DOCUMENT RESUME ED 426 741 JC 990 072 Robles, Harriett J. AUTHOR Reconceptualizing Schools and Learning: The California TITLE Community Colleges. PUB DATE 1998-00-00 NOTE 29p. Reports PUB TYPE Descriptive (141) EDRS PRICE MF01/PCO2 Plus Postage. Access to Education; *Community Colleges; Educational DESCRIPTORS Change; Educational Development; *Educational Finance; *Educational History; Futures (of Society); Governance; Trend Analysis; Two Year Colleges; Vocational Education *California Community Colleges IDENTIFIERS ABSTRACT This paper outlines the development of the community college system in American higher education, describes the impact of the various reform movements of the twentieth century on community colleges, and discusses the current and future issues that two-year colleges face. These topics are discussed in relation to California's community colleges, with special attention given to conclusions drawn by Kevin Dougherty in his study of 34 community colleges. A historical outline traces the development of the community college from its first established campus in 1901 in Joliet, Illinois, to the present, with California holding the single largest community college system, which includes 107 colleges serving over 1.3 million students, and is, in fact, the largest system of higher education in the nation. Discussed next is the educational reform era of the 1980s, the development of change out of earlier movements, and issues specific to community colleges, including concern with equity, access, and providing business with an educated and skilled workforce. Finally, a section on the future of the curriculum covers issues of access, accountability, systematic change, funding, and governance and administration. Contains 10 references. (AS) ******************************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. ******************************************************************************** Reconceptualizing Schools and Learning: The California Community Colleges Harriett J. Robles West Valley College Saratoga, CA PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS Office of Educational Research and Improvement BEEN GRANTED BY EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) 4. H. J. Robles This document has been reproduced as eceived from the person or organization originating it. 0 Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality. TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) o Points of view or opinions stated in this 1 document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy. 2 it LE EST COPY AVAILA It RECONCEPTUALIZING SCHOOLS AND LEARNING: THE CALIFORNIA COMMUNITY COLLEGES The purposes of this paper are to outline the development of the community college system in American higher education, to describe the impact of the various reform movements of the twentieth century on community colleges, and fmally, to discuss the current and future issues which face community colleges. These topics are discussed in relation to California community colleges. Special attention is given to the conclusions drawn by Kevin Dougherty in his study of community colleges, The Contradictory College: The Conflicting Origins, 34 Impacts, and Futures of the Community College. HISTORY The fffst community college was established in in Joliet, Illinois. The impetus for 1901 founding the college in Joliet was the superintendent of the local high school district, J. Stanley Brown. He had been influenced by the "vigorous advocacy" of the junior college by William Rainey Harper, president of the University of Chicago. Joliet was conceived as the "postgraduate department" of the high school. The students were intended to be recent high school graduates and the faculty were drawn from the high schools (Dougherty, 1994, p. 127). the local board of education officially recognized the college and decided that high In 1902, school graduates could pursue their studies at Joliet at no extra charge. Thus, the tradition of comparatively low tuition at community colleges was established, though not by student demand 3 Reconceptualizing Schools & Learning: Community Colleges but by government decision (Fretwell in Dougherty, 1994, P. 128). In 1912, a junior college committee of teachers was formed and in 1937, the term "junior college" replaced the term "postgraduate education": In Joliet, the community college remained part of the high school system until the 1960s. Also cited as an influence on the development of the community colleges was the experience of the General College of the University of Minnesota, which embraced the assumptions and ideas of the progressive movement. University educators suggested that general education was as appropriate for the less gifted as it was for the superior student. The General College experiment, which was a two-year undergraduate program, influenced the more innovative curricula of the numerous community colleges that were to spring up throughout the country (Dougherty, 1994, p. 114). The second community college was established in 1910 in Fresno, California. Like Joliet, it was championed by the local high school superintendent and was established as a department of the high school. The California community college system grew more rapidly than others. By 1919, there were 21 community colleges in California. Dougherty (1994) identifies two major ways in which community colleges were founded: circumscribed initiation and popular mobilization. "Circumscribed initiation" describes the process by which the earliest community colleges were founded. Local school administrators or school board members would promote the concept and gain the approval of the local board of trustees. The college was part of the high school system. It was "a very self-contained process," with little or no involvement with outside groups (Dougiierty, 1994, p. 119). "Popular mobilization" was the second way in which community colleges were founded. As the number of community colleges began to expand, states took a more active interest in their Reconceptualizing Schools & Learning: Community Colleges development, in part because of a concern over their rapid development and