Response of the Academic Senate
for California Community Colleges to the California
Master Plan for Education, May 2002 Draft
GENERAL REMARKS
The most compelling section
of the draft Master Plan-and the most compelling
work group report-was that on school readiness.
On page nine of the May 2002 draft Plan, there
is a list of key experiences to which infants
and toddlers should have access. This list is
moving in its manifestation of love and concern
for our children. At the end of the list is the
statement that the "foregoing issues may
not be primarily educational in nature" -but
we would argue that loving concern is at the heart
of education at every level, that it is the heart
and soul of all good teaching.
Our principal reservation about
the draft Plan is that it manifests an overdeveloped
left brain and an underdeveloped heart. The heart
seems to disappear as soon as we go beyond infants
and toddlers.
For example, on page thirteen,
there is a list of qualities essential for a teacher
to be considered initially qualified. The first
item on that list is the "belief that every
child can achieve state-adopted academic content
and performance standards with the appropriate
time, instruction and intervention." How
different that seems-and what a different direction
that points for us-than something like "the
belief that every student is a center of value,
a unique constellation of potentialities, which,
with nurturing, can be brought to their full realization."
To acknowledge that our "product"
at every level of education is human beings, and
that our responsibility as educators is, again,
at every level, to help them become more complete
as people, has implications in every area addressed
by the Plan.
For example, in the area of
professional development, it would result in less
emphasis on the mastery of techniques (which,
unfortunately, is what most teacher training is
all about), and might instead point us down the
path delineated by Parker Palmer in his book The
Courage to Teach. Palmer shows us that we become
better teachers to the degree that we become more
authentic ourselves, and are thus able to relate
authentically to our students. Professional development
can focus on techniques, or it can focus on the
need for authenticity- and there is no technique
for becoming authentic. There are, however, conditions
that are conducive to authentic behavior, and
faculty can certainly focus on creating the supportive
and trusting environments for themselves and their
students in which authenticity may flourish.
Another example would be that
of the financing of education. The Plan recognizes
in its treatment of pre-K and K-12 education the
need for compensatory resources for those who
are socio-economically disadvantaged. There is
no such recognition, however, in the treatment
of postsecondary schooling. To argue, as the Plan
seems to do, that this is because there is no
state mandate for higher education, is to seriously
miss the point. The fact is that the per-student
funding of the post secondary segments is significantly
disparate, with the University of California currently
funded at $25,000 per FTES, the California State
University funded at $11,000 per FTES, and the
Community Colleges funded at $4,700 per FTES.
This funding pattern extends back at least to
1965, with very little fluctuation over the past
37 years. This pattern, which clearly discriminates
in favor of the rich and against the poor, hardly
embodies the principle that all of our citizens,
by virtue of their humanity, have a right to fulfill
their potential. Indeed, the pattern seems to
embody the opposite perspective, and yet nowhere
is it challenged in the current draft of the Plan.
We recommend that the Plan extend the "adequacy
model" to the postsecondary segments, and
that it lay the foundation for a positive response
to the "Real Costs of Education" analysis
currently underway by the Chancellor's Office
of the California Community Colleges.
RESPONSES
TO RECOMMENDATIONS
In what follows, the Academic Senate will comment
only on those recommendations about which it has
serious reservations or which it strongly supports.
RECOMMENDATION 10.2 - The California
Community Colleges, California State
University and University of California shall
report to the Legislature the set of
activities reserved for permanent/tenure-track
faculty and the rationale for why
temporary faculty cannot be enlisted to assist
in carrying out such activities.
There is an image of the typical
college student and of typical college attendance
patterns that seems to dominate the draft Plan,
and which is rooted, we suspect, in the rapidly
fading vision of computer-based distance education.
This vision of "anytime, anywhere" education
sees students as rooted in no single institution,
but as drifting from one college to another, taking
a course here and a course there, surfing their
way toward their educational goals. However, the
Web has not materialized as the dominant medium
of delivery it was once envisioned to become;
our own data show that distance education is a
minuscule component of our overall effort and
is liable to remain that way. For the vast majority
of our 2 1/2 million students who receive their
instruction in classrooms, the vision of student-as-drifter
from institution to institution does not apply.
