Chancellor of Community Colleges Calls for Reforms

The new chancellor of California’s community colleges has called for mandatory placement tests for new students, tougher tenure standards for faculty and a stronger state governing system for the 106 colleges.

In his first major speech since taking office in September, Chancellor Joshua Smith said Tuesday that California’s two-year colleges, “once the nation’s undisputed leaders of community college education,” have been caught in a downward tailspin that has bankrupted several colleges and driven away thousands of students.

Smith, former president of Manhattan Borough College in New York, laid the blame for the decline both at the feet of “knife wielders” in Sacramento and community college officials who “argue for more of the same even when it’s obvious that things are currently not working well.”

“I refuse to stand aside while waste, mismanagement, lack of imagination and fear of change are allowed to run some of our institutions on a suicidal drive,” Smith said in his speech at the Claremont Graduate School of Education.

‘Abysmal’ Transfer Rates

In an unusually hard-hitting assessment, Smith said the transfer rates from the community colleges to the state universities are “absolutely abysmal.” Too many students enter the community colleges unprepared, flounder there and drop out, he said. More than 80% of the students need remedial work, he added.

The new chancellor proposed a set of statewide placement exams so students could be directed into courses that matched their ability.

No students would be barred from entering a college under Smith’s plan, but all would have to maintain a 2.0 grade-point average, the equivalent of a C.

“Students have the responsibility to perform and achieve the levels of educational commitment we require of them. They will be given every opportunity to succeed,” Smith said. “But when they do not, they will not be retained. We will not become educational parking lots for anybody.”

For the past year, a commission set up by the Legislature has been reviewing the community colleges, seeking to develop a plan to reform and redirect the financially troubled schools. The commission is now drafting its final report.

Smith also said the colleges were hamstrung by weak, decentralized governance.

Raps Board

“At the state level, we have an emasculated board of governors endowed by the Legislature with awesome responsibilities and puny authority,” Smith said.

Unlike the University of California or the California State University, the community college board and the state chancellor do not actually run the colleges, he pointed out. Moreover, the chancellor’s office is “completely controlled and run by the state’s Civil Service bureaucracy,” he added.

The 106 colleges operate through 70 college districts, each with an elected board of trustees and a chancellor or president.

As an alternative, Smith urged the creation of a stronger state system--similar to the state universities--that would be “leaner, less wasteful and a more efficient administrative mechanism.”