the impact they would have on state resources. To control their development, states began to require approval through the referendum process as well as approval by state agencies. Although local school administrators continued to be the principal proponents, school board members and business people were increasingly more involved (Dougherty, 1994, p. 119). students, parents, local school administrators, business people, Of all the stakeholders Dougherty identifies school administrators as the "master builders" of the and politicians community college at the local level, involved in 83% of the foundings of the 34 community colleges Dougherty used for his study (Dougherty, 1994, p. 136). There were several reasons for their level of involvement, including increased educational opportunity for students and the ability to meet the training needs of the business community. Less altruistic reasons were because a community college enhanced the professional standing of local school administrators and provided career opportunities beyond the high school level. Other entities which supported the development of community colleges were state governments and state universities. In 1907, California established a process by which local governments could found community colleges under certain conditions. Other states followed suit, but much later. A state process eventually led to state aid. Indirect aid was initiated in In the 1920's, state aid accounted for 5% of California in 1917 and direct aid in 1921. community college funding. It increased to 30% in the 1950s and by 1989-90, state aid would account for 49% of the funding to community colleges (Dougherty, 1994, p. 145). In 1961, California recognized the community colleges as part of the state's higher education system. Predictably, the establishment of whole systems of state community colleges followed, often , headed by state governing boards which headed but did not directly administer the colleges in 3 Reconceptualizing Schools & Learning: Community Colleges the system. Illinois established its system in 1965 and California and Washington in 1967. The federal government also provided support for community colleges.. By 1978-79, federal aid equaled $463 million or 7.3% of all current income received by the community colleges (Dougherty, 1994, p. 175). As mentioned above, state university systems usually supported the establishment of community colleges. However, their support was often the result of a keen self-interest in protecting their exclusivity. Clark Kerr, former president of the University of California, wrote in a 1973 report published by the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education: "Elite" institutions of all types colleges and universities should be protected and encouraged as a source of scholarship and leadership training at the higher levels. They should not be homogenized in the name of egalitarianism. they . . . should be protected by policies on differentiation of functions. (Dougherty, 1994, p. 154) The California Master Plan, shaped by Kerr, is an example of how community colleges were used to protect the selectivity of the elite state universities. The influence of the state universities was important. In California, for example, they advocated for capital aid to community colleges in the late 1950s and supported the 1963 Master Plan which identified community colleges as the principal means of access to college. But as Dougherty (1994) observes, their inaction was as important as their action. California state universities did not pursue the development of community colleges as branches of the university system because there was not the fear of competition between the segments of higher education in California that existed in other state systems, notably Indiana. However, the state universities did have fears which they believed the establishment of a separate community college system would alleviate. One was the concern that including the community college function in the state university system would siphon away limited resources. Another was the fear of overcrowding, which would in 4 Reconceptualizing Schools & Learning: Community Colleges turn affect the state universities' ability to remain selective. As long as community colleies were limited to offering the associate's degree, they would not be competing with the state Explains Kerr: universities. When I was guiding the development of the Master Plan for Higher Education in California in 1959 and 1960, I considered the vast expansion of the community colleges to be the first line of defense for the University of California as an institution of international academic renown. Otherwise the university was going to be overwhelmed by large numbers of students with lower academic attainments or attacked as trying to hold on to a monopoly over entry into higher status. (Dougherty, 1994, p. 160) The common perception of the driving forces behind the rapid expansion of the community college system is that parents, students and business people clamored for more access to higher education and administrators and boards responded because they, too, believed in the need for greater access to education to both promote equity and to ensure a trained workforce. While this was certainly true to various degrees in different regions of the country, Dougherty (1994) asserts that none of these influences was the primary driving force. Rather, he argues persuasively that the self-interest of government officials at many levels was the real reason for the rapid expansion of community colleges, especially after the late 1950s. According to Dougherty, there is no other reason to explain the rapid growth. Local school officials and boards saw the founding of a community college as an enhancement to their professional and community standing, as well as an opportunity for increased professional opportunities. State offices of education benefited in similar ways. State university officials protected the selectivity of their institutions and found a "safety valve" for burgeoning student enrollment. Local and state politicians mined political support from the business community, as well