 1, 1938, every candidate for examination for the CPA certificate must be a graduate of an approved course of study at the college level. The course must include half liberal arts subjects and half professional studies with a minimum of 24 hours in accountancy, 8 hours in commercial law, 8 hours in finance, and 6 in economics (Edwards, 1960).

^[32] See Bailey and Merritt (1997) for a discussion of competency-based assessment strategies as they are being used to address many of the issues surrounding school-to-work reform.

^[33] This NCRVE-sponsored study will be available in 1998.