It seemed to be a bad night for Chancellor Raghu P. Mathur. He didn't seem to get what he wanted. Not about Reassigned Time, not about the 50% Law. Essentially, he just looked like an asshole.The discussion about our struggles with the 50% Law was interesting. There was an effort to sell the idea that it is a new-fangled and "bad" law, and, gosh, how were we supposed to know about so goofy a requirement?
In truth, the 50% Law is more than 40 years old. That Mathur and Co. were caught by surprise by it suggests gross incompetence. No, it is not true that a third (or, as Mathur put it, a "turd") of community colleges have run into difficulty with this law. Compton College and Beaver Fang College (I think that was the name) had a problem with it. And us.
And, no, we won't be able to solve the problem by reducing Reassigned Time.
Remarkably, some trustees seemed to understand the situation perfectly. Fuentes, Wagner, and Williams, however, seemed to come from somewhere out in left field. Evidently, they intend to launch a state-wide effort to rid the state's community colleges of this "bad" law!
No, I'm not kidding.
More tomorrow.
P.S.:
Trustee Fuentes’ (and Chancellor Mathur’s) remarks about the nature and origins of the 50% Law are curious. Mathur referred to unions. Fuentes referred to "special interests."
I have endeavored to look into the legislative intent of that law, which seems to trace back to 1961.
• My inquiries are preliminary, but I did find this “legal opinion” issued by Ralph Black in 2000, the General Council of the State Chancellor, regarding the definition of “Salaries of Classroom Instructors” contained in Education Code Section 84362, the ‘Fifty Percent’ Law”:
…There is also ample evidence that the Legislature enacted Section 17503 (the predecessor to Section 84362) in 1961 with the intention of reducing class size by having instructors time being devoted to instructional activities. [The law was then applied to K-12 "teachers."] The report, “An Analysis of School District Expenditures for Certificated Personnel Salaries” by the Senate Fact Finding Committee on Governmental Administration (which gave rise to the introduction of Assembly Bill 1789 which amended former Section 17503) explained that, “The proposed revision of Section 17503 is designed specifically to encourage the reduction of class size. The alarming trend toward larger class size in California must be reversed if we expect our children to be able to compete with equal advantage with children from other states and nations. …” As a result, while the Legislature in enacting Section 17503 did not mandate the amount going to teacher salaries, it is abundantly clear that they sought to compel districts to spend more on teacher salaries precisely because they believed there was a direct relationship between money spent to pay teachers and class size….”• And this is CA senate testimony from three years ago:
Education Code Section 84362 requires that community college districts expend during each fiscal year fifty percent of the district’s current expense of education for the payment of salaries of classroom instruction. … This provision of the Education Code was adopted in 1959 at a time when community colleges were part of the K-12 system. The law was originally adopted to address K-12 class size issues as well as to limit the number of guidance counselors. (Arnold Bray, ACCCA)• Check out this CCLC "background paper" from 2000 (a pdf file).
