CCA joins our K-12 colleagues in campaign.
Community colleges welcome students who have completed high school as well as those who have not. We welcome students who have college-level skills as well as those who need remedial course work. Therefore, students educated in "low-performing" schools, that is, schools with students who score in the lowest 10 percent of the state's Academic Performance Index, frequently choose to attend a local community college.
Success stories abound
The community college system has done an outstanding job of educating students who have been passed through the system. In fact, I am one of those success stories. My community college experience not only opened my eyes to all kinds of possibilities, it also gave me the skills necessary to transfer to UCLA. As is often the case for our transfer students, I earned a higher GPA than the students who matriculated as freshmen.
CTA Board Member for Higher Education VirginiaAnn Shadwick, CCA President Dian Hasson and CTA President Wayne Johnson show their solidarity to support California's schools of greatest need.
Unfortunately, my ability to take classes such as reading and English at my local community college or to see my counselor when problems arose is not an option for many of our students today. There are often insufficient numbers of classes or counselors to accommodate all those who need our services. Some fail because they cannot get into an English, reading or math class suitable for their skills before taking other classes. Others find that expensive programs such as nursing or auto mechanics programs have not grown as fast as our student body. These students find that once again the educational institutions they attend do not have the resources for them. CCA feels it is a terrible situation when Californians accept the waste of our resources, especially when that resource is our children.
This is why the Community College Association is concerned about improving those schools of greatest need. We join our K-12 colleagues in the California Teachers Association in a campaign to focus resources on the state's highest priority schools.
Recognize high-priority schools
Instead of stigmatizing some K-12 schools as "low-performing" schools, we should recognize that they are our "highest-priority" schools. Instead of rewarding teachers, schools, and districts whose students perform well on the state's tests, we should divert this "merit pay" to help all students meet statewide standards. How do we justify giving bonuses to some teachers when students at low-performing schools such as Jordan High School in Watts do not have enough textbooks for their students? Something is seriously wrong with our priorities.
CTA conducted a study that we shared with the Assembly Select Committee on Low Performing Schools. Any of us could have guessed the conclusions of the study. Low academic achievement is linked to overcrowded schools, economically depressed neighborhoods, non-English speakers, and a lack of fully credentialed and experienced teachers in the classrooms. Seventy nine percent of the students in low-performing schools are Latino. The worst of us accept the lack of resources for and the lack of achievement of certain people. The best of us recognize that no group is inherently inferior. No group should find that the state's resources are not directed toward them. We must reach out to help these students by helping their schools. We cannot continue to allow another generation of students to be ignored. Therefore, we support CTA's legislative package, which directs funds to the "low-performing" K-12 schools.
Prepare all students
At the same time, the Community College Association must be prepared for all the students wishing to obtain an education on our campuses. For this reason, CCA/CTA is working on the following:
- increase the funding for growth in enrollment by $19 million, raising growth from 3 to 3.5 percent.
- increase the COLA above the highest it has been in 20 years. We expect a COLA higher than 3.9 percent with perhaps a Super COLA attached.
- maintain the $62 million for the first ever line-item for part-time faculty equity.
- gain a COLA for the Partnership for Excellence program, so that we encourage districts to hire full-time faculty with PFE funds.
- gain a COLA for the Academic Senate. It is a small amount but will allow our statewide Academic Senate to keep up with inflation.
- gain funds for equalization, noncredit education, technology, and the other needs.
The energy crisis is real but so is our commitment to providing adequate funding for the K-12 and the community college systems. After the May 14 Revise, CCA will renew our efforts in the legislature and with our governor so that every thirty years we do not need to rediscover that we have two societies, separate and unequal.
I think Dan Walters said it best in his March 8, 2001 "Sacramento Bee" commentary when he wrote that there is " a very subtle, but real, form of class prejudice." He continued, "That's why politicians are lavishing many hundreds of millions of dollars on a new UC campus near Merced that can't even find a satisfactory handles two-thirds of the demand for post high school education."