2009 State of the Union Address
By CCA President Ron Norton Reel
This address was presented by President Ron Reel at the CCA Winter Conference on February 7, 2009.
"A Real Family"
Many of us celebrated the holidays with our family and friends recently. During that time, I thought of many of you because I consider you part of my family. I know that many of us are facing uncertainty, lay-offs, and our districts are trying to take away as much from faculty as they possible can by housing these demands as systematic problems arising from the budget crisis that our state is facing.
There exists a group of five presidents trying to push through what they are calling the “Accelerated College” that would allow the districts to suspend safeguards for faculty that we have earned and allow the districts to do away with tenure. These administrators are constructing legislation as we speak that will eliminate the 50% law, which requires that amount of a district’s budget be spent on those educating our students. Soon, the 75/25 ratio of classes being taught within any district will be 25% of classes taught by Full-time faculty and 75% of classes taught by part-time faculty if Districts have their way.
Allow me to share with you a short excerpt from a special novel entitled, A Real Family.
Momma had called us all together the week before and said, “Why don’t we do something special this year? Your father hasn’t worked much, so money is pretty tight. I don’t know if we’ll be able to get you kids much, but I do promise a real nice meal. Why don’t each of you find a picture of what you would get each of us if you could afford it? Then put that picture in a box, wrap it up, and put it under the tree. Right before we open the gift you can tell us why you selected that picture.”
With today’s budget woes and deficit spending that our legislators have allowed to take place, we find ourselves in a similar situation as the parents in the story I just shared. Districts are telling us there is no money to spend on us, yet, at the same time, we find ourselves wanting them to provide adequate funding to our colleges so we can give the “gift” of education to our students.
Today, we will assess the statewide implications of an inadequate budget, recognize the workforce impact WE provide to our state economy, and then examine how our union, CCA/CTA, can protect our Real Family, consisting of students and fellow faculty members, full- and part-time.
The first question before us today is this: Does the statewide budget provide adequate funding to the community colleges in California?
The short answer is: No!
The longer answer is: Definitely Not!!
Let’s look at an explanation as to how I came to that resounding conclusion. Our family is big, really big. We are the largest higher education system in the world. We have 72 districts with 110 colleges. The latest statistics from the Chancellor’s Office on student enrollment is from the 2007-2008 year: It reports “Unduplicated headcount: 2,772,250 students!” This breaks down even further into the following:
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Female: 1,510,807: 54.4%
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Male: 1,231,915: 44.4%
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Non-identified: 29,528: 1.1%
Some of you have asked for clarification of our students by age. The Chancellor’s office keeps track by age in seven categories.
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19 or younger: 700,000
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20-24: 715,000
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30-34: 216,000
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35-39: 177,000
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40-49: 275,000
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50+: 324,000
So, in five of the seven individual age groupings, the community colleges have more students than the entire UC system.
In four of the seven individual age groupings, the community colleges have more students than the entire CSU system.
We are five times larger than the UC system and three times larger than the CSU system. However, certain legislators and/or District administrators argue that simple headcount doesn’t really matter. They argue that we need to measure Full Time Equivalent Credit Student (FTES) Comparisons. Fine by me! Let’s look at full-time equivalent credit student comparison with other higher educational groups in California.
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Community Colleges: 1,082,195
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CSU: 364,622
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UC: 224,107
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Private: 210,407
Again, the community colleges outnumber the UC system four to one, and the CSU system almost three to one. In 2006-2007, 55% of CSU graduates and 28% of UC graduates began their college years at a community college, and upon transferring to either four year institution, obtained GPAs equal to or better than those who began at UC or CSU.
Enough background. Next question: Just how much money does the state provide to the community colleges per full-time equivalent student? According the CPEC (the California Post Education Commission) in 2008:
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K-12: $7,571 per student
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CSU: $12,293 per student
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UC: $18,508 per student
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CC: $5,891 per student
What does this mean? K-12 receives $1,680 more per full time student, CSU receives $6,402 more per full time student, and the UC receives $12,617 more per full time student than the community colleges. So, “NO! The state of California does not provide adequate funding to our community colleges to educate our students!”
