Two-Year Colleges

Should community colleges force students who do not have high school diplomas to take entrance examinations?

After more than 20 years of teaching at the community college level, I say no.

In a recent Opinion piece (April 28), Columbia University doctoral candidate Becky Nicolaides complains about difficulties she had teaching American history at a community college. She states that many of her students were ill-prepared, and she wondered if they were lazy or apathetic. Possibly, Nicolaides was ill-prepared. Having a doctorate doesn’t guarantee that a person will be a good teacher.

The door to higher education is always open to the rich, the well-born and the able. They have their private universities to attend. It’s the working-class whites, Afro-Americans, Latinos and Asians who, mostly, depend on the public institutions--especially the community colleges--through which to gain entrance to higher education.

Congress made a mistake when ruling that community colleges should administer entrance examinations to all students without high school diplomas. Thanks to Reps. George Miller and Mel Levine there is a move to resolve this injustice in favor of the community colleges.

Testing to deny entrance to college learning is a cruel personal injury. Ideally, testing should be used as a tool to determine how best to help someone. Why test if there is no mechanism or program in place to help someone with deficiencies?

The two-year colleges in California are not “junior colleges.” A junior college readies a student for transfer to a university. A community college does this and more. Some students attend a community college to gain a job skill or to better their life. The community college is a place of lifelong learning. Therefore, it should not be judged solely on the percentage of transfers to the university level. In fact, I’ve had many university graduates from this country and others attend my classes.

I suggest that the next time you drive by your local community college, you roll down your window, point and say, “That’s my college.” For the community college is the most democratic institution of higher learning that this country has. ROGER GRAHAM

Los Angeles

Graham is a professor of journalism and photography at Los Angeles Valley College.