Supporters Study Funding Options for SBCC Adult Education

» SBres on 11.20.09 @ 10:14 PM

Several years ago the organization that I work for tried to form a coalition with Adult Ed. that would have provided them with a very deep and basically never ending stream of students (read funding) and we were repeatedly given the cold shoulder. Maybe we will try again, but to be honest, I am very reluctant to deal with that tangled, elitist bureaucracy again.

» Karen Engberg on 11.21.09 @ 08:05 AM

I’ve always been amazed at the negligible cost of taking an adult ed class. If 22,000 students each paid $25 for a class instead of $3.00, it would go a long way toward offsetting the shortfall—almost all the way, in fact.

» SB Frank on 11.21.09 @ 10:09 AM

The tangled web of administration is part of the fiscal problem that Adult Ed is now facing.  Maybe there should be term limists for the administrative positions.  Anyone who dares to look at the underside of the beast sees administrators imposing levels upon levels of requirements and rules that ensures their own longevity in their positions.  Teachers and students have complained about these administrators and yet they continue in their positions.  Look at the last 12 months of hiring.  Look at their salaries.  Look at the cars they drive.  These are the same people who sat down and told their underlings to eliminate 100 classes.  They are still telling us that they may eliminate 100 more.  The teachers and students who remain in the system can certainly put their hands to the plow but look at the bloated administration and what they are being paid and how many of them are simply trying to protect their own positions.  Let THEM at take at least a 30% pay cut.  Maybe that is expecting too much of them.  Many are just highly educated.  They feel “entitled”. They drive their BMWs, Lexus, Volvos to meetings with teachers and students who have no health care, who are on unemployment and are being denied education.  The higher ups in the administration know who the bad apples are but they are fearful of reprisal if they try to remove those bad apples.  They should put away fear, clean house at the top and take charge.  Chip away at the public perception that the administrators are taking care of themselves FIRST,and only then the teachers and students.  After that is done, then make the teachers, students and community struggle to make up the fiscal short falls.  The administrators should first be teachers and lead by example in these tough times and then they will deserve the expensive suits, really nice cars and seats of honor.

» Stikit on 11.21.09 @ 02:04 PM

How about just charging students what it actually costs? If it’s a worth it to them, they will pay. Why does everything have to be subsidized by the taxpayer??

» Lee Moldaver on 11.21.09 @ 05:08 PM

I attended this meeting, which was very open, very positive, very creative. Intros were very brief. Then everyone had a chance to brainstorm and give input in small groups.

Contrast that with tv images of UC’s regents meeting surrounded by a small army of
bodyguards.

City College still operates very close to the grassroots level. Thank goodness.

The current financial challenge could not be resolved by “SBres” past offer. The issue wasn’t a lack of new students.

Many local courses are not State-funded. Many other courses are re-imbursed by the State, but don’t cover the actual cost of holding them.

Just bringing in a lot more course takers (at current rates) makes those deficits larger, not smaller.

Grant House is on the Adult Ed Advisory Committee. His remarks covered how vital
Adult Ed classes were to helping him start his business. Later, he acted as a small-group facilitator/recorder. He did a solid, nonpartisan job.

There’s a misperception (“SB Frank”) that executives at SBCC, Adult Ed, or UCSB,
are rich Bozos with swanky cars who clip coupons and work “banker’s hours”.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The gigantic, unpaid overtime hours these people have put in to meet multiple waves of state funding disasters has been heroic. They just don’t brag about it.

California has been starving education for years. Like the weather, everyone in Sacramento talks about it, but no one does anything.

The battle to keep classes open, affordable for a wide range of students, and to retain dedicated faculty and staff to operate them, is titanic.

The lights often burn late at Cheadle Hall and SBCC, long after reporters have gone
home or gone to bed.

Karen Engberg and “22,000 students” are both right. Fees, donations, tuition, for
$500,000 more per year could stabilize the Adult Ed system, and help buffer it from
Sacramento’s dysfunction . Definitely worth looking at.

» SB Frank on 11.22.09 @ 10:43 AM

Lee Moldaver adresses the observations I have shared with the following: 

“There’s a misperception (“SB Frank”) that executives at SBCC, Adult Ed, or UCSB, are rich Bozos with swanky cars who clip coupons and work “banker’s hours”.”

I believe this to be a trite and shallow response to a substantive problem.  His comments about clipping coupons and banker’s hours did not come from me.  His comments missed the core of the problem.  I do know that many of the administrators work long hours.  The point is that much of what they are doing is “make work.”  Much of what they do is NOT VALUE ADDING to the goals of Adult Ed.  Many work long hours to comply with redundant regulations and layers upon layers of meaningless requirements.  The administration and the members of their buddy system do not want to address this problem.  Their only feeble answer to those who care enough to question them is “Look at how many hours they work.”  LOOK at what THEY ARE DOING and who told them to do it !!

» john lynch on 11.23.09 @ 11:11 AM

My suggestion is to tap into the power of modern vieoconferencing which is now very cheap.
It would be ideal fir adult education. The classes could be taught right in the home over the internet. Now we can do multipoint which means you can have 10 to 20 students online at the same time and you can see and hear each other just like in regular classroom. See my web page http://www.virtualbusinessmeetings.com. Send me an email and I will explain further. .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

» SB Frank on 11.23.09 @ 05:19 PM

Nice idea John Lynch, but at the very least, 10% of the students in Adult Education do not own a computer.  So, maybe your idea would work for those who can afford internet access and own a computer.  Something quite different would have to be provided for the growing number of the less fortunate, those who are less education and yet most in need.