Editorial: Community colleges

No Child Left Behind: The Community College Edition

Every student who completes a federal financial aid application has to look at the dismal City College completion and graduation rates, extracted from the National Center for Education Statistics.  

In 2010, only ten percent of entering students were counted as full time. The retention rate for full time students was sixty-one percent but thirty-five percent for part time students. Only fifteen percent graduated with degrees or certificates.  Only twelve percent of LACC students transferred to universities.

In order to boost the numbers, a statewide organization known as the California Community Colleges Student Success Task Force is gearing up for reform to boost graduation and transfer rates.

How do you boost numbers?

Get rid of the weakest link—part time students who struggle with work and family duties.  They have obligations that compete with school.

The Task Force intends to prioritize fee waivers for full time students to ensure that their degrees are completed within “normal” time.  For an associate degree, three years is the maximum period of “normal” to complete that study.

Proponents of the task force have described their goals as ensuring accountability. In a financial crisis, how can the state continue to invest in “lazy” students who don't bother with their classes?  The state should allocate its funds to the more “motivated” full time students, the Task Force recommends.  

Community colleges have been known for its access. The community college system in California is the largest in the nation.  

To register for City College takes seconds whereas getting into UCLA takes months of preparations.

Should higher education really be available to everyone who desires it?

The resources and finances at community colleges are bleeding.  The Task Force argues that resources must be “rationed.”  Full time students should receive fee waivers and priority registrations. The safe investments are the students who are progressing at “normal” time, whereas, students who are progressing slower would be considered riskier investments.  When degrees are not achieved in “normal” time, the figures make City College look like a campus of idiots and dilettantes.

Vigorous opponents from San Francisco City College have argued that getting rid of noncredit courses and a prioritization for full time students as privatization.

The retention and graduation figures don't tell the full story.  They don’t reveal students who are at City to learn for the sake of learning, to dabble into a new field, to retrain, to get their feet wet into an area that they had always desired but pursued another major field because of parental pressures.  

But government likes numbers.  The percentages are too low. Make 'em higher by kicking out the ones who bring down the numbers?

Learners exploring their desires need not apply.  Financial aid will be tied to grades and “normal” pace of progress towards degrees and transferring. The Task Force intends to build a transfer powerhouse with numbers to show off.

Community colleges have always been seen as the one accessible oasis to the population with the harshest adversities: minorities, first generation college students, low income, working-class.

Students who want to explore and slow pokes who stick around City College beyond three years—Sorry, my friends, the Task Force wants you out.

Illustration by Jose Tobar

Opinion: "Post Racial"

Post Racial

I boarded the eastbound Slauson Boulevard bus on my way to City College. 

Oprah always said to listen to “that little voice,” which she identified as intuition.

On this particular day, I chose to suppress that little voice.

I went to the back of the bus to sit.   I was the only Asian sitting there, amongst a group of black youths. 

When Sandra Bullock’s character in the 2004 film “Crash” walked by those two black men, she too had a premonition. 

I felt the burn of dark pupils. One black teen was eyeing me purposely from across the bus. I felt the gaze of another teen sitting to my left; he leaned over to yet another, whispering into his ear. I dismissed my apprehension:  It was a full bus and crowded;  and yes, maybe there weren’t too many people who looked like me boarding busses in South Central. 

I looked down, continuing to read articles on Trayvon Martin, the seventeen-year-old who was killed by a half-white, half-Peruvian volunteer crime watchman in Florida.

Martin’s death is portrayed as a racist tragedy because he was a young black male. In the court of public opinion, most are probably on Martin’s side.

Suddenly, my reading was interrupted when my body was pulled off my seat.  The guy who was eyeing me suspiciously had tugged on my purse, which pulled my wrist because the purse strap was around it. The next tug was enough to lift me like a rag doll. 

As the bus stopped on Slauson and Crenshaw, I suddenly realized what was happening.

“Stop!” I shouted.  I was able to get a closer look at those eyes which bore into me, surprisingly calm brown eyes, so focused. His objective was clear. 

The purse snatcher pushed me out the rear doors of the bus.  The exit stairs were behind me.  I fell to the sidewalk.  He and his friend ripped the strap from my purse and ran.

I watched in slow motion.  The bystanders were thankfully not in as much of a daze as I was.

“Do you want me to call the police?” asked a woman.

“Go after them,” said a mother with a little girl dressed in pink.

My chest tightened painfully.

I couldn’t believe what was happening.

“They’re there!” the bystander pointed toward south Crenshaw Boulevard.

I had given up on my purse, but the bystanders prodded me.  I walked slowly to comply with their instructions. 

Moments later, a man returned on his bicycle after chasing my purse snatchers.

I recognized the small black bag, now strapless.

“Thank you,” I said to the man who returned my purse to me.

I collapsed to the ground because I was so utterly shocked.  I had only $3 and a debit card that had access to the few remaining dollars in my checking account. I also had my driver’s license and a cellphone inside that purse. 

