presented by The Academic Senate
for California Community Colleges
December 9, 2003
Kate Clark, President, Academic
Senate for California Community Colleges (Professor
of English, Irvine Valley College)
Ian Walton, Vice-President, Academic Senate for
California Community Colleges (Professor of Mathematics,
Mission College)
Mark Snowhite, Secretary, Academic Senate for
California Community Colleges (Professor of English,
Crafton Hills College)
Fundamental
Assumptions
In these weeks following the death of former UC
President Clark Kerr it seems particularly appropriate
to pay tribute to the 1960 Master Plan for Higher
Education - and to reflect on its vision and its
achievements. That plan created the best system
of higher education in the world. And during its
forty years of operation California has grown
to be the fifth largest economy in the world.
At the community college level,
the vision was to provide universal access to
all who could benefit - without assessing them
fees. Even today, the Assembly's Working Group
on Community College Funding concurs with the
concept of accessibility to "all eligible
students" as a funding principle for the
community colleges. The California taxpayer apparently
believed that this was a worthwhile investment
in the social and economic fabric of the state.
That belief has paid handsome dividends in the
last forty years.
We believe that the role of
the Assembly Higher Education Committee must be
to champion the profound vision of that 1960 plan,
to ensure its accomplishments and to fight for
its ongoing implementation in good times and in
bad. We can't imagine a more worthwhile challenge,
or a more suitable group to lead it than you.
Yet the Committee's exploration
seems to be based on two dangerous, but unspoken,
fundamental assumptions:
1) the California taxpayer is
no longer willing to fund the higher education
vision of the 1960 plan, and
2) as an immediate consequence,
the proportion of cost borne by the state through
taxpayers must decrease while those eager to participate
in higher education must pay for their privilege.
If you accept those assumptions,
then you're trapped on an ever-quickening treadmill
of budget cuts, fee increases and compromised
quality. In today's testimony, we will challenge
those two assumptions, and we ask the Committee
to challenge those assumptions.
First, the California taxpayer
has never been presented with a plan that says:
here's how to continue California's amazingly
effective system of higher education;
and here's what it will cost;
are you willing to pay for it?
Second, as we will discuss,
the assumption that students must now pay for
their own education is morally bankrupt. It suggests
that taxpayers who benefited from the 1960 Master
Plan and whose children benefited are no longer
willing to pay for the same benefits for the current
generation of students. We don't believe that
it true, and the wild successes of recent community
college bond measures provide evidence that we
are correct.
Use of
Technology
Over the years, many attempts have been many to
provide "cheap" education. In general
we get exactly that - we get what you pay for.
One such suggestion that has surfaced in many
different guises in the last thirty years is the
technology myth: "replace expensive teachers
and buildings with cheap computers and software."
I've been involved with education
and technology ever since I worked on a National
Science Foundation project at UC Santa Cruz in
the 1970s. I was the Academic Senate's Technology
Chair for three years. I've used technology to
enhance my mathematics teaching both in the classroom
environment and in an online distance education
mode. I believe in technology - when it's correctly
used.
I can personally attest to the
wisdom of the Academic Senate's position: you
can use technology effectively to enhance the
learning experience of students - in a variety
of ways and for a variety of different subgroups
of students with different needs. But it's never
cheap. And it's never a blanket replacement for
existing methods.
Many small local technology
experiments at the community college level are
highly successful - you heard about one particular
example earlier. But there's no evidence for successful
mass scale deployment at an affordable cost -
let alone at a reduced cost. Studies show that
the very technology-based programs that are judged
the most successful are all more expensive than
traditional instruction - because they need hardware,
software, technical support, faculty development,
and smaller class sizes in order to be successful.
And these are ongoing expenses.
In addition to cost is the question
of effectiveness. Consider that we can probably
take a Stanford student and have her learn no
matter what teaching technique you use. That's
absolutely not true of students who find educational
growth more challenging - for any number of individual
reasons. And that's precisely the types of students
that the community colleges serve so successfully.
Those students are not well served by a one-size-fits-all
technology approach.
While approaches to instruction
that use technology have a place in our community
colleges, as we will note below, we cannot rely
on technology as a panacea. Our students would
be much better served by directing money to already
proven methods and support structures
small classes with individual human interaction
more counselors than the current ratio of
1 counselor to over 1900 students
and a level of funding that is better than
what we currently rely on, which is $2300 below
the national average.