And to the extent that it does, we consider the
situation to be unhealthy.
A phenomenological look at our
own educations reveals in the case of our best
institutions an intimacy and family-like community
which leads us to think of the college from which
we each graduate as our "alma mater,"
the "bounteous mother" who has nurtured
us, who has valued us and helped to make us whole.
The principal argument against the use of part-time
faculty is not that they cannot perform this or
that specific function (if compensated, which
is a big "if"); it is rather that the
college family requires full time commitment and
participation if it is to be fully functional.
The analogy of the nurturing family applies not
only to faculty, but to students as well. The
student who indeed drifts from school to school,
is like the foster child being passed from home
to home. She may receive love and attention and
achieve, in a technical sense, her educational
goals, but she will have no "alma mater,"
and we believe that that is a significant deficit.
In sum, this is another instance of the Committee
thinking too much with its head and too little
with its heart. Faculty responsibilities and college
life itself cannot be reduced to a "set of
activities," and the submission of the lists
and rationales called for in this recommendation
will certainly not generate or support those values
which gave substance and lifelong meaning to the
educational experiences of the Committee members
themselves. We urge the Committee members, therefore,
to make their own educational experiences the
touchstone of their recommendations, and not to
be seduced by the false claim that the world has
changed so much that those experiences are irrelevant.
Again, the most disturbing feature of this draft
of the plan is that it is out of touch with the
fundamental and enduring values of education,
with the result that it risks denying those values
to future generations.
RECOMMENDATION 15: Supporting
text: Our current system …assumes that all
students at each grade will achieve a prescribed
set of standards within a set amount of instructional
time. This assumption is contrary to reality.
RECOMMENDATION 15.2 - The State
should assign responsibility and provide
targeted resources at the postsecondary level
to enable increasing numbers of
college students to succeed in their academic
coursework and attain certificates and
degrees.
RECOMMENDATION 16: Provide additional
learning support services at grades three and
eight, in the last two years of high school, and
during the first year of college to assist students
who take longer to meet standards or may be ready
to accelerate.
While we believe that the specifics
of Recommendation 16 may need further discussion
(the last two years of high school, for example,
might be a bit late for the recommended intervention),
we support these recommendations and believe that
they have particular relevance to the later discussion
of student achievement. We endorse especially
the supporting text for Recommendation 21 when
it observes that "supplemental support programs,
at every level from pre-kindergarten through university,
must focus on having all students 'keep up' rather
than having to 'catch up.'" Our own research
in basic skills suggests that the Committee is
correct in asserting in the supporting text to
Recommendation 21 that "Interventions must
not be of the type traditionally used in remedial
programs - for example, stand-alone programs focused
on basic skills. Rather, they should consist of
additional time and instructional support in a
curriculum that is matched to course standards…."
While our research is not complete, initial surveys
and discussions with experts in the field indicate
that remediation is most effective when it is
perceived by students as part of the progression
toward their educational goals, as opposed to
an obstacle between them and those goals.
Lack of adequate preparation
is clearly a major problem for students in the
community colleges, given that we are the institutions
that offer access to all those who might benefit
and are frequently institutions of the "second
chance" for those who have failed to succeed
elsewhere. We certainly applaud the Committee's
focus on strengthening K-12 education, and especially
its emphasis on the equitable provision of adequate
resources. Whereas this will no doubt be the dominant
component of a long-term solution to college readiness,
the community colleges in the short term will
have to retain remedial instruction as a major
feature of their mission. Because our students
have "farther to go" than those in the
other public segments, the equitable provision
of adequate resources is especially important
to the community colleges. As indicated earlier,
we believe that there is currently an inversion
of resources in postsecondary education such that
those who need the most are receiving the least.
We would like to see this problem recognized and
addressed in the new Master Plan.
RECOMMENDATION 21: Supporting
text: We have reviewed staff analysis and other
credible studies and are convinced that measurement
matters.
