A protest against the privatization and closure of City College of SF. (PHOTO BY DAVID BACON)
Truthout Report
On March 14, the day before the Trustees at San Francisco Community College District handed in the report that may decide the life or death of California’s largest community college, student and faculty marchers headed downtown to City Hall. Hundreds of chanting, banner-waving people stopped traffic on Mission Street. Their mood combined desperation at the prospect of the closure of the school, and anger and defiance at the kinds of changes that authorities are demanding to keep it open.
Shanell Williams, urban studies major and president of the Associated Students at SFCC, said that the required changes are part of a larger effort to turn students into commodities, and move towards the privatization of education. “Next year students will be affected by the Student Success Act,” she warned. “Every student will have to have an education plan, there will be repeat limits, and a 90-credit cap on the Board of Governors fee waiver [that allows poor and working class students to petition to waive tuition fees]”.
Over the past three years of the state’s fiscal crisis San Francisco has endured a $53 million loss in revenue. Despite it, teachers and previous chancellors worked to maintain an adequate class level, and avoided layoffs through temporary cuts and concessions. But commissioners found there had not been enough cuts or cancelled classes, that too much (92 percent) of the budget was spent on personnel, and that too few administrators were on staff.
Many faculty and students believe that California’s economic crisis is being used to enforce a series of changes intended to move the community college system towards privatization, and to attack unions. Alisa Messer, president of the faculty union at SFCC, Local 2121 of the American Federation of Teachers, says that education reformers “See community colleges as a means to turn out hirable people, or students for four-year institutions. We see them as institutions serving the broader community.”
The Fiscal Crisis & Management Assistance Team (FCMAT) told the district that subsidies for some education programs needed by students should be cut and that one important goal was to “reduce the number of full-time faculty.” For teachers, it suggested negotiating contract provisions that provide benefits and compensation “that may not be sustainable in the current economic environment.”
The district responded that it would demand “rolling back pay schedules, reducing the cost of health benefits, reducing the cost per hour for part time faculty, and/or reducing or eliminating the cost of part-time faculty health benefits.”
For the janitors, instructional aides, food service workers and other non-teachers, FCMAT told SFCC to eliminate contract provisions, including wellness payments, substantial paid time off, a 37.5 hour workweek, and high levels of vacation and compensatory time.
Last July Local 2121 and the district agreed to emergency measures to meet the fiscal crisis caused by the loss of state funding, including a 2.85 percent wage cut for the 2012-2013 school year. Afterwards faculty and students hit the road to campaign for state Proposition 30, to prevent further funding cuts, and citywide Proposition A, intended to plug the hole in the district budget.
The political leaders who placed the measure on the ballot, including district trustee Anne Grier, said in their ballot argument that funds from Proposition A would be used to maintain core academic courses; provide workforce training; provide an education that prepares students for four-year universities; keep City College libraries and student support services open; keep technology and instructional support up to date, and offset State budget cuts.
In November voters passed Prop. 30 and Prop. A. In December, however, district negotiators announced that the administration would impose a 4.4 percent “annualized” wage cut on faculty, retroactive to July. Together they would effectively cut salaries by 8.8 percent through next July. The district refused to bargain, and when union negotiators persisted in demanding explanations, a new budget projection was produced.
After further prodding, the district announced that all Proposition A money would be used to increase the district’s reserves, and better fund pension liabilities. The administration claimed this was a mandate from the ACCJC, and what voters thought they were voting for was irrelevant.
Student enrollment has been falling as a result of the economic crisis, but began falling much faster when class cuts and a possible closure made them extremely insecure. That in turn caused the district’s income to fall as well.
In an effort to show its willingness to obey the accreditation commission and FCMAT dictates, in October the board hired a “special trustee” with the power to veto decisions he feels jeopardize the school’s response, much as appointed “special managers” in Michigan today overrule decisions made by elected city councils. The board chose Bob Agrella, past president of Santa Rosa City College, who promptly blamed the union for opposing the cuts and concessions. Its objections were keeping the college from meeting ACCJC recommendations, he claimed, and accused it and students of trying to protect the system’s nine campuses from closure.
When students and teachers marched through the city on March 14, they were protesting the way the fear of closure has been used to force through the ACCJC and FCMAT demands. Shanell Williams angrily denounced the tactic saying, “We need to have confidence that the administration will do what it takes to keep the college open, without squeezing out the most at-risk students or forcing extreme cuts on the faculty.”
Sanctioning community colleges is growing beyond San Francisco, however – 27 districts in California are currently on the list. Two have “Show Cause” orders that threaten closure, in addition to SFCC. The accreditation commission is not a public agency, but a self-perpetuating private one, overseen by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, funded by educational institutions.
What gives its recommendations power is the U.S. Department of Education, which will only fund financial aid at accredited institutions. Particularly for community colleges, whose student body is drawn overwhelmingly from working class communities, accreditation therefore becomes a life or death issue.
