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Chaparral has never reprinted an article from another publication
before, but considers this article timely and reprints it here with
permission from Chuck Van Patten.
It doesn't happen very often.
Rarely is there a time like this when faculty can significantly reform
higher education public policy, but that's what we can do now by
qualifying the Community College Initiative (the "Community College
Governance, Funding Stabilization, and Student Fee Reduction Act") for
the 2008 ballot.
Why Do We Need To Reform
Our Colleges?
The 1960 Master Plan for Higher Education guaranteed a college
education to all
Californians. This open-access system of higher education served the
baby boom generation well. I was
typical of my generation, and because of inexpensive higher education I
was able to become a college teacher—even though my father was a rough
neck in the oil fields of Long Beach and my grandfather was a share
cropper from Iowa.
When voters approved Prop 13 in 1978,fees started emerging in the
previously free
California community colleges. When the periodic and cyclical budget crises
occurred over the past two decades, fees usually went up. In 1984, for
the first time, fees went up to $5. In 1991, they went to $6. In 1993,
they jumped to $13. In good budget years they dropped to $12 in 1999
and $11 in 2000. The bad years came again and in 2003 they soared to
$18, and in 2004 they skyrocketed to $26. The budgetary crisis has
subsided, so now they are down to $20. The next time there is a crisis,
history suggests, the governor or legislature will want to balance the
budget on the backs of disenfranchised [you haven't explained why students
are disenfranchised] students.
In essence, it was a series of budget crises and shortsighted
legislative solutions
that killed the Master Plan without any rational public discussion.
Officially, the Master Plan is still on the books, but now it is a dream
instead of the reality it was when I was a community college and CSU student
in the 1970s. The public policy that served my generation so well and
gave California a highly
trained work-force was dismantled by a tyranny of government accountants
[you should explain what that means concretely] who denied today's
students of the working poor and lower middle class access to higher
education.
The data supports the claim. The dramatic fee increases have
caused an enrollment decline in the California community colleges of
.07% for every 1.0% increase in fees, according to historic elasticity
analyses; indeed, the community college system loses up to 15,000
students for every one dollar increase in fees. This is just very bad
public policy and it is especially bad for California's future.
At-risk and poor students, obviously, are the most
vulnerable to fee increases—students for whom rent and groceries often
must be a higher priority than fees and textbooks. The Californians
most in need of higher education to escape the marginal fringes of
society are denied access through fee instability and increases. However,
this problem is not just an issue of social justice and fairness. An
extra absurdity is that baby boomers will be leaving the work force
soon, they will be taking their work-skills with them, and the Master
Plan no longer serves the purpose of training the
next generation in the skills needed to replace retiring workers. In
the "Euthyphro," Socrates asked what gardener would tend to the old
plants, and not to the young? The tragic answer is, of course, only the
gardener who soon does not want a garden. [Maybe I'm just dense, but you
should consider explaining this]
How Would The
Community College
Initiative Reform Our Colleges?
It doesn't happen very often.
However, we are now living a rare moment where we can reverse the
trend. By qualifying the Community College Initiative on the 2008
ballot we can return California to a state that gives its citizens
educational opportunities and invests in its future.
The Community College Initiative would result in three major reforms.
First, the Initiative will reduce student fees to $15 per semester unit
while also restricting both the amount and probability of any future fee
increases. Consider how
this alone will go far toward increased student access and student
success.
Second, the Initiative establishes a minimal annual funding level for
community colleges. This is necessary because
California community colleges have
been under-funded to the tune
of a five billion dollar shortfall over the past decade and a half.
Prop 98 funding formula for K-14—which legally entitled community
colleges to 10.93% of Prop 98 monies—has never been followed. For
obvious political reasons it has always been more tempting to address
the budgetary shortfalls by
reducing the weak community colleges rather than by under-funding the
politically powerful K-12 system.
Under the Initiative, without raising taxes, Prop 98 would be changed to
establish separate funding guarantees for the CCC system and the K-12. (Thus, K-12 is
not hurt by the Initiative.) The Initiative would effectively split the
existing Prop 98 funding guarantee for K-14 into one guarantee for K-12
and one for the community colleges. And at this hour the split is
essential. K-12 enrollment is leveling off and is even projected to
decline over the next several years. Meanwhile, the community colleges
are expected to grow at a pace of two to three percent per year. Consequently, since Prop 98 is based primarily on K-12 enrollment, it
will be even more disastrous for open-access to higher
education if our funding remains connected to K-12.
Third, the Initiative would establish the autonomy of the CCC Board of
Governors (BOG) from the governor's office and would enshrine the BOG
and the community colleges in the California state constitution. The
result would be that the California community college system would be
more like the UC and CSU systems and less connected to K-12. The Initiative also protects
local community college districts and their locally elected boards.
These governance reforms should not be yawned at by faculty. Because of
the Rodda Act for unions and AB 1725 for senates, the faculty have a
legally mandated role in governance. Thus, the more independent our system
is, the greater the opportunity is for faculty tofunction effectively and
powerfully in governance.
What Can You Do To Reform
Our Colleges?
Indeed, it doesn't happen very often. Remarkably, we
really do have the chance to reform the community college system and align
it more with the Master Plan.
But that won't
happen by wishing, or by waiting for someone else to take action. The
Attorney General has given us until January 22, 2007 to get 600,000
qualified signatures state-wide. That means
effectively that we need one million signatures by early January. This
would give us time to verify the signatures, separate the wheat from the
darnel and still have enough harvested to meet the legal minimum.
We need $1.5 million. As I write this article on the fifth
anniversary of 9/11, we have about $850,000 in contributions.
We need you to make donations and gather signatures. Contact your
local LRCFT representatives listed in this publication for donation envelopes, signature
petitions and voter registration forms. If you are contacted, please
pitch in and help.
Qualifying the Initiative for the 2008 ballot is the Waterloo [that has
a double meaning, since
Waterloo for Napoleon was disastrous] for the California community
colleges. If we fail, it will be a very long time before we have the
opportunity to bring about reform of this significance. If we fail, the
big dogs of Sacramento will think that we are weak and it will be harder
than ever to lobby effectively at the
Capitol. We must succeed. We need your help. Because it doesn't happen
very often.
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