While we agree in some senses
about the importance of assessing student achievement
and progress (see response to next recommendation),
we feel that the Committee has tilted much too
far in the current draft toward embracing a focus
on measurable student learning outcomes. In this,
the authors of the Plan seem to share the perspective
of the Accrediting Commission of Community and
Junior Colleges, which has recently adopted new
Standards that have measurable student learning
outcomes at their core. We are attaching copies
of the Academic Senate's critique of the standards,
resolutions passed at our plenary sessions, and
a letter to the Commission.
For one thing, there is absolutely
no data or research supporting the contention
that a focus on measurable student learning outcomes
truly improves the quality of education. Repeated
requests to the Accrediting Commission and to
so-called experts on learning outcomes have resulted
in no data being forthcoming. There is, however,
substantial evidence that efforts to measure learning
outcomes result in a massive diversion of resources
into data collection and into faculty activities
that are at best tangential to their primary roles
as educators. And, as we said, there is no evidence
that these expenditures of money and energy are
productive of qualitative improvements in students'
education.
Most importantly, we feel that
the stress on learning outcomes is not credible
in that it reflects a vision of education, or
a theoretical model, that is contrary to the reality
of education itself. Again, if the members of
the Committee would use their own educational
experience as a touchstone, they could not help
but recognize that the most significant effects
of their own educations are not measurable, and
could not have been displayed on tests taken upon
the granting of their degrees. Education, we suggested
earlier, is concerned with the whole person, with
self-actualization. As such, it provides one with
the resources for living one's life richly and
productively, and with the confidence for doing
the same. One's educational experience remains
with one through the duration of one's life, inseparable
from one's growth and development as a person.
Unfortunately, the misplaced obsession with short-term
learning outcomes would reduce the capacity of
our institutions to play this critical, life-affirming
role by diverting resources into irrelevant activities.
RECOMMENDATION 21.2 - The State
should encourage…postsecondary institutions
to develop end-of-course assessments that can
serve the dual purposes of measuring what a student
has mastered…and of the student's readiness
to successfully undertake learning at the next…level.
We have such end-of-course assessments:
they are called "final examinations."
We cannot help but wonder at the source of the
distrust, evident throughout much of the Plan,
of so many of the things we do, and do very well.
We feel certain that the source is not our students;
their demands for accountability take the form
of a call for teachers who can teach, for sufficient
sections of the classes they need, and for counselors,
librarians and other support staff who will be
there when they need them. And despite levels
of funding that systematically discriminate against
our students, the California community colleges
regularly satisfy their expectations. (We except
well-maintained facilities and adequate technologies
from our list; because these cannot be carried
on the backs of personnel, they have been and
remain inadequate.)
With respect to examinations
and to those measures of student success that
we call grades, the faculty within our system,
to the extent that resources permit, engage in
faculty development activities designed to increase
the effectiveness of examinations and the accuracy
of their evaluation. We would certainly understand,
and indeed we would welcome, a call to intensify
our efforts in this regard, coupled with a recommendation
for adequate levels of funding for faculty development.
What we do not understand-and hence do not welcome-are
the implications that we care so little for students
and are so professionally derelict or inept that
our efforts need to be replaced by something with
"true" value and significance.
RECOMMENDATION 22: California's
colleges and universities should work collaboratively
to develop a means of assessing the learning of
students enrolled in public postsecondary education.
This recommendation and its
supporting text illustrate the point just made.
It is indeed truly offensive. Look, for example,
at the closing sentences of the supporting text:
We have confidence that the expertise exists among
our talented faculty to make significant progress
in this area. California's taxpayers deserve nothing
less than our best efforts. The reference to "our
talented faculty" is clearly patronizing
and insincere; the author of the Plan has just
held forth at length implying the incompetence
of faculty to perform meaningful assessment. Were
this recommendation to be implemented, California
taxpayers would deserve to be outraged at the
waste of resources involved in this effort to
accomplish what are already integral features
of the educational process: assessment through
papers, examinations and other assignments, and
final grades. Again, who among the Committee members
or their staff has determined that college and
university faculty are so incompetent in the area
of assessment? Is this the consequence of someone
once receiving a grade that they didn't like?
