By Tim Redmond
DECEMBER 3, 2014 – A decision is expected next week in City Attorney Dennis Herrera’s lawsuit against the agency that is trying to shut down City College. And while everyone on campus (and the thousands of businesses and individuals around the city who depend on the college) hopes that the judge will rule for Herrera, nobody is sure what will happen next.
Put simply: We can’t rely entire only Judge Curtis Karnow to solve all of the problems created by the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges. He can undo what the ACCJC did to City College and force the group to start the process over – but he can’t disband the ACCJC or change the way that rogue agency does business.
The state Legislature could take action to create a new system for college accreditation in California, but so far, that hasn’t happened.
But there’s another way to force the ACCJC to change. Although the agency is described as unaccountable to anyone, it’s actually funded by the taxpayers, through the community college districts in California.
The ACCJC gets its revenue almost entirely from member dues – and the colleges are the members. Every year, each school gets assessed a fee (a substantial fee) for the right to have the ACCJC do its accreditation.
What if the schools just refused to pay?
What if all, or most, of the college districts (very few of which are happy with the accreditors) just withheld payment for a year? The ACCJC would have no income, no way to pay its staff or office rent. The agency would shut down.
At that point, the colleges could create a new accrediting agency, with a more reasonable set of bylaws and procedures and an accountable board.
Is that a crazy idea? John Rizzo, president of the San Francisco Community College Board, doesn’t think so. “It’s an interesting idea,” he told me.
In the past year or so, as the horrors of the ACCJC have become more apparent, a growing number of college trustees and executives are starting to speak out. “For a while, people were afraid to say anything,” Rizzo told me. “But I’m seeing signs now of a revolt.”
It would take, Trustee Rafael Mandelman told me, “a lot of collective action.” That it would. One college couldn’t do it alone.
In essence, the trustees of the 72 community college districts and the chancellors of the 112 individual schools would have to decide as a group that it’s time for the ACCJC to go. You wouldn’t need all of them, but it would have to be a clear majority and include all the big districts.
What could the ACCJC do? Nothing. The agency can’t yank a school’s accreditation just because the district didn’t pay the dues. And it certainly can’t revoke the accreditation of every community college in the state, all at once.
The state regulations on education mention the ACCJC as the accrediting agency for community colleges, but that could easily be changed if a new agency were created.
There’s already concern that the member colleges are getting the tab for the ACCJC’s legal defense in the Herrera case, and Rizzo told me there’s a lot of grumbling about that. So there’s already the basis for organizing a campaign.
Long shot? Maybe. But the current situation is intolerable, and there aren’t that many other solutions on the table.
