2 for Community College Board

In their stump speeches, California politicians hail the state’s community colleges as economic tigers essential to an educated work force. In their budgets, they tend to be less generous, shortchanging them in comparison with the UC and Cal State systems. Sacramento gives the community colleges $2,000 less than the national average per student each year, and Gov. Gray Davis’ latest budget revision would slightly reduce their share of state education revenues.

On June 8, Los Angeles voters will get the opportunity in runoff elections to elect two candidates who could help increase the clout and effectiveness of the nation’s largest community college district, the city’s nine-college system. The Times recommends these Community College Board candidates:

Sylvia Scott-Hayes for Office 1. Scott-Hayes has distinguished herself in education by directing college preparation programs at Cal State Los Angeles, in community service by mentoring youth gang violence prevention programs and in politics by working as an aide to county Supervisor Gloria Molina. Her opponent, Nancy Pearlman, is described in the ballot as a community college instructor, but she teaches only one course and has failed in her campaign to detail how she would realize her vague goal of creating “a model program of the district.”

Mona Field for Office 3. As president of Glendale Community College’s faculty union, Field has helped implement cost-conscious health care reforms and pioneer welfare-to-work courses; she has political clout in Sacramento as vice president of the California Federation of Teachers. Despite her close ties to faculty, Field says she would hold instructors accountable for their performance.

Field’s opponent, Julia Wu, has been on the college district’s board for the last dozen years. She claims credit for giving individual colleges “more local control” and for increasing “student enrollment 20%,” but on Wu’s watch student enrollment actually plummeted and individual colleges were insulated from meaningful accountability.

Sylvia Scott-Hayes and Mona Field are the right leaders to help the community colleges fulfill their essential role as the Everyman route to higher education.