“Get up,” he urged me, spurring my confidence.

 

I had never been a victim of a crime. 

The boys who had snatched my purse resembled Trayvon Martin in appearance.

I had ignored that “little voice,” scolding myself with “Don’t be a racist.”

Here, I would like to stop my story to warn all Asians who take the bus on South Central to not sit in the back and be aware of teen black males who eye you suspiciously. 

I was going to write an editorial about the plight of the young black male, including  the most conspicuous statistic of how so few black men are in higher education. 

“Don’t be a racist,” was the most important lesson from my memory of the Los Angeles Riots. 

“Can we all just get along?” Rodney King asked, which I will now ask.

I want to get along.  I want to live in that post-racial world. 

I refused to believe that South Central was a rough neighborhood. I also wanted to do something about the prejudice toward young black males. 

Now, I question myself. 

The Slauson bus passes by the swapmeet where my father had worked.  During the Los Angeles Riots, he was armed along with other Korean workers to guard his place of work.  As the lone Asian on the Slauson bus, I am reminded just how segregated Los Angeles still is, so contrary to my idealism.

From now on, I will have an involuntary feeling of fear whenever I see a teenage black male with sagging pants.  I don’t want to, but the fear will be there and that is the part I resent the most. 

My story ended happily.  There were people who helped me.  They were all black and brown and they were all more than willing to help that lone Asian—me. 

But a gnawing question persists which I want to ask the two teens who plotted to steal my purse: “Why me?  Was it because of my race?”

Illustration by Jose Tobar

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@CollegianWired

Film Review: "Clash of Colors"

Clash of Colors Confronts American Tragedy

In the 20-year anniversary of the Los Angeles Riots, a documentary is examines the self-destruction of an urban melting pot.

"Clash of Colors," a film by David D. Kim, a Korean-American lawyer who urged Koreans to defend themselves during the Los Angeles Riots, examines an American tragedy released on the 20-year anniversary of the Riots.

Similar to the “change and hope” of a black president running the most powerful country in the world, Los Angeles in the 1990s had a black mayor. Like the advent of the Riots, the economy is in a state of recession.  A tension threatens with publicized stories like the black Florida teen’s death at the hands of crime watch volunteer.

“Clash,” which Kim began in 2003, tries to answer why a tragedy happened, resulting in 55 deaths and $1 billion in property damage.  Most of the property damage was suffered by Korean Americans in the neighborhood, the group with the largest number of self-employed businesses.

 However, the infamous video that sparked the Riots 20 years ago was due for a closer look. Rodney King was driving drunk and speeding. A group of white officers struggled to subdue King, a formidable man, before they pulled out their batons. This portion leading up to the video aired on television remains mostly unseen.

What aired on TV were the truncated versions of the Rodney King which created an expectation that the four white officers would be convicted.

The officers were acquitted of their beatings and the rage flared among the community.

It catapulted when the media reported on the death of Latasha Harlins, a black teen who had argued with a Korean liquor store owner, Soon Ja Do.  After Harlins was accused of shoplifting, Do shot the black teen.

Do was also acquitted like the white officers involved with Rodney King.  When Do’s sentence was reduced to community service, indignant rage from Rodney King trial exploded.  Do’s liquor store was burned.  Other Korean businesses were burned.  Chaos ensued and television continued to play the edited video clips.

Security camera footage filmed Do and Harlins.  However, the truncated clip broadcast on television only showed the Korean woman shooting the teenager and skipped the part in which the teen reached over the counter to slap the Korean merchant.

Calls to the police made by Koreans were made and ignored. The police did not come; the department advised Koreans to just abandon their businesses.

At first, the Radio Korea also advised Koreans to close up their businesses and stay home.  Then David D. Kim went to Radio Korea and urged Koreans to arm themselves and defend their businesses.

"Koreans were pioneers," Leo Estrada, demographer and UCLA faculty professor said, "when nobody else wanted to invest in South Central LA, entrepreneurs from South Korea came into this area."

Koreans owned and operated many liquor stores in South Central, which was considered black territory. Black newspapers had front page headlines of Koreans taking over black neighborhoods.

Most people of Los Angeles are probably not aware that the familiar video clips of Rodney King and Latasha Harlins were shortened versions.  The images of Rodney King and Latasha Harlins -- the frequency of images of blacks being attacked and then framed as racial conflicts was not truthful because most exchanges between blacks and Koreans did not result in conflicts. Unfortunately peace does not make headlines.  The media provoked the riots by frequently airing only violent images.

The potential for another uprising is always there," said Estrada.

With rising poverty and discontent, the potential for conflict and scapegoating grows, especially, in a multicultural city.  David D. Kim’s “Clash of Colors” urges remembrance and caution.

 As the historian George Santayana said, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."



"Riot Riot" by Lauren Arévalo  @laarevalo



@CollegianWired