Bill analysis by the GCFA Advocacy Group at Gavilan College March 2012
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SB 1456 (Lowenthal)
Significant matriculation, power, funding changes in the CC system
This bill uses current tough but temporary budget problems in California to fundamentally and permanently change how Community Colleges are funded, run, and how they serve students, and would greatly limit who will be able to get a college education in California. This bill was introduced by the spouse of a member of the CC Board of Governors, which it would empower.
It would limit access for students in the following ways:
•It allows the CC Board of Governors, or BOG, to determine how low a student’s income must be before a student can get a fee waiver, this raises the possibility that students with real need who participate in state or federal poverty programs may not qualify for additional BOG requirements.
•It makes it harder for low income students to get BOG fee waivers if they aren’t “making progress” in college. Not everyone succeeds is their first semester or even their second. The BOG would define what “making progress” looks like, but the BOG has made it clear they like their students "successful" from the start--except that's not the CC population. Many students fail before they figure out how to learn in college. They are not stupid. It's a culture they need to learn to navigate. Many do learn. They just can't shoot through in two years like the middle class students this bill would privilege.
•SB 1456 allows the BOG, not the local colleges, to develop policies including a maximum unit cap. Because the BOG is clearly not committed to access for everyone, the BOG would undoubtedly created strict unit caps—110 units is being discussed, though many CC students need many more units to get through Basic Skills classes to transfer classes. It is typical for ESL students, for example, to take up to 80 units just to get up to speed in English. If students are cut off at 110 units, without regard to their needs, they will never make it to transfer. Perhaps that is the hope behind this bill—to deny the dreams of many non-traditional students?
•The bill targets counseling and advising for resources. Everyone agrees counseling and advising are important. But where will the money come from? There is no emphasis on instruction in this bill, and many insiders believe this to be an attack on the 50% rule that mandates half of CC spending be on instruction. Fewer sections and more students shut out could be one result. Another possible result would be that colleges would be tempted to handle increased demand for services by pushing students to use computerized systems or paraprofessionals—but these expensive substitutes will never be as effective as face to face counselors, and in fact could lead students seriously astray.
•This bill requires students to quickly complete an education plan so they can make measurable “progress” through the system in a race-like fashion. This is very poor educational policy and will simply not work for most students. Students are not ready to create an educational plan before they set foot in classes . They need to attend their classes, get oriented to college expectations, get grounded with their likes and dislikes, and only then are they ready to create an educational plan. This is why students need to register for classes for a semester or two, then see counselors based upon their experiences in college to develop their educational plans --they are better prepared to have a conversation after they have some college under their belts. Skipping this step will result in many students forced to choose before they are ready, eager to change plans, or stuck with plans that don’t work for them.
•SB 1456 establishes a "priority toward serving students who enroll to earn degrees,career technical certificates, or transfer" the bill says it will "focus funding" in these areas. Basic Skills students, non-credit students, people coming for professional skills brush-ups, and lifelong learners will not be prioritized, and eventually may not be supported or admitted, as demand by "priority" students will come first. How can ESL or casual students progress to transfer classes as they improve their skills and get interested/motivated without support? Most won't, and BOG doesn't really seem to care. It will also "leverage technology" to serve students. Many students are on the wrong side of the digital divide, however, and need college classes to learn how to use college technology.
•The bill suggests "referrals to” programs that teach ESL. There are fears that this may imply such programs would not be at the colleges themselves. At most colleges, a large segment of students are ESL students. As BOG does not include ESL students in its “priority” population above, their status is unclear at best and threatened at worst. Giving the BOG power to determine their fate, without local control, strikes many observers as dangerous, as BOG shows no commitment to these students.
•The bill suggests “referrals to” disabled student services. There are fears that this may imply that such programs would not be at the colleges themselves. Hundreds of thousands of students use these services at CCs—and under the Americans with Disabilities Act, they have the right to them. This is unclear at best, and threatening to ADA students at worst.
•The bill adds layers of services and review without additional funding. Where will the money come from? The only possible current source is from instruction, which means fewer classes for students.
