”
If you think education is expensive
– try ignorance.
”
~ Derek Bok
Back when I graduated from high school, I enrolled in a
community college.
“If you think education is expensive – try ignorance.” ~ Derek Bok
Back when I graduated from high school, I enrolled in a community college. I discovered other people and parts of the world as I tried new subjects like German and Meso-American cultures. Community college opened up all sorts of other doors which led to my future of becoming the first student reader hired by Hartnell’s English department. Up until then, the English professors hired only professional readers to proofread and edit student papers, but my professor chose me to be the first student to analyze other students’ papers. I learned more about language from this experience at community college than from any other school I attended. Community college led eventually to a transfer to the rich learning ground of a UC. Attending the University of California gave me the world through new eyes: “What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to the soul” (Joseph Addison).
So it is with great distress that I learn of the disproportionate cuts planned for community college programs due to the State of California budget deficit. If these drastic cuts go forward, community college budgets will be cut in half, while fees for students will double, pricing as many as 200,000 students out of college next year. These students are an essential part of our state’s social and economic success; we will pay a price in ignorance higher than any budget can measure. Which is why as the last streaks of dawn color filled the sky this past Monday, three buses pulled into the Gavilan College parking lot to pick students up and take them to a “march in March” at the State Capitol. In the largest ever community college rally at the Capitol, over 10,000 students protested, traveling from places like Gilroy and from as far away as Santa Monica and Shasta County. It began at the historic Tower Bridge and moved down Sacramento’s Capitol Mall, finally packing the grounds so tightly that it was impossible for anyone to even sit down. They carried signs that read, “What do we need? Education. When do we need it? Now.” And “Stop the war on education!” Gavilan students proudly showed me their multi-colored shirts that said, “More alike than different; unity within diversity.”
Perhaps the most painful cuts will be felt by those in programs serving low-income, developmentally disabled and educationally disadvantaged students. It is the open access for people with diverse backgrounds that has made community colleges so valuable; everyone can attend: senior citizens, immigrants, people beginning a second career, those who can’t afford any other colleges, transfer students getting ready for university studies, etc. It is a multicultural milieu in which everyone learns from everyone: “I am not a teacher; only a fellow traveler of whom you asked the way. I pointed ahead–ahead of myself as well as of you.” (George Bernard Shaw).
Tens of thousands of community college students, staff and faculty are actively holding meetings and rallies to protest the drastic cuts planned for community colleges; they are signing petitions, writing postcards and letters, and e-mailing and calling state legislators and the governor’s office. This is a huge grassroots effort in which Gilroy is collaborating with districts all around the state. We need to continue to raise our voices loud and clear to make sure that we will be heard. As we brace for war, let us not forget the wise words of Martin Buber, “The real struggle is not between East and West, or capitalism and communism, but between education and propaganda.”
