THE SLOW TRAIN WRECK OF CALIFORNIA'S ONLINE COMMUNITY COLLEGE
By David Bacon
CFT United, 2/17/20
https://www.cft.org/article/has-calbright-lost-its-legislative-support
https://davidbaconrealitycheck.blogspot.com/2020/02/the-slow-train-wreck-of-californias_27.html
CFT Community College Council President Jim Mahler, right, testifies in opposition to Calbright, the new fully-online community college.
It may have taken over two years, but the Calbright online community college has apparently lost any support it might have enjoyed in the state Legislature when the California Federation of Teachers first warned about the potential for failure. In December 2017, Jim Mahler, president of the CFT Community College Council, sent a seminal letter to Gov. Jerry Brown, Calbright's main promoter, pointing out key flaws in its proposed structure.
The project would duplicate what existing community colleges can provide and are already providing, Mahler cautioned. Its enrollment plan would concentrate on those students who most need support, pushing them into an online environment where there is much less support than on a "brick and mortar" campus. Many of Calbright's online courses wouldn't be accredited, and therefore credits wouldn't transfer to other institutions.
"If the governor is truly interested," he wrote, "in increasing the success rate of our community college students, then he should include additional funding in his next budget earmarked for the system to hire more full-time faculty and classified staff."
By the time the Senate Education and Budget Committees held a joint hearing on February 13, the misplaced funding priorities had grown so glaring that Sen. Richard Roth couldn't hide his skepticism and mistrust as he listened to Eloy Ortiz Oakley, chancellor of the California Community Colleges. Sen. Roth repeatedly pointed out that the Calbright project duplicates online services already offered by existing community college districts.
After two years of preparation, Calbright opened in October with 450 students, far from the enrollment goal its promoters projected - 22,400 students by the 2025-26 academic year. One of Calbright's three programs of study had only 38 students enrolled.
Eloy Ortiz Oakley, Chancellor of California Community Colleges, and Tom Epstein, President of the Board of Trustees of Calbright College, try to convince doubting legislators.
Yet already the school has absorbed $100 million in startup funds, and another $40 million for two years of operating costs. In contrast, the 117 campuses in the California community college system currently serve over 2 million students, and its existing Online Education Initiative serves 99,000 students in hundreds of programs.
Calbright offers only three certificate programs: information technology, medical coding, and cyber security. In his response to the committee, Chancellor Oakley admitted that medical coding jobs are likely to be eliminated by automation in a few years, but claimed that students who got those jobs through a Calbright certification would at least be "in the system" and able to pursue other work requiring a higher degree of skill.
In his testimony, CFT's Jim Mahler called out problems of course duplication with existing brick-and-mortar colleges, lack of in-person support for students who most need it, and a faulty accreditation scheme.
"Calbright was never supported by the Legislature," Mahler explains. "It only came into existence because the governor put it in the budget [rather than introduce it as a separate piece of legislation], and there were no policy committee hearings." Calbright was a pet project of former Gov. Jerry Brown, who used his political clout to establish the online college as part of that year's state budget passage.
"Calbright's three programs duplicate courses that we're offering in different colleges," Mahler charges, as did other witnesses at the February hearing. "We offer exactly what it offers - different lengths of time, short semester, full term, open entry, open exit, continuing education - everything it does we do."
Senator Richard Roth couldn't hide his skepticism.
According to Mahler, "Calbright gets a thousand times more funding per FTES than community colleges. There is no moral way to excuse these misplaced priorities, and no need to spend this level of resources on a project that completely duplicates what we're doing. How can you spend so much money on this when many community colleges are struggling themselves, with annual budgets that are often smaller than Calbright's?"
Mahler points out that Calbright is seeking accreditation by a federal agency, rather than the accreditation agency that accredits all other California community colleges. The lack of transferable credits is only one aspect of its lack of student support. "The student demographic they're targeting," he says, "is the demographic that needs the most support services, not the least support services. When you create what's more or less a correspondence course program without any support services, the demographic you're trying to reach is never going to succeed."
Mahler's critique was echoed by many community college faculty, who traveled to Sacramento to testify at the hearing. "We cannot afford to throw good money after bad by continuing on this path," said Michael Sheetz, executive director of the Ventura County Federation of College Teachers AFT Local 1828. "I currently teach both online and hybrid courses, but spending the outrageous amount of money necessary to support a redundant and inefficient program is legislative malpractice."
[. . .]