•SB 1456 changes the funding mechanisms, putting all the funding in one basket, and then in any given year, the basket can be eliminated and nothing gets funded." In the 1986-87 2012-13 fiscal year and each fiscal year thereafter, this article shall be operative only if funds are specifically appropriated for thepurposes of this article." An unstable funding base is the best way to discourage students--if classes and services are not available, they go away. Someone wants them to go to private for-profit colleges, which must be very happy with this bill.
•By removing a longstanding guarantee that colleges “not exclude students from receiving appropriate educational services,” this bill sanctions excluding many students.
•The bill allows the BOG to decide what “responsibilities” students have. Thus the BOG could decide that its preference for full-time students who can speed through be made into an actual requirement that full-time students get priority registration or other perks over the 2/3 of CC students who must attend college part-time for a variety of good reasons.
SB 1456 would have other negative effects; it would
•Negatively affect funding and stability. This would require a whole set of new state-mandated programs whose implementation, according to the bill, would only be required in years that it is funded. What kind of college can whipsaw between funding and un-funding its services? How can any college make annual adjustments to its services?
•Make private technology and testing companies very happy and very wealthy by mandating use of their products for colleges that may already have satisfactory programs in place.
•Require CCs to begin an enormous data collection effort that would ultimately tie funding to “success” as defined by BOG—number of students completing classes, earning degrees and certificates, and/or graduating. This is despite the fact that many students come to CCs for other reasons—professional skills, basic skills, non-credit classes, life-long learning.
•Grab considerable power for the appointed BOG and away from locally elected Boards of Trustees, which are more accountable, more in touch with the communities, and more sensitive to local needs
•Take up to five percent of already-scarce matriculation funds to use for the administration of the bill.
SB 1062 (Lui)
Community College funding and decision-making authority
This bill would give the CC Board of Governors powers so vast they are not even defined in the bill, without clarification on what if anything would remain under local control. It would remove important protections against corruption in the appointment and service of Chancellors office personnel, and would give the CC Board of Governors unprecedented and injurious powers to mandate programs without funding them.
•SB 1062 gives the BOG power to establish procedures to adopt a broad range of rules and regulations that could change everything about the system—with limited discussion, rapid timelines, and very little input. This power grab would remove many decisions from the hands of locally elected, accountable Boards of Trustees who are sensitive to their communities, and place it in the hands of the BOG, which consists of political appointees who serve at the pleasure of the governor.
•The bill would eliminate civil service requirements for CC Chancellors Office Vice Presidents. These protections exist to protect the public from abuse of civil service appointments under patronage systems, and to keep people with political agendas or conflicts of interest from serving in positions which require integrity and fairness.
•SB 1062 would sweeten the pot for term-limited-out legislators by making them eligible for Chancellors Office Vice Presidential positions, above—whether or not they have strong educational qualifications, and without subjecting them to the civil service requirements that ensure integrity and competence in California’s appointed officials.
•By eliminating civil service requirements, this bill also sweeps away salary controls, clearing the way for more overpaid appointees in Sacramento.
•The bill would make it easy for BOG to mandate programs without funding them. This gives the BOG unprecedented, and dangerous, power, to punish local districts if they can’t afford to implement BOG programs.
SB 1560 (Anderson)
Community college funding
Currently, community colleges are funded according to number of students enrolled at the fourth week. This bill would give funding power to the state Board of Governors, and allow them to calculate funding using both enrollment at a fixed date of their choice and at course completion.
This bill, by itself, could end the Community College system as we know it by cutting funding and starving the system.( It echoes the No Child Left Behind K-12 federal law that penalizes schools for poor test student scores. ) Students fail to pass college classes for a hundred reasons, most of them not academic. But colleges have certain fixed costs: buildings, utilities, teachers. It costs a college the same whether 300 students pass a class or 20 students pass it. Thus this bill would
•force colleges to cut offerings due to reduced funding; this would eliminate college as an option for many students who won’t be able to get classes; others would turn to for-profit colleges with high debt ratios and low success rates
•force colleges to offer classes with high enrollments, resulting in less breadth and fewer options for students and certain major programs
•and/or require or encourage colleges to begin screening students so only those most successful (i.e., the middle class students who are well-prepared for college) would be let in to take classes