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Skyline View The Voice of Skyline College, San Bruno, California
Volume XXXX - Issue 1
February 4, 2016
www.theskylineview.com
Potential for college funds to increase Governor Jerry Brown hopes new funding will have impact on community colleges By Joshua Chan TSV staff writer
Jerry Brown recently proposed a new budget for the state of California, with many proposals regarding higher education A new budget was proposed at the beginning of the year to increase funding for California colleges. Governor Jerry Brown proposed a new budget for the state of California, to increase funding in regards to higher education. Some of this funding is specifically geared towards community colleges, which got an increase from $8 billion to $9 billion from 2015-2017. Much of the money comes from Proposition 98, which allocates 40 percent of California tax revenues to community colleges and K-12 education. A statement from California Community Colleges Chancellor Brice W. Harris commented on these funding increases and the impact it will have on community colleges, namely that it “includes a commitment to improve and expand our efforts to build a stronger workforce...
improve remedial education, and help close achievement gaps." But what might it mean for students of Skyline College? For students of Skyline College looking to transfer to a four year college in the UC system, there are a few proposals that are meant to make a transfer more efficient. According to the budget itself, there is also a goal of having one new transfer student per two transfer students, which the new budget proposal plans to make happen in a few notable ways: Standardizing the required courses for transfer for 20 majors, similar to those of an associate's degree for transfer. Skyline College does offer many programs that stand to benefit from the funding increases. For one, Skyline College has a wide variety of Career Technical Programs, such as Early Childhood Education and Business Administration, and the Center for Workforce Development. These programs work with outside companies to create new internship and employment opportunities. The funding will provide new programs known as “transfer pathways” which are known as a tool to aid transfer students on
Brian Silverman/The Skyline View
which classes to take for transferring with a specific major to a UC campus. In all there are supposed to be 10 “transfer pathways.” Skyline has a transfer center also boosts students to transfer to a four year university with use of programs such as TAG(Transfer Admission Guarantee) and the Honors Transfer Program. Skyline also offers priority regis-
tration and concurrent enrollment for high school students, and programs such as MathJam aid students who are struggling with mathematics coming into community college. The budget also includes many proposals also meant for easing the transition of high school seniors into college level courses. There are also many proposi-
tions in place for funding towards transitioning from California community colleges to the workforce, particularly for those in Career Technical Education programs.
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ACCJC fights for new accreditor By Chrystina Chase TSV staff writer
Attending an accredited college is vital to the ducation of many students. The degree earned from a reputable college whose standards meet those of the Department of Education is important, and now the search for a new accreditor is being put on hold due to unreconciled differences between the present accreditor and the California Community College’s Chancellor. The Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC) has lost the confidence of the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office, according to a report from the 2015 Task Force from the Chancellor’s Office. “The central focus of accreditation processes should be on providing excellent teaching and learning opportunities and on academic integrity. The current accreditor for the California Community Colleges has failed to maintain such a focus,” reads the first line from the conclusion of the task force report.
The 10 member team, comprised of faculty from colleges within the region, has cited a number of issues they have with the accrediting commission. Among them are the commission is not meeting the needs of the colleges in the area it represents, the commission has a focus of compliance rather than improvement, and that their actions and decisions are not transparent. And they have the backing of the Board of Governors. Steven Baum a trustee of the Ventura Community District told reporters “We felt the current process of accreditation was simply not working and we thought long and hard about the conclusions we came to. It was our judgment that a new accrediting process would be better than more attempts at reforming the current one.” During the period between 2005 and 2015, the ACCJC has sanctioned 113 schools, most notably revoking the accreditation of City College of San Francisco. The sanctions were given little time for correction. The ACCJC
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later reversed their decision, but the damage to the school and the commission’s reputation was already done. The ACCJC sent out a response report after the Task Force published its report. In it, the ACCJC responded to each one of the Task Force’s complaints individually,
most notably saying that some of the task force complaints were out of date and they have added a new option to their review policy that allows them to visit an issue with a college within a year. The Task Force has stated that they will continue to work with the ACCJC to ensure that there is
continuity in accreditation, but that the current commission is “too far gone” for reparations.