DOCUMENTING RESISTANCE -
Community Organizing Beyond the Farmworkers' Movement
Photographs by David Bacon
February 18 - March 27
Powell Library Rotunda, UCLA
Los Angeles, CA
IN WASHINGTON’S FIELDS: Photographs by David Bacon
February 1-May 10, 2020
Washington State History Museum
1911 Pacific Ave., Tacoma, WA
ONE JOB SHOULD BE ENOUGH
hotel workers fight for the right to live in the world's most expensive city
City College of San Francisco Journalism and Labor Studies Departments
and Front Page Gallery present
30 years of photographs by David Bacon
documenting San Francisco hotel workers
November 22 to February 28
closing reception and book signing Friday, February 28, 6-9 PM
Front Page Gallery
50 Frida Kahlo Way, Bungalow 615 (below George M. Rush Stadium)
San Francisco, CA
ccsfjournalism.com info-@ccsfjournalism.com 415-239-3446
Exhibition Schedule
Exhibitions of photographs are scheduled for the following venues and dates:
In the Fields of the North / En los campos del norte
Scheduled exhibitions:
January 5, 2020 - March 1, 2020
Community Memorial Museum of Sutter County, Yuba City
March 15, 2020 - June 21, 2020
Los Altos History Museum, Los Altos
March 21, 2021 - May 23, 2021
Carnegie Arts Center, Turlock
More Than a Wall - The Social Movements of the Border
Scheduled exhibition:
August 29,, 2020 - November 29,, 2020
San Francisco Public Library
Deportations
Scheduled exhibition:
April 10, 2020 - May 1, 2020
Uri-Eichen Gallery, Chicago IL
In the Fields of the North / En los Campos del Norte
Photographs and text by David Bacon
University of California Press / Colegio de la Frontera Norte
302 photographs, 450pp, 9”x9”
paperback, $34.95 (in the U.S.)
order the book on the UC Press website:
ucpress.edu/9780520296077
use source code 16M4197 at checkout, receive a 30% discount
En Mexico se puede pedir el libro en el sitio de COLEF:
https://www.colef.mx
Los Angeles Times reviews In the Fields of the North / En los Campos del Norte - click here
En los campos del Norte documenta la vida de trabajadores agrícolas en Estados Unidos -
Entrevista con el Instituto Nacional de la Antropologia y Historia
http://www.inah.gob.mx/es/boletines/6863-en-los-campos-del-norte-documenta-la-vida-de-trabajadores-agricolas-en-estados-unidos
Entrevista en la television de UNAM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdSaBKZ_k0o
David Bacon comparte su mirada del trabajo agrícola de migrantes mexicanos en el Museo Archivo de la Fotografia
http://www.cultura.cdmx.gob.mx/comunicacion/nota/0038-18
Trabajo agrícola, migración y resistencia cultural: el mosaico de los “Campos del Norte”
Entrevista de David Bacon por Iván Gutiérrez / A los 4 Vientos
http://www.4vientos.net/2017/10/04/trabajo-agricola-migracion-y-resistencia-cultural-el-mosaico-de-los-campos-del-norte/
"Los fotógrafos tomamos partido"
Entrevista por Melina Balcázar Moreno - Milenio.com Laberinto
http://www.milenio.com/cultura/laberinto/david_baconm-fotografia-melina_balcazar-laberinto-milenio_0_959904035.htmlDie Apfel-Pflücker aus dem Yakima-Tal
http://www.nrhz.de/flyer/beitrag.php?id=23990
EN LOS CAMPOS DEL NORTE: Farm worker photographs on the U.S./Mexico border wall
http://us7.campaign-archive2.com/?u=fc67a76dbb9c31aaee896aff7&id=0644c65ae5&e=dde0321ee7
Entrevista sobre la exhibicion con Alfonso Caraveo (Español)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJeE1NO4c_M&feature=youtu.be
THE REALITY CHECK - David Bacon blog
http://davidbaconrealitycheck.blogspot.com
Books by David Bacon
The Right to Stay Home: How US Policy Drives Mexican Migration (Beacon Press, 2013)
http://www.beacon.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=2328
Illegal People -- How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants (Beacon Press, 2008)
Recipient: C.L.R. James Award, best book of 2007-2008
http://www.beacon.org/Illegal-People-P780.aspx
Communities Without Borders (Cornell University/ILR Press, 2006)
http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100558350
The Children of NAFTA, Labor Wars on the U.S./Mexico Border (University of California, 2004)
http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520244726
En Español:
EL DERECHO A QUEDARSE EN CASA (Critica - Planeta de Libros)
http://www.planetadelibros.com.mx/el-derecho-a-quedarse-en-casa-libro-205607.html
HIJOS DE LIBRE COMERCIA (El Viejo Topo)
http://www.tienda.elviejotopo.com/prestashop/capitalismo/1080-hijos-del-libre-comercio-deslocalizaciones-y-precariedad-9788496356368.html?search_query=david+bacon&results=1
For more articles and images, see http://dbacon.igc.org and http://davidbaconrealitycheck.blogspot.com
and https://www.flickr.com/photos/56646659@N05/albums
Recipient: C.L.R. James Award, best book of 2007-2008
http://www.beacon.org/Illegal-People-P780.aspx
Communities Without Borders (Cornell University/ILR Press, 2006)
http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100558350
The Children of NAFTA, Labor Wars on the U.S./Mexico Border (University of California, 2004)
http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520244726
En Español:
EL DERECHO A QUEDARSE EN CASA (Critica - Planeta de Libros)
http://www.planetadelibros.com.mx/el-derecho-a-quedarse-en-casa-libro-205607.html
HIJOS DE LIBRE COMERCIA (El Viejo Topo)
http://www.tienda.elviejotopo.com/prestashop/capitalismo/1080-hijos-del-libre-comercio-deslocalizaciones-y-precariedad-9788496356368.html?search_query=david+bacon&results=1
For more articles and images, see http://dbacon.igc.org and http://davidbaconrealitycheck.blogspot.com
and https://www.flickr.com/photos/56646659@N05/albums
