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Why have so many advocacy organizations whose decision makers have little, if any, direct experience within the California Community Colleges, successfully determined the policy and funding direction of the system over the past few decades? In 2020, I began researching a range of California-based advocacy organizations which have redefined the miss...
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This is the research report of a project funded by the Policy Innovation and Coordination Office of the Hong Kong SAR Government.
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... As a local and statewide faculty leader, I have spent (wasted?) too much of my career working with colleagues to understand, resist, and collaborate with CCC system partners who have either embraced the austerity agenda or succumbed to its inevitability. When I began to research California interest groups and share my findings publicly, I was inspired by Ravitch's documentation of what she called "the resistance" to the K-12 "disruption" agenda (D. Klein, 2021;) that preceded its subsequent takeover of the community colleges. 6 The K-12 resistance movement began by putting forth its vision for a high-quality public education-an education that acknowledges the individuality of each student, is not solely focused on outcomes and completion, and addresses the needs of students to grow in knowledge, critical thinking, character, and civic engagement . ...
The largest system of higher education in the nation, the California Community Colleges (CCC) has disappeared over one million students in the past 15 years, a 35% decrease in its student body since 2008 despite California’s population increase. This dramatic shrinking of the CCC system was not an accident. It was manufactured by a vast neoliberal policy network and funded by edu-philanthropist foundations with the goal of disrupting, defunding, and dismantling public education (Ravitch, 2020). Tracking faculty and student advocacy against so-called “student success” policies, this paper concludes that edu-philanthropist foundations have created decades of policy designed to shrink and disinvest from California’s community colleges. Building on the literature documenting neoliberal educational reform within the public sector of the United States, this paper is based on original ethnographic research and leadership experience within local and statewide faculty organizations, including participation in California state governance and legislative processes, from 2007 to 2022. The paper calls for the nation’s community colleges to build a coalition that will educate the public about the fifty-year plus neoliberal project to defund public education; expose the philanthrocapitalist takeover of community colleges; and advocate for reinvestment in the millions of students who need the community colleges the most.
The largest system of higher education in the nation, the California Community Colleges (CCC) has disappeared over one million students in the past 15 years, a 35% decrease in its student body since 2008 despite California’s population increase. This dramatic shrinking of the CCC system was not an accident. It was manufactured by a vast neoliberal policy network and funded by edu-philanthropist foundations with the goal of disrupting, defunding, and dismantling public education (Ravitch, 2020). Tracking faculty and student advocacy against so-called “student success” policies, this paper concludes that edu-philanthropist foundations have created decades of policy designed to shrink and disinvest from California’s community colleges. Building on the literature documenting neoliberal educational reform within the public sector of the United States, this paper is based on original ethnographic research and leadership experience within local and statewide faculty organizations, including participation in the California Community Colleges governance and legislative processes, from 2007 to 2022. The paper calls for the nation’s community colleges to build a coalition that will educate the public about the fifty-year plus neoliberal project to defund public education; expose the philanthrocapitalist takeover of community colleges; and advocate for reinvestment in the millions of students who need the community colleges the most.
In this virtual presentation, Debbie Klein discusses the impact philanthrocapitalist foundations have had on California Community Colleges over the past 20 years. Philanthrocapitalist-funded nonprofits have claimed to promote equity but have implemented policies that apply corporate efficiency models to public education, resulting in a disconnect between their goals and the outcomes of their policies. As a result, their policies have created more barriers to enrollment and success, leading to a loss of over one million students in the system over a decade. Philanthrocapitalists and the nonprofits they fund have intentionally shrunk and defunded the California Community Colleges over the past two decades.
This presentation argues for the need to build a campaign to reclaim and reinvent life-affirming education for the largest and most diverse student body in higher education in the United States.
