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THE AMERICAN GRADUATION INITIATIVE: STRONGER AMERICAN SKILLS THROUGH COMMUNITY COLLEGES
"Now is the time to build a firmer, stronger foundation for growth that will not only withstand future economic storms, but one that helps us thrive and compete in a global economy. It’s time to reform our community colleges so that they provide Americans of all ages a chance to learn the skills and knowledge necessary to compete for the jobs of the future."
– President Barack Obama, Jan.25th, 2011
President Obama was successful in signing a bill eliminating $87 billion in corporate student-loan reform by cutting the middle man out from gleaning millions from high interest loans for student education. However the Obama administration’s community college-graduation agenda is in jeopardy. The funding to support this appears to be a victim of political fickleness: Bill H.R. 3590, The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPAC), which addresses the country’s health care, is tied to bill H.R. 4872, the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010. The later had contained revisions to augment H. R. 3590 – the cost savings from adopting the PPAC act was to be used to finance the community college graduation agenda.
Repeal for the bill H.R. 3590 continues from the Republican Party; a lawsuit against the health care overhaul, filed by Florida attorney general Bill McCollum, called this bill an "unprecedented encroachment on the liberty of individuals and on the sovereignty of the states”. McCollum’s argument came from the act’s Individual Mandate requiring most Americans to buy health insurance by 2014 or face penalties. The act also withholds Medicare reimbursement from states that refuse to participate with the PPAC agenda.
Just days after Obama's landslide victory, America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), a trade group, made a surprising announcement it favored universal coverage and gave its support to a law that would stop insurers from rejecting applicants because of preexisting conditions. After being vehemently opposed all the healthcare reform suggested during the Clinton years, AHIP suddenly changed its position based on one condition: any reform plan had to require that all individuals have insurance or pay stiff penalties. During his campaign, Barack Obama was opposed to an individual mandate – preferring directives that require all employers to provide medical coverage.
"The truth is this that this is a Republican idea," said Linda Quick, president of the South Florida Hospital and Healthcare Association. She said she first heard the Individual Mandate concept in speech by Sen. John McCain, a conservative Republican from Arizona, back in Miami in the 1990’s to counter the "Hillarycare" during the Clinton administration.
As a response to McCollum’s lawsuit, on Jan. 31, 2011 U.S. District Judge Robert Vinson declared the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act unconstitutional due to this Individual Mandate provision. Vinson ruling of its unconstitutionality had voided the entire act. This included the funding for the college graduation agenda.
The country now must lie in wait to see what will unfold next for “Obamacare” and its noble agenda towards our country’s education and economic stability. Yet there are those who still stand behind the president, as proponents of this bill and that which it supports. Dr. Martha Kanter is one of them.
Dr. Kanter is the Under Secretary in the Department of Education. She has also served as chancellor of the Foothill-De Anza Community College District; one of the largest community college districts in the nation, serving more than 45,000 students with a total budget of approximately $400 million. She is the first community college education leader and advocate to serve in the undersecretary position. In an attempt to better understand this act and its effect on community colleges, I interviewed her after her visit to Pittsburgh to be the Keynote speaker at Chatham University’s graduation ceremony last December.
Bryan Ceberio: How did you get the honor of being appointed Under Secretary?
Martha Kanter: Secretary Duncan asked me to join his team after we met in February a few weeks after President Obama took the oath of office. He was excited about what I had accomplished in my community college career and also appreciated my experience in state and local policy development as well as having been a high school teacher early on in my career.
BC: What does an Under Secretary do?
MK: The Under Secretary for the U.S. Department of Education oversees policies, programs, and activities related to postsecondary education, career-technical and adult education, and federal student aid.
BC: Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan went on the Steven Colbert show and shot some hoops with the host. Do you intend on going on the show and showing Steven your stuff?
MK: I can’t shoot hoops but I’m very good at keeping score!
