Community College Reform Proposal Unveiled by Panel

The joint legislative committee charged with reviewing the state’s higher education systems unveiled on Thursday its long-awaited package of bills aimed at revitalizing California’s struggling community colleges.

Assemblyman John Vasconcellos (D-San Jose), who chairs the committee, said the final report received the unanimous support of both Republican and Democratic members of the panel, an accomplishment he said is at least as remarkable as proposals themselves.

The reform package is “not bold in the sense of radical,” he said at a press conference. “What is bold or radical is that all 18 of us unanimously agreed to and signed the report.”

Vasconcellos said the bipartisan support makes him optimistic that Gov. George Deukmejian, who has not been an enthusiastic supporter of the two-year colleges, will agree to pay for the proposed reforms, estimated to cost about $50 million in the first year of operation.

Among the major proposals in the legislative package are these:

- A substantial expansion of the state role in governing community colleges.

- A change in the method of allocating state financial support; the current system is linked closely to each college’s enrollment.

- Upgrading the quality of instruction, primarily by means of a more stringent process of faculty credentialing.

Community college officials, including statewide Chancellor Joshua Smith, generally endorsed the proposals, although some suggested that the legislators did not go far enough, particularly in regard to changing the way the colleges receive state funds.

The committee called for significant changes in the governing of the community college system, which includes 70 districts, each with a locally elected board of trustees. Some reform advocates had urged that the local boards be abolished and that the system be reorganized into regions administered by appointees of the chancellor, but the legislators decided to leave the local boards intact.

They have proposed enlarging the state board of governors, however, to include the governor, other high-ranking state officials and two to four local trustees. They also urged strengthening the board’s authority to monitor the districts and to set and enforce statewide goals.

The board of governors would also be empowered to conduct management audits and appoint a special trustee if it finds fault with a district’s management practices, a reaction in large part to recent reports critical of the operation of the Los Angeles community colleges.

As for financing, the joint committee would eliminate the system of doling out state dollars based on enrollment, which critics say has wreaked financial havoc in districts with fluctuating enrollments and caused them to neglect such crucial but costly services as counseling.

The committee would replace the enrollment-based financing with a system of “differential funding” that would be based to a greater degree on the actual costs of running the colleges’ instructional and support programs and would take into account the additional burdens faced by districts with substantial numbers of low-income students and students with limited command of English.

While expressing satisfaction with the overall direction outlined by the legislators, Los Angeles community college district Chancellor Leslie Koltai said Thursday that the report fails to place enough emphasis on “the tremendous need for immediate attention” to the problems created by funding.

The proposed legislation does not change a limit on what the state will pay each year to districts with substantial enrollment growth, a limit that Koltai said has been disastrous for many districts, including Los Angeles.

Surge in L.A.

The state provides full financial support for enrollment growth of only 1% per year in each district. The Los Angeles district has experienced an enrollment surge of 10% this year, and Koltai estimated that accommodating the new students costs the district $4 million.

The legislators recommended that the new funding scheme be instituted in July, 1988, but left the job of devising a new funding formula up to a special task force. The enrollment-based financing system is to expire this July, but the Legislature has the option of extending it until the new method is in place.

The proposed legislation also calls for a task force to develop a stricter process of faculty credentialing that is intended to improve instruction and reduce what the committee called an over-dependence on part-time teachers.