Sacramento, CA -- It has long been accepted that, while California’s K-12 education wallows in mediocrity and
failure, the state’s higher education system remains the "envy of the world," in one often-used phrase. Now
comes the news that the system is "in peril" and that without action, California’s dream of higher education
"will end for many citizens."

That is the warning of the California Citizens Commission on Higher Education, a group including Tom
Proulx, president and CEO of Netpulse Communications, Inc.; John Seely Brown, chief scientist and vice
president of Xerox; and John Brooks Slaughter, president of Occidental College.

California’s master plan of education guarantees every high-school student a place in college. The top 12
percent can go to the 9-campus University of California system, which in many respects does remain a first-rate
institution. The top 30 percent may attend one of the 22 Cal State schools. All others, regardless of grades,
may attend one of the state’s 106 community colleges serving 1,200,000 students. As the Commission notes,
these schools are an important stepping stone for students who do not attend university right out of high
school. About 60 percent of CSU grads have credits from community colleges.

California’s community colleges also serve more than one million students in vocational training, career
changes, and updating of skills. This is important because, as the Commission notes, California’s
burgeoning economy -- now home to nearly half of the 100 fastest growing firms in the United States -- can’t
be sustained without skilled workers. A full 85 percent of all new jobs in California between 1970 and 1990
were filled by workers with at least some form of postsecondary education. Further, says the Commission,
"welfare-to-work reform has placed an even greater burden on these colleges to provide education and job
training."

But when they are needed most, with a "tidal wave" of 500,000 additional students expected over the next six
years, these colleges now find themselves "dysfunctional." The problems center on bureaucracy:
The system is "wrapped tightly in such a contradictory tangle of structural difficulties" and is struggling
under a burdensome three-level "system" (the Commission's quotes) of governance.

The Commission recommends eliminating the tradition of electing local trustees to run the community colleges.
As some observers have noted, it seems that some of those elected proved more interested in using the
trustee post as a springboard for higher political office than attending to the needs of the students
already victimized by the K-12 system.

Fifty-four percent of those California high-school students entering the Cal State system need remedial
math and 47 percent need remedial English. That performance is coming from the top 30 percent of
high-school students. One can only imagine the percentage of those needing remedial work for the rest.
Commission members concede the system’s failure.

"Look at what happened to us in the public school system," said the Commission’s co-chair, Harold
Williams, former head of the Getty Trust. "Suddenly we woke up one day and said ‘What happened to our
wonderful system?’ The same thing will happen in higher education, unless we make some major changes."

By the year 2000, it should become apparent that California cannot expect to maintain a world-class
university system in a state buried in bureaucratic sediment, and where the K-12 system lies in disarray.

-- K. Lloyd Billingsley

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