BC: As chancellor of the Foothill-De Anza Community College District, one of the largest community college districts in the nation, may I ask how your involvement in Community Colleges began?
MK: In 1977 I got my first job to set up the first learning disabilities program at San Jose City College in San Jose, California. The Vietnam War had ended and we had many veterans and Vietnamese immigrants landing in San Jose, seeking higher education. I jumped into the job and before I knew it, 150 students with learning disabilities were getting an education with the support of my program.
BC: What was your role in the League for Innovation in the Community College?
MK: I served as vice president of the board and was about to take over the presidency until Secretary Duncan made me an offer to join the Obama Administration that I couldn’t refuse!
BC: According to the League for Innovation in the Community College, more than 10 million students served by two-year colleges each year (about the League tab on the web site, last paragraph). Why do you think that is?
MK: Community Colleges offer a quality education at an affordable price with the flexibility of day, evening, online and weekend classes. Most community colleges are close to where people live, making it convenient to come to college. They are called “community” colleges for good reason!
BC: Andrew Flagel is the Dean of Admissions and Associate Vice President for Enrollment Development at George Mason University. He wrote a dissertation on a national study of institutional policies for the evaluation of transfer applicants. [1] In his dissertation he writes that the former Education Secretary Margaret Spellings was quoted, “Community colleges offered good values that could be covered by Pell grants. To lower their costs, students could be starting there rather than at a state university," (Burd, 2006, A23). Mr. Flagel also mentions that legislators across the country, who see community colleges as a less expensive investment than four-year publics, are raising the demand that four-year colleges increase transfer enrollment without any clear data on the impact such a shift might have on students and institutions. Yet generally Universities enroll few community college graduates, despite stated goals of diversifying their enrollment.
[1] A NATIONAL STUDY OF INSTITUTIONAL POLICIES FOR THE EVALUATION OF TRANSFER APPLICANTS - http://www.nacacnet.org/PublicationsResources/Research/Reports/Documents/FlagelDissertation.pdf
MK: In California where I worked for more than 30 years, two-thirds of the state university graduates and one-third of the University of California graduates started higher education at a community college, so I’m not sure whether Mr. Flagel is speaking about the most highly selective universities who have far more limited slots than U.S. State Universities.
BC: Joshua Wyner, executive vice president of the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, who provided testimony to House Committee on Education and Labor September 10, 2007 regarding a Jack Kent Cooke study, entitled Achievement Trap: How America is Failing Millions of High Achieving Students from Lower-Income Families.
In this report, 20 years of longitudinal data from three federal databases was reviewed and examined. It found that the experiences of students who perform in the top quartile on nationally standardized academic assessments are from families in the bottom half of the national income. [2]
Wyner also quoted in his article from Education Equity and the Transfer Student, "A growing number of community-college students are precisely the sort of exceptional achievers that elite colleges seek." However, Wyner goes on to point out that research supported by the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation shows a striking decline in transfer enrollment at selective institutions.
[2] Achievement Trap: How America is Failing Millions of High Achieving Students from Lower-Income Families - http://democrats.edworkforce.house.gov/testimony/091007JoshWynerTestimony.pdf
MK: That’s unfortunate but most U.S. colleges and universities are making difficult, often heart-wrench choices about who gets in because they’ve had to reduce their budgets. Many selective universities lost state aid they used to count on and they saw their endowment funds shrink. Thus, many cannot now provide enhanced university aid. Others decided to limit slots. Others are adding higher paying out-of-state and international students to make up lost revenues. It’s a tough situation and community college transfers are one of the casualties. Fortunately, some selective institutions like Cornell University seek community college transfers despite these challenging economic times.
BC: What do you hope to achieve for the transferring community college students seeking to be placed in universities as Under Secretary?
MK: Ultimately increased opportunities for community college students to transfer to the institutions they choose. It’s important to build awareness among university presidents and business leaders about the value and success stories of community college transfer students like the founder of Kinko’s or the president of Accenture or the thousands of nurses (nearly half of all nurses in the country) or physicians like Manuel Maverakis who was one of only thirteen summa cum laude Harvard graduates who began at De Anza College in Cupertino, California where I served as president for ten years.
