Editorial: Stick to the basics at community colleges

A budget crunch is an obvious time to return to essentials. That's true for a family, a business or a government.

So we're encouraged that belt-tightening is being taken seriously by the huge California Community Colleges system, with 112 campuses and more than 2.9 million students. In 2011, the state Legislature slashed the system's $5.9 billion budget by $502 million. More cuts could come with Gov. Jerry Brown's proposed budget for fiscal 2012-13, which begins July 1.

At the Jan. 9-10 meeting of the system's Board of Governors, action will be taken on recommendations from the Student Success Task Force to streamline the curriculum. The task force's main recommendation, released Dec. 1, was to "emphasize the core missions of transfer to a four-year college or university, the award of workforce-oriented certificates and degrees, and the basic-skills development that supports both of these pathways."

Other courses, such as for hobbies or enjoyment, would not be emphasized as much. As the San Francisco Chronicle noted, "Last spring, 203,500 students statewide took noncredit classes, and 1.5 million took classes for credit." While taking dancing and other lifestyle classes might be fun, there's no reason why the taxpayers should subsidize such pursuits, especially in a time of sharp budget cuts.

The task force noted some dismal numbers for the current system: "Only 52 percent of our degree-seeking students ever achieve a certificate, degree or transfer preparation. For African-American and Latino students, the rate is much lower (41 percent)." And: "Of our students who seek to transfer to a four-year institution, only 41 percent are successful. For African-Americans, only 34 percent succeed. For Latinos, the figure is 31 percent."

That's just not acceptable. A big problem, according to the Chronicle, is that the schools haven't been devoting enough resources to offering basic courses that are in high demand. The paper reported, "Last year, 137,000 students couldn't get into at least one class they needed, including first-year English and math."

"The problem with community colleges reflects the higher-education bubble," Lisa Snell told us; she's director of education policy at the Reason Foundation in Los Angeles. "California state funding, Pell Grants and federal funding all have risen in recent decades [prior to the current recession and series of budget cuts], but there's no accountability to go with that, such as graduation rates or job rates. They haven't been tied to performance."

"To contain costs, they need to return to essential services," Ms. Snell said.

The task force noted another problem: "More than 70 percent of community-college students enter the system underprepared to do college-level work." That reflects, of course, on the dismal state of K-12 education in California. About one-third of students entering the community college system ? who, by definition, are more advanced than most kids who graduate from high school ? actually are prepared to do so.

Tax increases only would add to the funding-bubble effect Ms. Snell mentioned. At all levels of education, waste and inefficiency need to be eliminated, the basics stressed.

FOLLOW US @OCRegLetters

WRITE A LETTER TO THE EDITOR Letters to the Editor: E-mail to letters@ocregister.com. Please provide your name, city and telephone number (telephone numbers will not be published). Letters of about 200 words or videos of 30-seconds each will be given preference. Letters will be edited for length, grammar and clarity.

Source: http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/students-333361-system-percent.html

paterno oakland raiders carson palmer al davis edmund fitzgerald vincent brown vincent brown