1
Whereas, The federal government has drafted language requiring Perkins funding to be based upon new definitions and indicators, creating new and onerous requirements that will not improve teaching and learning for students enrolled in career technical education programs in California community colleges;
Whereas, These federally designed mandates impinge on areas of academic and professional matters, and such "oversight strategies" have, in the past, notoriously reduced and impeded the educational quality of the programs they have sought to improve;
Whereas, Research clearly shows that multiple measures such as vocational advisory committees and the timely and ever changing updated curriculum that they demand are the best standards of student success; that standardized testing, like that proposed by the federal government, disproportionately impacts populations of students that often do not perform well on these tests, many of whom demonstrate through other means that they have mastered the required program content, and who would, in turn, be harmed by relying exclusively on one of the least effective types of assessments; and
Whereas, No data have been presented to justify this radical intrusion of federal standardization, and this proposal unnecessarily abrogates the academic freedom of career technical education faculty whose professional expertise makes them the most qualified to determine the standards by which their students can and should be assessed, and faculty and program accountability and high standards have already been maintained through local advisory groups, state licensing agencies, required governmental reporting mechanisms, classroom examinations, course grading, institutional curriculum oversight, and the regular accreditation process;
Resolved, That the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges express its outrage at the intrusion of the federal government in community college teaching and learning as presented in the proposed Perkins Guidelines; and
Resolved, That the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges express its concerns to appropriate authorities/parties at the state and federal levels and inform college faculty across the state about this inappropriate federal intrusion into the academic and professional lives of community college faculty by these proposed changes to the Perkins Guidelines. MSC Disposition: Local Senates