By Ken Mason

“Seduce them to our party, that their God may prove their foe, and with repenting hand abolish his own works.”  - Milton, Paradise Lost.

      Part One of this exposé explored the unusual relationship between incumbent trustee Margaret Quinones, and our Superintendent/President Dr. Piedad Roberston. This close collaboration led Quinones to become more the mouthpiece of the superintendent, rather than a spokesperson for all the community colleges as required of any appointee to the California Community Colleges Board of Governors. As an appointee to the BOG she has sought to resolve Dr. Robertson’s local disputes through a systemic overhauling of the hiring and governance policies, ideas that just so happen to appear in the California Performance Review recommendations.

      Another idea buried in the CPR and championed by Quinones has to do with vocational instruction, which in CPR lingo is called “workforce development”— a kind of techno-industrial training program for “the low income.” So what’s in a name?  Well, the proposal here is for community colleges to establish partnerships with private employers to “… build a skilled workforce and contribute to California’s economic competitiveness.” A worthy proposal, one would think.

      But there is more. The governor would be encouraged to “…direct community colleges to give system-wide priority to contract education, which… [would be a] fee-based customized training provided to businesses.” Contract training would be reimbursed while helping “…. businesses meet their workforce development needs by using the talents and knowledge of the community college faculty.” According to CPR, the incentive to entice community college faculty to move in this direction would be “…a recent legal opinion …offering ‘not-for-credit’ courses [that would] not add to faculty load.” This, coupled with modifying sections of AB 1725, would potentially set the stage for contracting out faculty employment to a non-union work force, as is done now among classified.

      Practically nothing in CPR distinguishes vocational education from vocational training, a not so subtle nuance among educators. This is of special importance given the role Quinones played in leading the charge to eliminate SMC’s vocational programs, citing their ineffectiveness. Since then she has become something of a defender of “workforce development” and repeatedly reminds us that programs such as transportation technology would return but in a different form. No specifics have been given.

      It is true that when it comes to training versus educating, educators will differ. Mathematician Jan Gullberg argues that there is a difference between acquiring a skill through rote memory and mastering a skill through education. Rote memorization requires no real understanding, nor is it desired. The danger with such training is that skills needed in the future periodically change. There will be a need to adapt and adjust to this inevitability, and the best preparation for this is to ensure a thorough understanding of a skill that can only be had through a sound education.

       “Adaptability to change is itself a hallmark of successful education,” says Gullberg, “and it is change, not any specific technology, that most aptly characterizes life today and in the foreseeable future.” Routing students into “work force” programs, as so many African and Native Americans were in the past through “industrial education,” did not prepare them for the future.

      Of course investing in vocational education is costly, and should not be viewed as a place to dump the academic disinclined. Take automotive technology for instance.  Larry Cummings, president of Automotive Youth Educational Systems in Atlanta, recently explained in The Desert Sun newspaper, “You’re really looking for an analytical student who can probe and dig and understand the functionality of the different aspects of a car.” Acute shortages of auto mechanics has led Cummings, and retired baseball and football stars Hank Aaron and George Starke into a cooperative partnership with BMW. “The machines involved in reading the measurements of an engine are as complex as the engine itself,” says Cummings. Community colleges must do more than train students. They must educate students, even those in vocational programs. Gullberg would agree, “[simple]…training contributes almost nothing to education and produced distressingly ephemeral advantages.”

      Perhaps SMC should take a hard look at Ida B. Wells Continuation High School in San Francisco where student interests in carpentry, plumbing, roofing and other vocational trades have the full support of the local school district. This was accomplished only because in San Francisco the school district was willing to partner with the San Francisco Building and Construction Trades Council. SMC could do the same, but alas, it would mean the district would have to work with labor organizations rather than industry.

      So while the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates dealers face an annual shortage of 35,000 technicians through 2010, SMC administrators failed to financially support SMC's transportation technology program, crying it was too expensive.  Later administrators went on to denounce the program and then eliminated it,  claiming it was “out-of-date” with the latest technology. This is all the more painful when one considers that the elimination of the program proved both  fiscally irresponsible and fell far short of the anticipated savings. Now the district has embraced “workforce development” as a predicated cost savings.

      Such grandiose cost saving schemes have aroused suspicion from the Legislative Analyst Office. According to the LAO, most of the CPR proposals fall far short of anticipated revenue savings. The LAO concluded that “…many of its (CPR) fiscal savings estimates are overstated,” suggesting “…the Legislature may also wish to consider broadening the scope of reforms offered by CPR to include a more comprehensive examination of the …state's system of funding education.” The privatization of job training was one of its great concerns.

      Similar views were echoed in the September 27 edition of the Oakland Tribune when it explained that  “…many of the companies involved in  shaping the CPR report  have sent jobs overseas and one key technology recommendation involves expanding the type of work done by a state contractor that already uses three overseas call centers.” Now while the CPR does not specifically recommend sending job overseas, the report gives little comfort to those hoping for specifics on the return of SMC's Transportation Technology program.

      As for proposals to significantly reduce legislative oversight and control in key budget and policy matters, such as modifying the Ed Code, the LAO points out that “…some of the proposed changes to the education governance structure would have an impact on state versus local control regarding community college spending.” Proposals to consolidate the chancellor's office with others under a new structure would only create “mega-departments” that would be “…so large that they become unmanageable.”

      There is enough here to suggest that our Superintendent/President through her surrogate on the CCC BOG has an objective that shows little respect for employees of this or any other institution in the state. Recently even the CPR Commission rejected CPR recommendations for a more powerful Secretary of Education, Workforce Development and mandated volunteer service for community college students. And in spite of the best efforts of the Academic Senate, the old administrative adage still rings true: “once a president loses the confidence of the faculty and staff, they will never get it back.”

      Regrettably it appears that Dr. Robertson's support of Quinones is not just about the $135 million dollar bond or the bringing of millions to SMC in equalization monies. The larger picture reveals that Quinones, a faculty member at El Camino College, has aligned herself with some of the most extreme anti-faculty, anti-labor members appointed to the CCC BOG. But then again, perhaps she has little choice. Her entire re-election appears to be grounded on promises made, and a mission to fulfill. If so, then it is clear what this election is all about. What could not be resolved at the local level is now being tried at the state level. Our hope is that the progressive forces in this city will come to realize this.