The next question we need to ask is: What impact do the Community Colleges have on our state economy and employment status?
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64 colleges have fire technology programs providing 80% of firefighters in California.
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80% of EMT’s in California are credentialed at Community Colleges.
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39 of our colleges administer Police Training, accounting for 80% of law enforcement officers.
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70% of the nurses in California received their education from community colleges.
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And, if that isn’t enough, we provide 106,649 certificates each year for programs in vocational education.
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A student earning an associate’s degree will earn approximately $400,000 more than a high school only graduate.
Our students depend on us (whether they know it or not) to keep the doors of higher education open to them. They depend on us to make sure the legislators do what is right at the state and national level.
As of this morning, various parts of higher education have been dropped from the federal government’s Stimulus Recovery package. We must ask our parent organization NEA, the largest union in the world with over 3 million members, to immediately come to our defense.
In addition, two very important legislative bills that CCA/CTA is sponsoring will help insure that the funds allocated to us by the legislature will actually arrive at our schools and are spent as intended. CCA/CTA is sponsoring one bill that will provide Community Colleges with the same guarantee that K-12 has. When there is a shortfall of property tax calculations, the state is obligated to find those funds for the K-12. This legislation would provide community colleges with the same guarantee.
CFT, the Independents, FACCC and administrators are all co-sponsoring this bill. We must ALL support it.
Another legislative bill that CCA/CTA is proposing this year will provide five random audits each year within the 72 community college districts to insure they are spending at least 50% of the funds within the district on educating students and not other projects or administrative salaries.
We must be willing to thank our legislators for making the community college cuts as far away from the classroom as possible, and encourage them to seek additional funding needed to make our mission possible for all of the millions of students we currently teach and for those who we know will be enrolling next year. Fortunately, our hit in the state budget, when it finally gets ratified, will be far better than for the other educational segments.
Let’s now examine what has been a major assault on our profession from an outside source. I call it: The Accreditation Blues.
In October of 2007, we began to discover that the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges was beginning to encroach and/or interfere with faculty collective bargaining in community colleges in California. Allow me to share with you some of the specific recommendation language from the commission to some of our local chapters’ colleges:
“The institution needs to review the tenure review process and implement change.”
“The college needs to further develop student learning outcomes and incorporate them into the evaluation process for faculty.”
During 2008, we sent a letter to all of our chapter presidents, asking them to report any such encroachments. We also had Beverly Tucker, Chief Legal Counsel of CTA, outline a process so our local chapters could issue demands to bargain when accreditation recommendations were infringing on the evaluation of our faculty.
In November of 2008, I personally wrote a follow-up letter to the Commission on behalf of the twenty thousand members in CCA/CTA. It specifically addressed the following:
“Attached to this letter is one recent example of many which seem to threaten accreditation standing if the Student Learning Outcomes were not included in the evaluation procedures and the acquisition of tenure, both areas which are included within the scope of representation afforded us through applicable state law.”
I continued in our letter:
“As you know, the Educational Employment Relations Act controls the collective bargaining rights of community colleges in California. Faculty evaluations, tenure review, and rules of conduct are mandatory subjects for collective bargaining between community college districts and faculty and educational employee exclusive bargaining representatives.”
Our CCA letter concluded by reiterating the original offer presented by Ms. Beno for a meeting when I said:
“We would like to accept the offer and request a meeting between the ACCJC and CCA/CTA to clarify the issues and respective positions; and hopefully, obtain consensus regarding the appropriate scope of accreditation reports.”
However, we did not leave it there. The letter continues:
“Finally, we would like to resolve this accreditation collegially and without further action on our part.”