RECOMMENDATION 24: The Legislature
should mandate the development of transparent
and sustainable articulation and transfer processes
to provide students with clear curriculum guidance
on the transition between high school and college
and between and among two- and four-year colleges
and universities that avoids the complexity of
campus-by-campus differentiation.
For almost 100 years, in the
case of the community colleges, and more than
that in the other segments, the campuses of the
three public segments of higher education in California
have developed autonomously, with the result that
this state offers a richer diversity of educational
opportunities than any other. This institutional
diversity is a source of value for the students
of the state. In the case of the four-year colleges
and universities, different approaches to curriculum
and instruction make it possible for students
to choose not only the school that offers instruction
in their primary field of interest, but also the
campus whose approach to education is most conducive
to the student's development as a person. Community
colleges also offer a variety of options allowing
for this personal "fit" of student to
campus; they also offer students the advantage
that each has developed in response to the economic
and social needs of a specific community.
In sum, we see the "complexity
of campus-by-campus differentiation" to be
a positive value supportive of students' progress
toward their educational goals. The draft Plan,
on the other hand, seems to press for the homogenization
of our campuses, which would deny students the
advantages of institutional diversity. As our
response to the next recommendation will indicate,
we believe that the transfer needs of students
can be accommodated without this loss.
RECOMMENDATION 24.1 - The governing
boards of the University of California,
California State University, and California Community
College system should
establish an intersegmental group of faculty to
devise system-wide articulation
agreements that will enable students to transfer
units between and among public
colleges and universities in California.
The Intersegmental Committee
of Academic Senates (ICAS), through its IMPAC
(Intersegmental Major Preparation Articulated
Curriculum) project, is bringing faculty from
the three segments together in regional and statewide
meetings to discuss competencies required for
transfer to upper division majors. In the course
of these discussions, artificial barriers to transfer
are identified and eliminated, and the ground
is laid for articulation agreements between community
colleges and their four-year counterparts. Because
of the institutional diversity to which we have
referred, these agreements must often be on a
campus-by-campus basis. Nevertheless, the information
necessary for these agreements is being generated
and distributed statewide and, as agreements are
reached, they are recorded in the ASSIST database
(whose of efficacy is currently threatened by
inadequate funding).
Currently, we are not permitted
to require students seeking intra- or intersegmental
transfer to seek counseling. The Legislature could
help us here, not only by giving us the authority
to impose such a requirement, but by funding us
at levels that would permit us to hire counselors
in sufficient numbers. (A recent survey by a Chancellor's
Office task force indicates that, statewide, our
counselor/student ratio is 1/1500.)
The area of transfer is one
of those in which the earlier-mentioned Master
Plan view of the student as peripatetic institutional
drifter seems to predominate. We maintain that
students generally do-and should-navigate the
shoals of intersegmental transfer only once. We
believe further that the combination of IMPAC-generated
major preparation information, campus-to-campus
articulation agreements, and required counseling
would minimize the trauma of transfer and the
need for students to repeat work already completed.
At the same time, such an arrangement would preserve
the rich variety of choices currently available
to California's postsecondary students.
RECOMMENDATION 24.2 - The University
of California, California State University, and
California Community College systems should establish
an intersegmental group that includes faculty
and students, to consider what steps need to be
taken to establish a transfer Associate's degree,
within the existing Associate degree unit requirements,
the attainment of which will guarantee admission,
and course transferability, to any CSU or UC campus
for students successfully completing the transfer
degree program.
The Intersegmental Committee
of Academic Senates (ICAS) has discussed the transfer
Associate's degree and decided, at its last meeting
of the current year, that the development of such
a degree would not be helpful and was not worthy
of further consideration. Community colleges currently
develop transfer degrees on a campus-by-campus
basis, many of them have done so, and the Academic
Senate believes that this is the appropriate approach
to such a degree.
The reasons for our dissent
from this recommendation are summarized in the
following notes, made by staff of the Community
College Chancellor's Office reflecting faculty
concerns, for a task force meeting on Recommendation
24.2 held this past May:
What is the nature of the guarantee as envisioned?
