Hi Phil,
There is nothing to be angry about. I personally appreciate your concern. I got my college start at City College, since I was too poor to go anywhere else; and being a recent immigrant I was just learning to navigate higher education in the United States. So, please believe me that when I go after the City College Trustees, teachers' union, misguided students, and taxpayers who fork over money instead of understanding the problem, my intention is to truly "save" the college not to do away with it.
Please also understand that the article you see on the LPSF website follows hours of hard work by the core LPSF activists last August through November, on the occasion of the November elections. We spent a great deal of our scarce time and treasure coming to a consensus on the Ballot Measures, adopting and publishing our recommendations, writing Ballot Arguments, attending numerous election forums, and engaging in numerous media interviews.
Our strategy was to allocate one or two Ballot Measures on the November ballot to each of the LPSF volunteers working on this project. I picked Proposition A, the measure that increased parcel taxes to help fund City College. That is why I am the one addressing your concerns.
As you can surmise by my introduction above, the time for you to have raised an objection to LPSF's position on City College would have been back in August of 2012, when we were hashing out a consensus on what LPSF's official position would be Proposition A. Of course a change in position would be totally warranted if we found new information or detected a departure from what LPSF predicted would transpire. That is not the case. The Trustees and teachers unions continue to strangle the College to this day, just as we predicted.
I understand your frustration in being unable to read the Accreditation Report. Had you read it, the LPSF position would have been more clear. The Accreditation Report indicates 14 serious problems that City College needed to correct in order to keep its accreditation. A number of these problems were already indicated on the previous Accreditation Report six years earlier. City College essentially ignored the recommendations in the earlier report, and proceeded to fight back the recommendations on the current report. Among the most serious problems is lack of financial controls, the issue that LPSF became most concerned with, given our tradition of opposing the waste in taxpayer money.
Regarding your specific question as to whether the Accreditation Report addresses "customer satisfaction," graduate performance, and cost per pupil, yes, it does. Those issues are addressed in "student outcomes" and "fiscal control."
I am at a loss as to why you have interpreted the LPSF's position as wanting City College to "go away." That was not the position reflected in our Ballot Arguments back in November 2012, and it is not reflected in our website recommendations or articles. Our position was back in November and remains to this day one of encouraging the Trustees and the union to work on the Accreditation Report's recommendations, in order to strengthen the college and prevent it from either "going away" or continuing to be a bottomless pit of mismanaged taxpayer funds.
You state that it is your impression that LPSF is supporting "command and control management." That statement is somewhat meaningless to me. However, I can say that LPSF's position agrees with the Accreditation Reports suggestions that the College's "shared governance" management style rendered the institution unable to implement any effective financial controls or point to anyone as being directly responsible for any mismanagement. No, the "decentralized approach" has not worked, and yes, the Report does address this in detail.
Whether or not there should be licensing, government oversight of institutions, government-funded education, etc. etc. are all legitimate concerns. However, LPSF's position is to take up one battle at the time. The battle and/or the nature and thrust of the battles are entered into with consensus of the core activists. Every one is invited to join in the development of these battles. But once the consensus is formed and the battle lines draws, they are etched in granite, unless new concrete relevant information arises that warrants a change in course. And I do mean concrete and relevant information, not the legitimate but essentially philosophical ideas that you raise.
I do hope my explanation of LPSF's position settles your concerns, Phil. Although still keeping an eye on the City College situation, LPSF has moved on to another battle, also adopted after much discussion and hard work among LPSF activists -- the monstrosity of Plan Bay Area.
Regards,
Marcy