Community Colleges Poised for Transformative Change

by Gary Toebben

Yesterday, the California Community College Board of Governors took a monumental step to improve student success across the state community college system by voting unanimously to support a task force report that will make significant changes in the system. 

More than 70 percent of all undergraduate college students in California are in the community college system. Yet only about 25 percent of the students seeking degrees, certificate or transfers complete their work. Two years ago the L.A. Area Chamber sponsored a bill — SB 1143, authored by Sen. Carol Liu, which called for the California Community College Board of Governors to establish a task force on how to dramatically improve student success. David Rattray, the Chamber’s senior vice president of Education & Workforce Development, served on that task force.

The Student Success Task Force’s recommendations represent the most promising opportunity for community college reform in a decade. They include:

• Students would declare their college and career plans to gain priority with class registration. Class offerings would be prioritized to what these students need to complete their work;
• The entire system and each college would develop a public scorecard that succinctly displays how many students are graduating and progressing to completion; 
• State resources would be aligned with student success, not simply head counts;
• A strong statewide oversight and coordination system would be put in place to enable colleges to share new and creative ideas for student success and “take to scale” the best practices already in place. 

During this time of scarce resources and state budget cuts, California must implement innovative solutions that will improve student outcomes, provide for an educated workforce, and ensure the efficient use of state investment in higher education. We commend the Board of Governors, the Community College Chancellor’s Office and task force members for the courage they demonstrated to propose significant reforms. The Chamber plans to join with Chancellor Jack Scott, Sen. Liu and other champions to sponsor the necessary legislation to implement these critical reforms.

 And that's The Business Perspective.