We in CCA are not opposed to legal action if that is the only alternative left after we participate in this formal meeting. The Accreditation Commission has granted a formal meeting between CCA/CTA and them. Alan Frey, Lynette Nyaggah, and I will represent CCA at this formal meeting. Be assured, we will stand firm on our continued support of professional and student evaluations that are negotiated at the local level by the appropriate bargaining team representing our faculty.
A Real Family shares in the responsibilities and challenges that face them as life progresses. We call them family conditions. Our family is currently experiencing another challenge that we need to fight together. It involves the working conditions our part-time faculty face each and every semester.
It is amazing to me that the largest higher education system in the world continues to support itself off the part-time faculty members teaching within our system. Currently, there are 60,789 faculty members teaching within the community colleges of California. Of those, 17,840 are full-time and 42,949 are part-time faculty members. In many of our colleges, the majority of classes taught within certain departments are being taught by part-time faculty members who are not receiving fair compensation in the form of salary, office hours, and rehire rights.
The Chancellor’s Office provided me with the latest data--which is from Fall 2007--concerning the number of part-time faculty and just where they are teaching. Of the 42,949 part-time faculty members teaching within our colleges:
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39,288 or (91.476%) teach in one district and
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3,661 or (8.532%) teach in two to seven districts
Almost 9% of our part-time faculty brothers and sisters are trying to make a living by piecing enough classes together each semester at multiple districts to eke out a living. The rest have other means to meet their financial obligations.
We need to become active and persistent in backing legislation that calls for 75% of the classes to be taught by full-time faculty. This would produce an additional 1,500 full-time positions. Just as important, reaching the 75% level and having these additional positions would allow the college-wide committees and task forces to have dedicated and enthusiastic individuals meeting their professional obligations.
In CCA, we have introduced such a bill this year. However, its only chance of passing hinges on the degree to which you are willing to support it so that together we can make sure our legislators pass it because it is needed. You are the voice of this legislation.
Another issue that is constantly discussed is the teaching load that part-time faculty actually perform each semester. Many districts use the “need for flexibility” of scheduling as justification for the use of part-time faculty members “to teach just one class,” and as an excuse for the presence of so many part-time teachers. Yet, data from the Chancellor’s Office demonstrates that the majority of part-time faculty don’t teach in just one class. Their own data indicates that 67% teach more than one class each semester.
We must negotiate rehire rights for those who work semester after semester. It is the most important issue confronting our part-time faculty family members. Without the ability to keep your job, it really does not matter how much you get paid. Without a job, the amount one earns is zero.
In summation and to conclude, today we have assessed the statewide implications of an inadequate budget, recognized the workforce impact we provide to our state economy, and then examined how our union, CCA/CTA, can protect and defend our family members who are both students and faculty members. Allow me to go back to the opening story I shared with you:
“I looked through catalogs at various shops and stores; I looked through different magazines at school trying to find the special gift. Finally, I picked out their picture gifts. My sisters rarely got new dresses. I found a picture of teen actresses dressed in a fashion shoot. My sisters were just as pretty but always had to wear hand-me-downs. My twin wanted a bicycle. I got him a picture of the fastest and most expensive one I could find. Dad always got a shirt from the older kids, so, I made sure his present was different. I got him a picture of a radio. I wanted him to have some music to listen to when he worked out in the fields. Momma had so little; yet gave so much. I found a picture of a make-up kit. She always used to say she wished she had stuff to make her look prettier when they went someplace. Not only had we shared presents, we also shared a love experienced in the deepest family way. Momma was right when she said, ‘Poverty cannot take away respect and love because respect for self and others cannot be bought with money alone.’ We have each other, and that is more than money can buy. ”
In this time of limited resources, we can bargain items like intellectual property rights, binding arbitration, (a contract is only as good as it can be enforced), a fair and respectful evaluation process, and rehire rights for our part-time faculty members, that do not cost money.
It is time for us to be a Real Family looking out for each member of our family.