Can Junior Colleges Train Work Force of the Future? : Education: Pasadena campus is a microcosm of state’s uncertain prospects. Some there succeed against long odds.

It is one of the scariest nightmares about California’s future: A once-proud state sinks ever deeper into social chaos, millions of unskilled workers mired in poverty, a social fabric unraveled.

But there is another, happier scenario: Imagine a California that bristles with renewed prosperity, its have-nots confident that they have a chance to move up, its labor force the envy of the world.

Which vision will prove closer to the truth?

At Pasadena City College, a diverse array of 26,000 students takes courses ranging from remedial English to astrophysics. For a hard-to-track group that drifts in and out of school, the prognosis is murky.

Despite serious budget woes, however, the college still provides motivated students an enormous opportunity to move ahead.

“My grandmother was in poverty. My mother was in poverty,” says Linda Santana, one of the many striving for a place in the brighter picture. “I don’t want to be like that.”

Not so long ago, California’s skilled work force was valued as one of the state’s great assets, a potent lure for any employer contemplating a move to the Golden State. Indeed, California possessed more than a quality work force; it had faith that its vast system of higher education would guarantee an unending supply of young people qualified to compete in the world economy.

But now, as voters prepare to choose their next governor, the certainties have been shaken.

Dramatic population change is transforming the workplace. The state’s public colleges and universities face an ongoing financial crunch. Southern California’s economy has been slammed by recession.

In the governor’s race, Gov. Pete Wilson and Treasurer Kathleen Brown have jousted over university tuition and funding. But the issues of worker skill and training have been overshadowed by the hot-button issues of crime and illegal immigration.

Nevertheless, experts warn: Unless more people get better skills, the social chasm between rich and poor will only widen further, and a frustrated population of have-nots will remain stuck on the bottom. California’s long-term strengths, such as its Pacific location and the presence of leading-edge technologies, do not erase the anxiety.

“More than anything else, we’ve got to deal with that problem if we want to survive as a leading state,” declares Donald Vial, senior adviser to the California Foundation on the Environment and the Economy.

There is no better place to witness the challenge than on the 53 acres of Pasadena City College, a wide-open window into the future of California’s labor force.

PCC’s students, like the public, reflect a hodgepodge of economic backgrounds and educational needs. A few are qualified for elite universities. Others absorbed little in high school. Still others can barely voice simple sentences in English. Many are looking for a second chance in the workplace.

For instructors, it adds up to a bewildering set of demands: Prepare students for the university classroom. Prepare students for the shop floor. Teach students to read and write.

All the while, budget realities are prompting cutbacks in courses and faculty: “It constantly amazes me how well we do,” declares John Jacobs, a ceramics instructor who coordinates programs for teaching teachers on the campus.

To get a sense of PCC’s heartbeat, meet a few of the students: “You try to go to school in the daytime. Then you hire a sitter at night so you can work to pay the sitter you had during the day,” says Robin Owens, 25, a single mother of two who is studying to become a nurse. “It’s hard.”

Linda Banks, whose course load includes botany, algebra and economics, concedes that she has dropped out of school several times. But this time will be different, she promises. “I’m not dropping out anymore,” said Banks, 38.

Across the room, Kendall Warrick, 33, peers at a computer screen, recalling how an algebra tutor helped rescue his plans to become a radiologist.

“If you don’t know something, they’ll show you the resources,” he says of PCC officials.

Throughout California and the nation, many prospective employees do not know a lot of things once considered elementary.

Commission after commission laments low student achievement levels. Millions do poorly on tests of simple reading. Employers gripe about the quality of job applicants.

In August, the U.S. Department of Education reported that 49% of Californians age 16 and older could not read or do math at levels demanded by contemporary society, about the same levels as for the nation.

An earlier study, cited in January by the California Business Roundtable, found that nearly two-thirds of community college students did not meet college standards for reading and writing.

Unless such trends are arrested, many maintain, the state is headed for trouble: “We cannot compete by following a low-skill, low-wage strategy, because the low-wage nations of the world can always make their products for less,” warned the group, which represents major corporations.

Yet others say the claim is overstated. Employers emphasize problems of red tape, crime and high costs more than a scarcity of know-how, particularly at a time when many Californians are out of work or underemployed.

On this much, however, the experts agree: Fail to get a decent education, and you’re at the end of the line for a decent income. Chances for a comfortable livelihood are dismal. Upward mobility? Forget it.

The more people in that fix, goes the thinking, the more anger and polarization society will be forced to cope with.

“The larger concern is the fragmentation of our state--that we’re going to have more division between haves and have-nots, good schools and bad schools, good neighborhoods and bad neighborhoods,” said Russell W. Rumberger, an economist and education professor at UC Santa Barbara.

For Californians seeking a second chance in the workplace, community colleges are often the logical place to start.

Outdoors, on PCC’s busy quad, a timeless scene is unfolding: Students hurry between buildings, others chat in little clusters. A group huddles around a card game outside the student center. There is the occasional strumming of a guitar.

But look closely. The student body is 31% Latino, 36% Asian or Pacific Islander, 24% white and 8.5% African American, according to records from last fall. PCC now offers 120 classes in English as a second language.

Other differences from the stereotypes of college life are less obvious. More than one-third of PCC’s students may qualify for a program that waives virtually all fees for the financially needy.

