A recent article published by investigative reporting agency California Watch found that California community colleges could save “tens of millions of dollars” by consolidating districts and sharing administrative positions between schools that are within close proximity to each other.
For example, the Chabot-Las Positas Community College District could join forces with a school such as Ohlone College in Fremont to create one larger district.
While the scope and depth of research contained in the article is admirable, the conclusion it draws, that somehow schools can magically consolidate with each other, is just plain wrong.
Let’s just start with one logistical aspect of the proposed larger districts: who will run them.
Forming a body to run this districts will be costly. It will require elections.
The entire concept is a nightmare of bureaucracy already plagued by too much of it.
The intentions of California Watch are noble, to identify waste in the education system and re-direct funds to where they are most needed — students.
But to put already strained administrations under the threat of losing jobs and adding on top of that costly elections is just not the right approach.
If California Watch had put the same foot forward and sought to identify ways to make the current systems more effective and efficient, then they probably would have had something.
Instead, California Watch uses more than 3,000 words of space to argue a case that is not a positive for community college students in California.
The article, titled “State’s community colleges spend millions on duplicative administrators,” will be posted in its entirety on our webpage LPCExpressnews.com.
On the question of whether their argument holds any water, the LPC community will be able to read the article and decide for themselves.