BC: President Obama's goal to lead the world in college graduates by 2020, what does that mean to you? What is the plan to make this happen?
MK: Provide incentives to accelerate high levels of achievement that result in more students’ earning degrees and certificates than ever before.
Shine a spotlight on, share and scale the innovative programs that are showing results.
Reach out to business, labor, government and non-profit partners to support the 2020 goal (see what Southern Vermont College has already done to launch the 2020 Initiative! see Complete College America; see Complete to Compete launched by the National Governors Assn.)
BC: In 1962, The Manpower Development and Training Act (MDTA) was created as an effort to provide training to unemployed and underemployed Americans in response to vast technological and automation changes. [3] The MDTA was originally run under the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare and the Department of Labor; the Department of Labor was in charge of identifying the need for training, determining eligibility for payment and for job placement once training was completed; the Department of Education, Health, and Welfare provided the actual training. Few people realize that this was the foundation of where Job Corps began.
I am currently a Job Corps student, and it was explained to me that when I began in the Off Center Training (OCT) program at CCAC, I was to work towards a certificate program (which takes one year), followed later by an Associate’s Degree within an allotted two-year time frame a student is allowed to be in Job Corps. The Job Corps program has to meet Return on Investment (ROI) matrices reported to the Department of Labor to prove its program is a success. These matrices are supposed to demonstrate that the students they support through this program graduate within this time frame, thus meeting their goal of helping to create an employable workforce.
Yet what looks like a one-year certificate to obtain on paper took much longer to achieve in reality. Due to the bureaucratizes of the program, students have to register late from leftover class availability, leaving many Job Corp students taking classes that are not part of the "projected" time frame. I myself will not be able to graduate with my A.S. degree within the two year time frame allotted in the program.
With President Obama's goal to insure this country has the highest number of college graduates in the world by 2020, will the Job Corps, a federally funded program, with training programs like the OTC that utilize Community Colleges, be part of this equation?
And if so, will the Department of Education take on a greater role with Job Corps?
For instance, with the backing of the Department of Education, Job Corps can obtain a “smarter, more efficient relationship" with the Community Colleges by giving Job Corp Students priority registration through stream lined fast-tracked programs that will also meet transfer requirements on a University level. This would assist a Job Corp student to meet their time line goals. This change in programming would include OCT/Community College based services allocated specifically for Job Corps student, such as One on One Tutoring, Life Skills, Networking, and Educational Continuance guidance.
The current program has an assemblance of what I suggested above on Job Corps site, yet it has nothing like this with its OCT program. This would truly assist both the student and the program in meeting the ROI matrices, thus demonstrating a real success.
[3] MDTA: The Origins of the Manpower Development and Training Act of 1962
- http://www.dol.gov/oasam/programs/history/mono-mdtatext.htm
MK: These suggestions are promising. Assistant Secretary of Labor Jane Oates and I have been working together on the new Community College Job Training and Education initiative under the Trade Adjustment Act. President Obama and Congress have provided $2 billion over four years and these ideas would be good ones to pursue in the competition for funds that will be announced early spring.
BC: And finally, my last question, (and my favorite question) what is your favorite movie?
MK: This year: King’s Speech!
As the PPAC act is in a legal battle for its life, there are those in Education that await its survival to support programs that would benefit American student’s goals towards their education and their ability to become gainfully employed after they graduate. It now more than ever that the nation’s students must join together to revitalize America for our economic survival, as well as live up to our own individual promise. We may not have to fight for our rights in the streets like the Egypt just yet, but rather we need to be more cognoscente about who we elect on the represent us in the legislature. After all, the Constitution starts out with the words “We the People”, not we the privileged few who have the resources not to worry about how we can obtain healthcare and fund our education.
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