Are they success stories-in-the-making? There is reason for hope as well as concern.

“You put them in a class where the teacher really cares--and tells them that their future depends on what they do now--and they will respond to that challenge,” declares Sam Soghomonian, a political science instructor who retired last year after 30 years on campus. “At PCC we’ve done some marvelous things.”

Many of the students are highly motivated and see public education as their best shot at a better life.

“You always dream that when you grow up you’re going to be different,” says Linda Santana, who still remembers wearing “the same clothes over and over again” in a childhood of poverty.

Her goal: to transfer to a University of California campus and pursue a career in psychology.

Then the friendly, brown-haired Santana begins to cry as she talks about PCC and the help she received from a special program that provides mentors, a counselor, writing instruction and extra peer support for Latino students. “Somebody said: ‘Knowledge is pain, but it’s beautiful,’ she recalls. “And it is.”

At the community colleges, knowledge also has been much less expensive than at universities. Fees have gone up in recent years to $13 a credit hour for most degree students, a rate that could mean tuition of as little as $156 a semester for a full-time student.

A definitive measure on how effective schools like PCC are at helping people move up--sort of a batting average of upward mobility--remains elusive.

A majority of the state’s 1.3 million community college students attend part time, often drifting in and out of school and never achieving a degree. Less than one-fourth manage to get a degree, even after several years, according to sketchy data.

“If the general public knows that less than one out of four community college students--after six years--gets a degree or certificate or transfers to a four-year college, I think the general public begins to wonder: What are we doing over there? What kind of education is happening?” asks Diana Fuentes-Michel, an official with the California Postsecondary Education Commission, a planning agency in Sacramento.

Community college officials respond that such statistics are to be expected, given the types of students they serve and the obstacles many face. Perhaps three out of four go to school without the goal of a degree, according to the chancellor’s office.

“Our population is so different, that traditional measures are not appropriate” as ways to evaluate the schools’ success, maintains Ernest R. Leach, deputy chancellor of the California community colleges.

More worrisome, Leach said, is that the ongoing fiscal squeeze could jeopardize the schools’ “open door” policy.

Last year, for example, community college enrollment fell by 132,000 students or 9%, due to fee increases and money-saving class reductions. Since 1991, 15,000 classes, or about 10% of all offerings, have been cut, according to the chancellor’s office in Sacramento.

PCC, for instance, has trimmed 31 teaching and administrative jobs in the last few years. “It’s reaching the point where we can’t just ‘back and fill’ anymore,” said Jacobs, the ceramics instructor.

Meanwhile, as planners look for ways to meet students’ needs with limited cash, Linda Banks is doing her homework.

By her own description, Banks, 38, graduated high school “functionally illiterate.” Next came stints in the Army Reserve, a failed marriage, and a string of jobs such as manager of an apartment complex.

As try after try at community college proved futile, she ultimately came to see herself as stupid. Then came a profound discovery: PCC counselors told her she had dyslexia, a reading disorder. They also showed her new ways to study, such as by reading along with books recorded on tape. They linked her up with a volunteer mentor on the counseling staff, “someone who takes the time to hear me.”

Now, after all the false starts, a miracle seemingly beckons: Banks is on course to get her associate of arts degree next year and pursue her goal of studying hotel management at Cal Poly Pomona.

But her dreams don’t end as a mere employee toiling for somebody else. At PCC she has had a glimpse into a new world of possibilities, and she is aiming high. The plan is not “to manage a hotel,” Banks explains firmly. “It’s to own one.”

State of the State

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State of the State: Education

REALITY

SKILLS: About half of California adults lack the reading and mathematics skills demanded by modern society, according to a recent study by the U.S. Department of Education.

EDUCATION: Despite the budget squeeze, the state’s system of higher education and training remains enormous, with 1.3 million students attending California’s community colleges alone.

ECONOMY: The precise link between worker skills and economic growth remains in dispute, but scholars agree that people without post-high school training face shrinking career options.

RHETORIC

KATHLEEN BROWN

“Schools, students and middle-class families have shouldered too much of the pain from Pete Wilson’s budgetary mismanagement. It’s robbing our economic future, and our children will be the ones who have to pay.”

“Today, at the exact moment when we most desperately need a smart work force, our school system is failing us and we are failing our school system.”

“California’s economic future is dependent on preparing California workers for the high-skill, high-wage jobs that will form the foundation of our 21st-Century economy.”

PETE WILSON

“California’s economic competitiveness is inextricably linked to our ability to ensure that our work force is adequately prepared.”

“Economic revitalization isn’t just a business issue. It’s an education issue. It’s a children’s issue. It’s the California issue on which all others turn.”

“We need to forge a new partnership between business and schools, a partnership which can bring private resources, internships and job training into the public classroom.”

PROPOSALS

BROWN

Freeze tuition for at least a year in the community college and university systems.

Create a school-to-work curriculum in high schools, allowing students to choose between college preparation courses and workplace preparation or a combination of both.

Consolidate the 23 employment and training programs into one accessible system of work force development, and develop training standards set by industry.

WILSON

Establish a comprehensive school-to-career system in California, helping students make the transition to private industry by revamping high school programs, with input from the private sector.

Develop an integrated employment and training system, after hearing recommendations of the state Job Training Coordinating Council in April, 1995.