City College of San Francisco: "Education Experts" Don't Always Know What's Best

I began my work in public education in 1970.  Over the course of my career, I have experienced the impact that poor educational policy decisions have had on the lives of our children and communities.

 In the 1960’s California’s education program was the envy of the country.  We knew how to teach reading, writing, arithmetic, history, science, languages and critical thinking.  We taught civics and required that all 8^th graders pass a Constitution Test in order to go onto high school.  We had two achievement tests that were given each year that were related to the state mandated curriculum. We offered an affordable, high quality community college system along with an affordable high quality college and university system.  We provided educational opportunity for all.

Then, in the 1970’s educational “experts” supported by “research” promoted a series of ill fated policy changes.  Their belief in “Relevant Education” led to supporting students taking only courses that they enjoyed taking.  The result was students were ill prepared for college.

Next, these “experts” changed the reading curriculum so that phonemic awareness and phonics were done away with.  The result, generations of students’ had difficulty learning to read and write.

Then, research indicated that children could learn more, earlier.  As a result, second grade was down loaded into first and first grade was down loaded into kindergarten. The result was that boys suffered from the heavily loaded language curriculum, became frustrated and dropped out of school. Today we wonder why there are so few men graduate from colleges. So much for the “research” and wisdom of “experts.”

Which brings us to today’s City College of San Francisco threatened loss of accreditation. Again, “experts” are asserting that today’s community colleges are not meeting the needs of society.  There are the “traditional students” who are on a course leading to a degree and the “non-traditional student” who attends classes of interest or specific career certifying courses of study.  Since 2008, California’s education budget has been cut by 1.3 billion dollars.  Today “experts” are looking for ways to cut corners. The redefinition of community college’s role in society has become their target. They want to support “traditional students” and not “non-traditional” student programs.  “Non-traditional students make up more than half of the 85,000 students who attend CCSF.

How do these “experts” propose to do this?  They plan to cut programs for the hard of hearing, those who are coping with recovery from strokes, those who have a difficulty with reading, writing or math, and those who cannot speak English well enough to survive in society.  They want to cut programs that prepare students for positions in medicine, emergency services, police services, horticulture, culinary and hospitality services, to mention just a few.  They are also willing to cut support services to our service personnel who are attempting to normalize their lives after experiencing the trauma of war. CCSF is one of three schools in the country that provides a successful model for such a support program.

What is remarkable about this new policy thrust is that it is the complete opposite of what is needed.  In today’s economy, with jobs being hard to find, these “experts” are supporting students going into debt to graduate from a Baccalaureate programs, only to be unable to find work.

What is needed are the resources that CCSF offers San Franciscans that provide programs which support and prepare people of all ages in  attaining skills that will allow them to improve their lives. In this, CCSF is meeting the needs of society.

Jim Farwell M.A / M.F.T

farwelljs@yahoo.com