Community College Students and Technology-Mediated
Instruction
California's Community College faculty is proud
of the widespread technology mediated instruction
presently used. Recently, a faculty Task Force
appointed by the Intersegmental Committee of Academic
Senates (ICAS), published its findings on the
"Competencies in Reading, Writing, Critical
Thinking, ESL Achievement, and Use of Technologies
Expected of Students Entering UC, CSU and the
California Community Colleges." As part of
their survey to determine interdisciplinary faculty
views, the Task Force asked about faculty's use
of technology for instructional purposes. Community
College faculty in all disciplines indicated a
much higher rate of use, of future intended use,
and of familiarity with such technology than did
their counterparts in the other two segments.
Faculty employ broad, conventional distance education
(courses offered on-line, through canned TV presentations
or similar media to students at some distance)
and make local uses of technology in two increasingly
common formats:
hybrid classrooms (in which classroom lecture
and discussion is augmented or partially supplanted
by use of the internet, on-line discussion groups,
email, assignments posted and submitted electronically);
and
self-paced courses or modules that enable
students to work independently but with in-person
access to faculty for assistance and clarification.
These instructional approaches enable students
to
have access to a mode of instruction best
suited to their unique learning style
build their technological competency, skills
useful for the workplace as well as their own
advanced academic work;
complete any local graduation requirements
for informational competency
work outside of class on matters needing
clarity or additional drill
avoid repetition of courses
receive focused attention from faculty while
not disrupting the progress of other students
enrolled in that same class;
Yet all technology-mediated
instruction shares these challenges that make
economies of scale unlikely.
1. Such instruction (either to large distance
education classes or in smaller workshop or lab
settings), is labor-intensive, not labor saving.
2. Such instruction in the community
college setting is often a matter of contractual
variation: sizes of classes, duration of classes,
hours of instruction and faculty compensation
are subject to local negotiations.
3. Such instruction is not appropriate
for all students (e.g., a conversion of all sections
of mathematics to a single mode of delivery),
most especially for those students who need one-on-one
attention and encouragement, who have marginal
competency in English comprehension, or who need
basic skills instructions to succeed generally
in that class.
4. Such instruction is decidedly
more expensive in its call for updated hardware
and software, technical support for faculty and
for students, training of faculty, conversion
of curriculum (course outlines, readings, pacing
of syllabus), purchase of site-licenses and other
instructional materials for faculty and for student
use.
5. Research focused on the broader
needs of community college students who lack uniformity
of preparation, and who may lack experience with
the technology and access to it, does not appear
to parallel the results at four-year institutions.
Often, these studies suggest high marks in student
satisfaction and improved academic accomplishments.
However, community college faculty observes that
under closer examination, the research seldom
controls for differences in subject area or student
preparation. Further, these studies indicate virtually
no control for rigor (content and standards),
and the research does not address the importance
of selectivity of the student subjects themselves.
Such studies often do not address the difficulties
our community college faculty report: fewer students
successfully complete courses, and uncertainty
about students' ability to succeed in subsequent
classes. (For a sample study conducted by one
California community college, see Attachment A.)
Our current methods yield transfer students who
are at least as successful as continuing students
who started out at any given UC or CSU--and our
transfer students are usually better. If 60% of
CSUs graduates are community college transfers,
research must be persuasive to convince community
college faculty to abandon all tried-and-true
teaching methods that have enabled their students
to succeed thus far.
The State, despite its currently
professed interest in the use of technology to
affect cost savings, has not shown an inclination
to fund their interest. Several years ago, when
funds were more abundant, the legislature could
have funded the Community College system's Technology
II Plan, recognizing a Total Cost of Ownership
approach that would have provided on-going updating
of hardware and software. The legislature did
not fund that project. Is it likely now to do
so to achieve these same instructional ends?
Funding and Mission
In its discussion of California's 1960 Master
Plan for Higher Education, the Work Group asserted
a need to "prioritize among" (1) students
with academic or vocational goals, (2) "students
taking leisure or enrichment classes, and (3)
students needing basic skills and/or a precollegiate
level instruction." We believe that such
distinctions inaccurately describe our students.
Categorizations such as "precollegiate basic
skills" and "leisure" or "enrichment"
are used to code courses, not describe why students
enroll in or perhaps need these courses.
