As postsecondary education has become increasingly important to California's economy and quality of life, the state has been considering how best to meet student and workforce needs over the long term. State leaders recognize that coordination across educational sectors is crucial to addressing these needs. The now-defunct California Postsecondary…

Community colleges across the country are plagued with tight budgets--caused in part by state disinvestment and chronic federal underfunding. For rural community colleges, these challenges are even more acute, as their needs are greater and the costs of providing services higher. The COVID-19 pandemic has only deepened the prosperity gap between…

In 1988, California lawmakers enacted legislation designed to increase the ratio of full-to part-time faculty in community colleges. Twenty years later, college leaders in this study report the legislation has had little success in increasing the number of full-time faculty due, in part, to confusion regarding the intent of the legislation and the…

This article deals with the importance of building partnerships between legislators and educators in order to impact educational legislation. To this end, the faculty in the college of education at a large, urban university made institutional changes to establish a proactive relationship amongst stakeholders. As a result of this exchange, we were…

This update contains the Governor's action on legislative initiatives being tracked by CPEC (California Postsecondary Education Commission) staff in the 2009-10 legislative session and information on the new members of the Legislature. A summary matrix of bills monitored by CPEC staff is included.

Lynette Brown-Snow, vice president of marketing and government relations for the Community College of Philadelphia, is one of several community college leaders across the country who have taken up one of the challenges proffered by the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) in its 2012 report, "Reclaiming the American Dream:…

This paper is intended to provide a selection of easy to use resources and tools to enhance the effectiveness of a local senate president during ongoing budget conversations. It is not intended to provide a narrative description of budgets and budget process, nor a comprehensive listing of the many arcane rules that govern community college…

This article reports on an outstanding event from May 2007, when the California Faculty Association (CFA), representing more than 24,000 faculty, counselors, and librarians at the 23 campuses of the California State University (CSU), won one of the best collective bargaining agreements in higher education history. The new agreement provides a 20.7…

This Legislative Report Card assesses how California's governor and Legislature have handled bills it says affected racial inequities--or might have if they had been signed into law. The report examines an eclectic collection of bills that addressed the minimum wage, the creation of a single-payer health care system and other issues in education,…