as the general public, for their efforts in gaining colleges for their communities. Finally, state officials discovered that the expansion of community colleges was not going to drain state 5 Reconceptualizing Schools & Learning: Community Colleges budgets. In fact, community colleges were cheaper to run than state universities , were more attractive to business investors, and strengthened voter support (Dougherty, 1994, pp. 168, 184). It is paradoxical, then, that this self interest would prove to actually enhance the relatively minor role of the other constituents: parents, students, and business people. As Dougherty explains, "the solution to this paradox lies in the dual nature of government official's interests and values: they are a source of constraint as well as autonomy" (Dougherty, 1994, p. 184). That is, state officials need to leverage resources from business and to get that leverage, they must make concessions to business, one of those being provision of a skilled workforce. This argument is one Dougherty terms "state relative autonomy" and believes is the best explanation for the development of community colleges. In short, government officials have shaped the community college in a situation of relative autonomy from the desires of private interest groups (Dougherty, 1994, pp. 125-6). Whether or not Dougherty's argument is correct, the fact remains that the community colleges, unique in American higher education, experienced rapid growth in the 1920s and 1930s, and again the 1960s. The colleges offered occupational studies and diversified college missions even further. They were originally designed to provide academic foundations for students planning to transfer to four-year institutions, but began to provide short-term and long- term vocational training. Equally important, community colleges also defmed service to their communities as part of their mission (Stark & Lattuca, 1997, p. 49). The 1960s was the most dynamic period of growth for community colleges with a college opening at the rate of one per week (Vaughn in Fox, 1989, p. 3). There were several events which supported this growth. First was the passage of the Higher Education Facilities Act in 1963; 22% of Title I funds earmarked for undergraduate education went to community colleges 6 8 Reconceptualizing Schools & Learning: Community Colleges and public technical institutes. In 1963, the Vocational Education Act was approved and in 1965, Title III of the Higher Education Act (HEA) authorized grants for strengthening developing institutions. Twenty-two per cent of the funding for HEA was set aside for two -year colleges. By 1970, there were nearly 1,100 community colleges serving 2.5 million students (Cohen, Palmer,& Zwemer in Fox, 1989, p. 3). However, the pace began to slow in the 1970s because of increasing fiscal stringency and the fact that the colleges were running out of new populations to serve. In the 1980s, growth nearly ceased, a trend which continued into the early 1990s and beyond as the nation slowly recovered from the most recent recession (Dougherty, 1994, p. 118). Even so, in 1992-93, community colleges accounted for 37% of all undergraduate enrollments and 46% of all public college enrollments and awarded 514,756 associate degrees (Stark & Lattuca, 1997, p. 60). California has the single largest community college system, with the largest system of higher education in the 107 colleges serving over 1.3 million students, nation. THE ERA OF REFORM: ISSUES FOR THE COMMUNITY COLLEGES As a segment tif higher education, the community colleges were not immune to the reform movements of the 1980s. Beginning in 1980-81 and continuing to the present is a sharp swing away from concerns about equity and access and toward concerns about quality, efficient use of resources, and broadened missions. The national elections of 1980 marked an abrupt shift from an almost exclusive focus on equity concerns to one emphasizing economic and political reform, including issues such as academic performance and institutional improvement. A Nation At Risk, a Reagan initiative, renounced pre-existing policies as leading to economic, 7 9 Reconceptualizing Schools & Learning: Community Colleges political, and social decline. Other similar reports were less dramatic but generally supported the need to raise educational standards, even though none was very specific about how this might be accomplished. Shortly thereafter, a similar series of reports began to appear that focused on higher education. The 1980s saw an unprecedented revival of 1940's reforms as stakeholders became more concerned about quality. A plethora of reports was issued, the first wave of which was directed toward the public elementary and secondary systems and began with A Nation at Risk, sponsored by the National Commission on Excellence (1983). This was the first report to capture public attention because of its sweeping indictment of precollegiate education. A second wave of reports followed which targeted higher education and which was equally critical. These reports included To Reclaim a Legacy: A Report on the Humanities in Higher Education (Bennet, 1984), Involvement in Learning: Realizing the Potential of American Higher Education (National Institute of Education ,1984) and Integrity in the College Curriculum: A Report to the Academic Community (Association of American Colleges, 1984/5). The conclusions of these reports were the impetus for yet another shift in all of which expressed a concern for quality higher education toward a common core curriculum and against what was perceived to be excessive specialization promoted by overly autonomous academic departments to the detriment of liberal learning (Stark & Lattuca, 1997). It is important to understand why these reports appeared when they did, just as it is important to understand who generated them. As noted above, their conclusions were reactions the reforms made in the 1960s, the effects of declining resources in the 70s to several forces: and 80s, and changing perceptions of key constituencies about the purpose of higher education. Whereas the 1960s and 1970s had been concerned with access of underrepresented