Further, it is impossible and
unjust to attribute motive to our students: perhaps
an older student with a degree in history believes
she is taking a basic skills math class to "brush
up," only to discover she needs this course
in her workplace, especially when she is displaced
and must now develop new job skills. Is she enrolling
for "personal enrichment," "basic
skills instruction," "vocational"
or job retraining, or academic preparation that
may lead her to a new profession? Are students
who enroll in study skills courses merely taking
an "enrichment" class, or a course that
may just ensure their retention, their successful
completion of other courses thus avoiding retaking
courses and displacing other students or delaying
time-to-degree.
As the Assembly Committee on
Higher Education grapples with the problem of
adequately funding the community colleges, we
would like it to keep in mind the importance of
three of our primary missions, transfer, vocational
education, and basic skills-and the difficulty
we would have ranking them in importance.
Clearly the transfer function
is critical in allowing many students the opportunity
of earning a bachelor's degree. Thousands of students
transfer each year from the community colleges
to UC and CSU campuses, and many more are admitted
to the state's independent four-year institutions.
At CSU Dominquez Hills, about 80% of upper division
students are community college transfers. Furthermore,
our students as a group perform as well as or
slightly better than students who begin at four-year
public institutions. Thus we seem to be doing
a good job of preparing our transfer students.
Our challenge now appears to be finding the capacity
for community college transfer students at the
state's public universities.
The basic skills function is
equally important to the people of California.
The community colleges are increasingly being
asked to take on the burden of preparing under-prepared
students for post-secondary education. Data show
that at many CSU campuses, more than half of entering
freshmen need developmental or basic skills courses.
The percentages at the community colleges are
even higher. People who enroll in basic skills
classes often go on to become transfer students.
CCC Chancellor's Office data show that students
who take at least one basic skills course transfer
at a higher rate than students who do not enroll
in at least one basic skills course.
Some might question whether
the state should expend funding for students whom
some regard as not applying themselves sufficiently
in high school. However we need to understand
that these students require basic skills instruction
for a number of understandable reasons. Some were
never afforded a fundamentally sound education
in K-12; some (re-entry students) have been away
from school for a number of years; some are students
whose primary language is not English; and some
might not have understood the importance of an
education before. But all come to us to gain from
increased education. And it is clearly in the
state's interest to help these students reach
their goals because then they will become more
productive workers and contribute more to society.
The vocational education function
of the community colleges has a very apparent
value to those who are acquainted with community
college vocational programs. The community colleges
are the primary trainers of fire fighters, peace
officers, nurses, and allied medical practitioners
such as respiratory therapists and radiologic
technologists. In addition, community colleges
have thousands of certificate programs for other
occupational skills from animation to welding,
all of which were developed to meet demonstrated
needs-within both local and state economies.
It would be difficult to envision
legislation that would weaken any one of these
missions. Decisions of allocating resources for
functions are generally made at the local level
by elected district boards in response to public
need.
Of course, it's impossible to
ignore the need for great economies in financing
the community colleges. As an example, I would
like to point out ways that we have been economizing
to ensure that students take the necessary courses
for transfer.
ASSIST: a database that counselors
and students use to determine courses necessary
to transfer to CSU and UC campuses and programs.
This service saves valuable time for counselors
and students and permits them to prepare students
to transfer to any one of several potential institutions.
CAN: The California Articulation
Numbering system provides numbers used throughout
the state for courses that have been deemed by
faculty to have similar content and rigor, thus
simplifying their articulation among institutions.
Community college students use this system to
ensure that they take courses that will, in fact,
transfer.
IMPAC: The Intersegmental Major
Preparation Articulated Program (IMPAC) allows
faculty from all three segments of post-secondary
education to coordinate their programs and course
offerings so that students can more easily prepare
to transfer to the four-year institutions. This
effort clearly saves students time and avoids
unrequired or duplicate courses at the lower and
upper division levels-courses funded by California's
taxpayers.
All of these programs help get
students through the system and to their degree
more efficiently. With continued and sufficient
support, these projects will continue to yield
economies.
However, we must realize that
as the crush of Tidal Wave II students appears
on our campuses, we are increasingly forced to
choose between fulfilling the promise of the 1960
Master Plan or diminishing their educational quality.
