By Tim Redmond
Suppose City College went along with the (looney) idea of applying for accreditation as a new institution, as the heads of the accrediting agency are suggesting. Think about what that would mean.
John Rizzo, president of the (deposed) local Community College Board has. And he points out a serious flaw that hasn’t been much in the news.
If City College applied as a “candidate,” it would be in effect saying that it was a new and different institution. And that might mean that all of the existing contracts – including labor contracts – are void.
“The teachers wouldn’t be represented,” Rizzo said. “They’d have to start all over again.”
More than that, what I think ACCJC might want is for City College to become a “charter college,” like a charter school – an institution that takes state money, but can choose its own staff. A charter college might have no elected board; it might not have union contracts. It might not offer anywhere near the range of classes that CCSF offers, and might become exactly what the accreditors want – a much smaller junior college with the only mandate of teaching people who want to transfer to a four-year institution.
Alisa Messer, who runs the City College Teachers’ Union, noted that “it’s become apparent to us that the ACCJC dislikes unions, perhaps even more than it dislikes elected boards.”
Is that part of the plan? Is this what the loss of accreditation was all about? Maybe.
Is it time for the mayor to wake up and take a stand against this madness? Pretty clearly.
