Ripped from the Headlines: The Changing California Community College System

I have my own beliefs about the current California gubernatorial administration (some good and some not so good) and the heads of the California Community College (CCC) system (generally not so good). While I see tremendous upside in the overall CCC system and potential for low-cost transition to 4-year college/university, along with caring faculty who are paid solely to teach and not to publish or research, this article really affirmed my take on what has recently transpired between California’s legislature and governor, our state law, our CCC program, and the students, parents and faculty affected by these decisions…and many of these decisions appear to be short-sighted in nature.

Merced College Professor Keith Law, in his article, “How Governor Brown and California’s Democratic Leadership are Destroying our Community Colleges”, depicts four significant changes or additions to California legislation that have or are soon going to have a significant effect on the CCC system, its students, and the larger educational system.

The noted legislation covers: curtailing remedial education; forcing students to declare majors and limit the number of lower division units attempted in the CCC system; a budget proposal that ties the CCC funding formula to the number of students attaining certificates, degrees, and transfers to four-year schools; and Governor Brown seems to be pushing the goal of significantly increasing the number of online certificates and degrees offered by the CCC. Let’s tackle each one of these items in turn and see which side of the ledger you fall on.

1 - Curtailing Remedial Education. The crux of this legislation is called AB-705, or the Seymour-Campbell Student Success Act, which purports that graduation rates, particularly in California, have been hampered by unnecessary remedial math and English courses that have slowed student progress. I am not going to suggest that the grad rate is awesome – it isn’t – but there are two major problems with this legislation. The first is that the noted problem affects different schools, and different populations, in different ways. I actually think this law makes sense for the more socio-economically well-off schools, ones like Santa Monica College in Southern California and the College of San Mateo in NorCal. Many of their students come from middle, upper-middle, or upper socioeconomically advantaged regions, which usually translates to good to excellent high school educational opportunities, which means students are usually ready to compete in community college. Getting rid of the remedial requirements for these students makes sense and can be effective in trimming the time in and cost of college.

The problem is most of the state does not fall into this category. For lower-income regions or those dominated by minority students, particularly first-generation Latinos, the language barrier alone is significant and is worthy of additional time in community college to rectify those language deficits and let this population catch up to compete in both community and four-year colleges and universities. The K-12 system failed many of these kids and social promotion pushed them through to graduation. Now the solution is to force these same students into college-level English and math, with no significant additional resources, other than a small amount of added time with their English and math instructors (who are rarely trained or prepared to work with these populations in a college setting). The solutions offered by the current law are somewhere between insufficient and an abject joke in helping these lower-income and first-generation populations meet their academic and career goals.

2 – “Guided Pathways”. This piece of legislation suggests that part of the lagging grad time problem is due to students meandering their way through the CCC system, without having a specific path to transfer to a CSU, UC, or other four-year school. This is a similar problem I experience in working with high school students. The fact is that most students are simply too busy, or too distracted, to focus any significant time on getting to know THEMSELVES. Until some significant time is spent getting to know one’s interests, the idea of picking a major is somewhat random, which would explain why the average number of times a college student changes their major is still between two and three times before attaining a degree. Guided Pathways forces a decision early on in the process, which, for some students, will aid in getting in and out of the community college system in the recommended two years. For many others, it will simply put students on a path that forces a change a bit further down the road, when the cost will be an extra year – or two – at a four-year college or university, where the cost of attendance is significantly higher. This in turn, will likely reduce the graduation rate of that population.

3 – Changes to the CCC Funding Formula. This is really the one that has me scared the most. Governor Brown and his education team have rationalized that payment to community colleges moving forward will be based on their success rates, as judged by certificate, degree, and transfer completion. Not only is this another highly biased viewpoint, which will undoubtedly aid the already well-off and punish the socioeconomically-challenged schools, this will force schools, and therefore, faculty, to add social promotion to the CCC protocols. Afterall, if you don’t pass enough students, you might lose your job, as the school’s funding could dry up. So, we end up with a repeat of the high school program of social promotion, pushing ill-prepared students through a broken system and on to the four-year system, where these students will have little to no chance for success. As is, the graduation rate from the start of the CCC process, through transfer, to completing a BA or BS degree hovers around 25% statewide – not exactly a ringing endorsement of the program. This is a bad idea, even if the thought behind it is a decent and well-intentioned one.

4 – The Online California Community College. I get the trend here. There are lots of schools, both here in California, and across the nation, that are launching partial or fully-online degree programs. I have stated my opinion about these before and I will do so again now: only a handful of high school students and about the same amount of community college students are mentally disciplined enough to take seriously the idea of a 100% online class.

This is only part of the problem. If we look at the most significant of online degree providers, we will find the University of Phoenix and Arizona State University at the top of the food chain. Neither one has an outstanding track record on this front, but that still isn’t the biggest problem. These online degree programs are notoriously watered down. So even when students succeed, most people in the world of Human Relations (you know, the folks who are in charge of hiring and firing in corporate America) know that the program isn’t worth the paper the degree is printed on, and usually will pass on hiring that graduate for someone else who has a more tried-and-true education, along with some tangible experience.

Moving CCC curriculum online can only take a potentially bad situation and make it worse. We have a platform that is almost always watered down paired with a funding formula that requires social promotion…do the math folks…this is an academic disaster in the making.

What is the point of sharing this scathing op ed and my own opinion of the CCC system? It’s this: if you intend to leverage the best parts of the CCC system (and there are plenty of good parts to harness), HAVE A PLAN. Don’t just show up and hope that 13th Grade is going to pan out when the first twelve were mediocre at best. If you have a goal of studying in a particular major at a particular (or a handful) of four-year schools, you stand a significantly better chance of achieving your academic and career goals, despite these new problems forced upon us by our regional government.

Now, I am not going to pick political sides, as Professor Law has, as I see less and less value coming from the overarching political regimes on either side of the aisle these days – two overgrown thinktanks that consume money and time and provide little else to the betterment of the general public. I will simply state that this new set of legislation is, in the long run, going to cause more harm than good to the CCC system, and that is something, as consumers, you should be aware of.

If you would like to access the original article, please follow this link: https://thevalleycitizen.com/how-governor-brown-and-californias-democratic-leadership-are-destroying-our-community-colleges/