We hope you will not sacrifice educational quality
on the altar of economic necessity. Doing so will
prove a false economy and erode the state's most
important resource: an educated, well-prepared
workforce and citizenry.
Alternative
Funding Mechanisms
Of the alternative mechanisms discussed and balloted
at previous hearings, three seem to be linked
directly to funding strategies by fees assessed
to students (differential fees by levels of instruction;
incentive funding for state priorities; management
of student fees based on income or a percentage
of a cost or an indexed annual adjustment, or
variables of units). One mechanism addresses the
need for financial aid restructuring to make college
more affordable (ideas for which we have less
expertise than other presenters); and a final
mechanism poses a suggestion for curricular design
to use technology.
(1) Funding by statewide priorities:
2003 Budget Act Language requires the Board of
Governors of the California Community Colleges
to report to the Legislature on its mechanisms
to allocate funding to the State's priorities,
particularly to courses that prepare students
for transfer, for vocational certification and
degree, and for their improvement in basic skills.
As you will soon see in that forthcoming report,
approximately 98.5% of all community college courses
funded by Prop 98 are directed to achieving those
goals.
(2) Fees based on other mechanisms:
These fees are, well, still fees! The faculty
of the California Community Colleges remains opposed
to the imposition of any fees upon students. We
have been accused of being naive, idealistic,
and foolish because of this principled objection.
Comparisons of our community colleges with systems
in other states are futile: no other state in
the union or in any other nation offers public
college education for so many of its residents.
To provide broad access (now to upwards of to
2.3 million students), the original framers of
the 1960 Master Plan did not assess fees. The
"access" to which the Legislature gives
such lip service today is a direct result of the
absence of fees--or, now, very low fees. The Chancellor's
Office can provide you with extremely persuasive
data indicating that, as we have observed systemwide
during other times of fiscal decline, the mere
threat of fee increases and the concomitant loss
of course sections drives community college students
away (as it did for 90,000 students we lost during
spring 2003); the imposition of fees (particularly
when students are struck with a 61% increase this
fall that was neither moderate, predictable, or
gradual) results in direct losses of students--estimated
at another 85,000 for this current semester.
Of fundamental concern to
faculty, however, is the absence of the clearest,
most fair and equitable funding strategy for the
coming year: provide the community college system
with its statutory fair share of 10.93% of Prop
98 funds. We ask you, as legislators: Honor the
law.
Other Questions
Let us briefly address these questions raised
in your Committee's documents and agendas:
1. Remaining within Prop 98: The decision to remain
inside or to place ourselves outside of Prop 98
is currently under discussion and debate within
our system. All are concerned that districts not
be further disadvantaged and that our safety net,
our guarantee of funding is not further eroded.
At a time when your own committee calls for greater
stability of funding, this move, to many, seems
anything but stable. Additionally, as the Tidal
Wave II students move from their high schools
into community colleges, it seems counter intuitive
that our Prop 98 split decline simply because
the present K-12 population declines; this arrangement
is untenable.
2. Inequity of funding—the
Working Group's comments address only those "basic
aid" districts but do not address districts
who suffer under a historical imbalance of funding,
some receiving only 40% of the FTES of the more
wealthy districts elsewhere in the state.
3. Student fee level: We offer
in this document a few comments about the "appropriate
share of the cost of instruction that a community
college student should be expected to pay."
Again, faculty reasserts the brilliance of the
1960 Master Plan; we do not concur that the state
should oblige community college students to pay
fees. If such an attitude was important then,
it is even more important today when a high school
degree cannot guarantee employment and when even
a modicum of college education renders the average
lifetime earnings of that educated individual
significantly higher.
Finally,
There is no evidence that proves that community
college students who pay a portion of their own
fees are "more appreciative" of their
education or are more likely to complete their
coursework.
There is no evidence that Pell
grant sensitivity should compel California to
require increased fees of its community students.
Only a small number (about 10%) of all community
college students receive Pell Grants; in short,
raising fees will punish 90% of all students
so that 10% may receive (the federal government
willing) some additional funds for non-tuition/fee
expenses)
California's policy decisions should be made
independently of what others suppose might occur
at the federal level during discussions about
the Higher Education Reauthorization Act.
There is no equity when fees
are used to offset a decline in general apportionment.
Those practices do not sustain adequate funding.