RE: CSU - The Master Plan refers to a "guarantee"
of transfer, but such a guarantee already exists
for CSU campuses and programs that are not impacted.
A student who completes 58 units at 2.0 (in
the correct pattern) is "guaranteed"
a slot at CSU, however this is a somewhat hollow
guarantee due to impacted campuses and impacted
programs (which are rising dramatically). Unless
CSU will provide a super guarantee (campus and
major of your choice) there is no value added
in the concept. RE: UC - Certainly UC will not
guarantee admission without additional academic
criteria.
We already provide guarantees on an individual
basis (TAAs and TAGs) that are much more precise
tools for education planning. (And CSU is officially
exploring an enhanced program of transfer guarantees
at this very moment.)
What would constitute the general education
pattern of such a degree? Would it be based
upon IGETC? CSU Breadth? Some new compromise?
Using either IGETC or CSUB to the exclusion
of the other would be disastrous for some populations
of students. We have arrived at a fairly workable
GE pattern that meets UC and CSU needs; this
attempt at standardization could threaten current
stability.
What about science and math majors? The current
GE pattern is deficient. At the moment, IMPAC
and others are exploring the notion of a "SCI-GETC"
or more intense GE pattern for science and math
majors. This effort at more precise preparation
could be threatened by a move to water down
requirements for standardization.
What about major preparation? There is wide
variety in the number and type of units required/recommended
for major prep. Will this degree have a specific
number or type? If not, then what constitutes
this portion of the degree?
What about electives? Would just any electives
do? Or will there be some requirement/recommendation
that electives complement intended major? Who
will decide?
It is certainly possible to design the appropriate
60-unit program for a potential transfer student,
but the design differs by student choice of
college and choice of major. (And changes so
frequently!) To pretend otherwise is a disservice
in student educational planning. Students typically
make numerous shifts in their goals; a simplistic
approach may mislead them and waste their time.
If these precise questions cannot be answered
(what are the GE requirements, major prep recommendations,
appropriate electives and the required number
in each category) then what would officially
constitute such a degree? Would it not become
essentially what we have already…a situation
where a student must design the appropriate
lower division course work based upon their
individual choices and goals? We could call
it a "degree" but in reality it would
simply be an individual recommendation for a
particular pattern of courses.
Would it do any harm to pursue such a degree?
Perhaps it would?
The creation of a transfer degree may
denigrate other AA degrees as "merely
vocational".
Students may be misled by simplistic
statements and thus fail to design a sufficiently
detailed educational plan.
Statewide standards might be insufficient
to prepare certain students, thus causing
them to take extra units after transfer.
The notion of a "guarantee"
can set up failed expectations.
Campuses often put extra, not transfer-related,
units in an AA degree --- do we want transfer
students to take extra units?
Perhaps not?
A widely advertised pattern with a guaranteed
CSU outcome (for certain campuses, not all)
might be of value for some portion of our
transfer population. If CSU intends to extend
a true guarantee (any campus, any program)
then there might be a great value. (But
this would still be just a CSU guarantee,
not UC or independent or out-of-state guarantee
--- not a transfer guarantee.)
If the concept of the degree causes students
to seek appropriate counseling and determine
an appropriate plan for their individually
designed "degree" it could serve
as an incentive for better planning.
The greatest danger lies in the idea, not
the reality, we fear. Policy makers have attached
themselves to this idea as a panacea for transfer
woes. It is not a cure or a solution (or even
a very good idea except in a narrow sense).
This may divert energy and resources from the
real needs (more counselors, more full-time
faculty, more transfer staff, more articulation
officers, greater funds spent on faculty consultation
re: curriculum, more money for college visits,
for outreach, etc.), which may be less attractive
for legislators.
Most people agree (so far in
our limited consultation) that the transfer degree
is of value in a local context when designed as
an umbrella concept to contain a wide variety
of preparatory plans. It now serves in maybe 1/4
of the colleges (or less) as a marketing strategy
to get students to understand they need to plan
their units. To go beyond that local vision (which
is successful in some campuses and unsuccessful
in others) could be a waste and a diversion of
limited resources at this time.
