Students, faculty, union organizers and citizen supporters of City College of San Francisco marched through the streets of San Francisco on July 9 to protest the arbitrary decision of the "Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges" (ACCJC), a corporate entity authorized to operate by the U.S. Department of Education, to withhold accreditation of the school past next year, a decision pending appeal. ?Pending appeal? are key words as the final decision to close the school has yet to be made.
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The demonstration in the corporate headquarters of downtown San Francisco was a rally to keep open a distinguished institution of higher public education in San Francisco. Along the route, corporate workers voiced their own protest, ?learn to read!, learn to write!?, symbolizing widespread ignorance about what public education is and why it is such a vital force for the enrichment of the City.
Some factions in postmodern San Francisco believe that the privatization of education is the wave of the future. This also highlights the unfortunate albeit prevalent prejudice that students at City College are not being educated since it is ?public ?education.
The same argument is often waged about public transportation that it is not ?real? transportation. Anyone protesting deficiencies in MUNI is often admonished to buy a car.
Ironically, the City College demonstration closed off one of the major arteries for private transportation on Beale St with freeway access. Crowded public buses also had difficulty navigating though the wave of private vehicles excessively honking to no avail in stalled traffic during evening rush hour. The recent BART strike was fresh in the minds of commuters.
Not everything can be private or should be private and the supporters of public education urge San Francisco decision makers and San Franciscans to fully understand this.
The diversity of the supporters illustrates the dominant body that represents San Francisco, not corporate San Francisco. White working, middle and educated classes, Hispanic, Native American, Asian, African American and other people of color, immigrants, and the other body politics such as the LGBT community represent the districts of San Francisco, the streets of San Francisco.
Demonstrators from several job sectors such as fireworkers, and representatives from school departments marched yesterday for the need for public education. Parents with toddlers wielding signs for future students of the school from the ?class of 2031? were also concerned. Signs that noted ?we are all City College?, symbolize that the school represents the needs of all, not a privileged few.
A city without public higher education is a city that risks the future of its citizens, and creates an unskilled labor force for essential services such as restaurant and hotel management, firefighters and more.
City College is one of the largest community colleges in the United States. It has one of the first Women's Studies programs established in the country and was the first college to offer training as aircraft mechanics to women.
What has not been reported in corporate media about the struggle to keep the school open and what many of the demonstrators believe is the underlying issue behind City College?s accreditation is the movement to privatize public education. The July 9 march ended in front of the Department of Public Education. Some believe that should the school close a private school will emerge in City College?s place with corporate and private funding.
It is a indeed a fallacy that City College teaches skills to students who cannot read and write and that many courses are non-essential such as those in the humanities. The Cinema Department, for example, not only provides the necessary historical and theoretical foundations for making good films, but also hands on filmmaking courses.
One demonstrator revealed that photography today is seen as redundant in a school curriculum with the new inroads of home media. Now that virtually anyone can afford a point and shoot camera and post in social media it has become the new ?photojournalism? of uneducated and unpaid practitioners.
A representative of ?United Educators of San Francisco" - educators protecting education - at the march informed about the continued need for a quality film program in a city that has won international and national film awards.
City College educators stress that the college is open and will remain so during the entire year. It is also anticipated that the appeal process will be successful.
Students are urged to enroll at City College for the fall, at present the only school in San Francisco where general education requirements for a BA can be earned and paid for with a low tuition. Students at City College understand that having a public education is a prudent financial decision compared with the high tuition at a four-year college.
The preliminary decision to not extend accreditation past 2014 was made on July 3, the day before National Independence Day in a move that represents a forethought that the high spirits of a public holiday would overshadow the decision.
Yet, City College?s standing as a high quality institution is well established. According to the AAJC there is a ?unified commitment to the college mission?. The AAJC team ?was impressed by the potential of the CCSF model for program review? and ?all segments of the college staff expressed and demonstrated a genuine commitment to being a student-centered college?. These observations attest to City College's distinction. At present a trustee has been appointed to align the demonstrated effectiveness of the school with fiscal accountability.
For a school that began in 1935 and which has had a substantial impact on San Francisco?s economic development, it won?t be easily replaced, and shouldn't (see photos).
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