“The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts.”— C. S. Lewis
Prepare for the casualties of Senate Bill 1456, the Student Success Act of 2012. Single parents with two children that need a couple business courses to get that $2 pay raise? Adios! Teenagers that fell through the cracks of a dysfunctional high school district and with no diploma? Sayanara! Older students seeking self-improvement, underserved minorities and immigrants working on basic skills? Hit the camino, amigo.
There’s more. Students that struggle to maintain a C average and do not make the grade in difficult courses face the possibility of losing financial aid.
Introduced by Senator Alan Lowenthal and with recommendations from the California Student Task Force, this bill is a culmination of a yearlong evaluation by community college personnel and lawmakers whose aim is to narrow the gate at community colleges and force fewer students through faster.
SB 1456 combined with the defeat of Proposition 30 would hit California Community Colleges with the brutality of Hurricane Katrina. Most students will be blindsided by a legislative decision they never saw coming. It is not Armageddon, but it is pretty close.
Praised by legislators and administrators as a way to improve the lousy 30 percent transfer rate of community colleges and get more students into the workforce, the bill is, nevertheless, a giant leap backwards. In a nation that is screaming for an educated populace competitive in today’s global economy, SB 1456 left the neediest behind.
Losers will be minority students from the working class borderlands families. In other words, us.
Making students and colleges more accountable is fine. Prioritizing transfer and certificate students is defensible. But coupled with a decade of brutal budget cuts and no foreseeable respite for years to come, these small bandages are not enough to fix America’s gaping educational wounds. Left in its wake is an automated education assembly line, stamping out transfer and certificated students like widgets in a production factory. Everyone else can start careers at Taco Bell or KFC.
Under the regime of SB 1456, prospective community college students will be forced to declare majors as high school seniors and all but forbidden to change majors. Gone are the days students can sample academic disciplines to find their passion. Californians will become more like the imagination-impaired Chinese, forced into a life path before they are old enough to vote.
The Student Success Act of 2012 will ration education in the system that brings the largest and quickest return. It is penny wise but pound foolish, and will only accelerate California’s high education decline and economic meltdown.