Those practices provide no stability of funding.
Those practices are neither moderate, nor gradual,
nor predictable.
Fees are a tax on those with the least ability
to pay them.
Those practices require local colleges to
serve as tax collectors for the State.
There is no easy formula for
"cost sharing" among taxpayers, families,
and students.
Taxpayers across the nation subsidize their
community colleges at a much higher rate than
California asks its own taxpayers to do. The
20/12/4 funding ratio (UC FTES/CSU FTES/CCC
FTES) is not a cause for celebration, for laudatory
comments that the community colleges do more
with less: we are not getting by with less,
and the decline in quality is palpable.
The inclusion of "families" in
this equation assumes that most community college
students are recent high school graduates, still
living with families. In fact, more of them
are single parents themselves, and their average
age is 25, suggesting at least 7 years of independent
living.
The Legislature's endorsement
of increased fees, should it make that recommendation,
must be accompanied by the following statements:
An explicit statement that this committee
or the Legislation in general is abandoning
its promise to California citizens that they
shall be entitled to an education under the
promises of the 1960 Master Plan;
An explicit statement about the new vision
being offered in its stead.
An explicit acknowledgement that the State
is engaged in prioritizing students, determining
who shall receive the State's beneficence.
We challenge you to find a way to maintain the
vision of the 1960 Master Plan for all segments
of California's higher education.
Thank you.
Attachment A
A study of alternative course
delivery formats at Copper Mountain College (2003)
The primary goal of this study
was to evaluate the historical attrition and success
rates for CMC students enrolled in at-distance
and/or short courses vs. traditional 18-week classes.
The study triangulated a survey of CMC faculty
perceptions with an examination of research obtained
from ERIC, and with an eleven-semester statistical
study of CMC's student attrition rates and course
grade distributions in traditional classes vs.
those offered using alternative formats and time
frames. Our samples were drawn from a population
of 2200 course sections offered between summer
1999 and fall 2002. For purposes of this study,
student success was defined ideally as "every
student, completes every class, every semester,
with a "C" or better, at a suitable
level of rigor" ( rigor was defined as uniform
course content and assessments). Based on this
definition, estimation sampling and hypothesis
t-testing were used to measure attrition (the
percentage of students failing to complete a class)
and student success (the percentage of students
finishing a course with a grade of "C"
or better).
The results of our statistical
inquiry confirm significantly higher attrition
in at-distance classes at CMC. Based on two independent
samples of traditional course attrition, the mean
estimate is 18.6% for sample #1 (n=78) and 17.3%
for sample #2 (n=72). In contrast, the estimated
mean sample attrition for at-distance courses
is 32.8% (n=18), which proved statistically significant
at .05 alpha risk. With respect to student success
(grade distributions for students who completed
a course) the results are mixed. The null hypothesis
is accepted to sample #1 and rejected for sample
#2, meaning that while at-distance appears to
be lower based on both samples, it was only statistically
significant for sample #2.
A greater number of CMC faculty have taught short
courses than at-distance, and the predominant
theme they expressed is the inability to maintain
course content without substantially increasing
student attrition and/or lowering grades. Our
findings should therefore be interpreted with
great care as the factors impacting course rigor
(defined as uniform content and assessments) were
not controlled for in this study.
We compared student success for traditional vs.
short courses in English 3A (n=60), Speech 04
(n=35), and all sciences (n=93). For English 3A
attrition was significantly higher and success
was significantly lower than in traditional formats.
For both science and Speech 04, the null hypothesis
was confirmed, however part-time speech faculty
gave significantly higher grades than did full-time
teachers, and full-time science teachers showed
significantly higher attrition than their part-time
counterparts.
At the present time, both the
Curriculum Committee and the College Administration
have been asked to consider the following questions
regarding the use of alternative course delivery
formats: (1) will the course content and/or assessments,
as designated on the course approval form, likely
be reduced by an alternative delivery format?;
(2) Is student attrition likely to be significantly
higher than for the same course taught in a traditional
format?; (3) For students who complete a course,
is performance, as measured by passing grades
likely to be lower than in a traditional format?;
and (4) If the answer to question (1), (2), or
(3) is yes, what specific prerequisite and/or
course modifications will we implement and track
in an effort to maintain course rigor, avoid increases
in course and institutional attrition rates and/or
declines in student grade distributions?