We feel that these considerations
are decisive with respect to this issue.
RECOMMENDATION 30.1 - The State's
accountability framework for postsecondary education
should be improved by modification and expansion
of the 'partnership' budget approach, currently
applied to UC and CSU, to include all postsecondary
education, clarify the link between performance
and funding, and adopt realistic alternatives
for times of revenue downturns.
We are opposed to performance
based funding in education. Our reasons are set
forth in the paper, Performance Based Funding:
A Faculty Critique and Action Agenda, adopted
by the Academic Senate plenary body in spring
1998, a copy of which is attached. Simply put,
funding is not and never will be the reason we
work hard for the success of our students. Rather,
the desire to do such work is the reason why we
are community college faculty in the first place.
The chronic absence of adequate funding, however,
certainly prevents us from doing our jobs as well
as we would like.
RECOMMENDATION 37: The California
Community College Board of Governors should be
reconstituted as a public trust responsible for
overall governance, setting system policy priorities,
budget advocacy, and accountability for a multi-campus
system.
We agree that the California
Community College System should be reconstituted
as a public trust. We understand this recommendation
to be an effort to move the community colleges
into full partnership with the other postsecondary
segments. Such a move seems to us to be essential
if community college students are ever to be afforded
educational opportunities on a par with their
four-year counterparts. The pattern of disparate
funding mentioned earlier reflects a view of the
community colleges as the stepchildren of postsecondary
education, and of community college students as
undeserving of equity. It is our hope that the
proposed change in governance structure would
help to correct the perceptions behind this discriminatory
pattern of funding.
RECOMMENDATION 43: The Legislature
should direct the development of a California
Quality Education Model, to be consistent with
the parameters set forth in this Plan, and use
that model to determine an adequate level of funding
necessary to support a high quality education
for every student….
As mentioned at the close of
our introductory remarks, we recommend that the
Plan extend the "adequacy model" of
funding to the postsecondary segments and, with
respect to the community colleges, that the Legislature
consider the "Real Costs of Education"
analysis currently underway by the Chancellor's
Office as the Quality Education Model for our
system.
RECOMMENDATION 48: The State
should adopt policies to provide more stability
for finance and dampen the 'boom and bust' swings
of state appropriations for postsecondary education.
RECOMMENDATION 48.1 - The State
should establish the California Community Colleges'
share of overall state revenues guaranteed by
Proposition 98 to K-14 education at 10.93 percent.
RECOMMENDATION 49: The Legislature
and the Governor should reform the State's approach
to student charges in the public segments and
maintain the Cal Grant need-based financial aid
entitlement.
RECOMMENDATION 49.1 - The State
should adopt a student fee policy aimed at stabilizing
student fees and should resist the pressure to
buy out student fee increases or reduce student
fees at CCC, CSU and UC during good economic times.
RECOMMENDATION 49.3 -State policy
should be changed to allow additional fee revenue
collected by community colleges to remain with
each college, without a General Fund offset, whenever
fiscal conditions compel fees to be increased.
The Academic Senate agrees that
the financing of postsecondary education needs
to be stabilized and insulated against the boom
and bust swings of the state's economy. It would
certainly be a positive move toward the adequate
financing of the community colleges to provide
them with their statutorily guaranteed share of
Proposition 98 funds.
We oppose the "high fee,
high aid" approach to the stabilization of
postsecondary funding, although we would agree
that any increase in community college fees should
augment the funding of the community colleges.
In general, however, we believe that our commitment
to open access requires fidelity to the promise
of the 1960 Master Plan of a tuition-free postsecondary
education for all those who might benefit. We
have seen historically that even minor increases
in fees have a disproportionate impact on community
college enrollments, and we support, therefore,
a policy that would eliminate fees altogether
as opposed to one based on regular moderate increases.
The Academic Senate for California
Community Colleges would like to thank the Joint
Committee for this opportunity to comment on the
May 2002 draft of the Master Plan.
