Reading this article, the issue of staff layoffs is the first issue addressed and takes up the largest amount of print.

To my mind, the primary stakeholders here are San Franciscans and CCSF students, CCSF employees.

This reversal of priorities that puts San Franciscans and recipients of city services last behind those special interests with more direct and economic claims on public resources is one reason why progressives have lost traction.

and tens of "working groups" to solve the problem. CCSF has a very simple task ahead: meet the requirements of ACCJC. The lives it changed don't matter, its placement rates don't matter - it has to meet the requirements of the club to which it requires membership and that means meeting arbitrary standardization requirements which CCSF may have problems with. That's CCSF's issue - no one else's issue. This is not a conspiracy involving urban districts or anything else - we're in this situation because CCSF has failed and it needs to correct that, and quickly, or it's going into receivership.

I have a PhD. When I was a part-time instructor at CCSF until a year ago, I earned a princely salary of $32K, with yes, health insurance. People who say that part-timers are overpaid and don't deserve health insurance, please try living on $32K without insurance. And those of you who are criticizing the QUALITY of education at CCSF, please read the accreditation report, which is available on the CCSF website. The accreditors had nothing but praise for the high level of instruction, and the excellence of its programs.

Thank you for the article about CCSF and also for the great cover that really shows the diversity of its students. I want to clarify the remark by Trustee Ngo which stated that non-credit ESL classes have a “hop in, hop out” structure to their lessons.

Non-credit ESL classes last 18 weeks. Most of these classes are 10 hours a week. They follow a curriculum and have stated learning outcomes just as credit classes do. In addition to English grammar, classes cover speaking, listening, pronunciation, reading, writing, and vocabulary as well as American culture and customs. Besides creating their own materials, instructors use books that cover these topics and are designed for use over many months.

Non-credit classes are open entry and open exit. This means that a student can join or leave a class at any point during the semester. Most students do this because of work (they get a new job or their work hours change), childcare problems or health issues. Non-credit students also aren’t required to come to school every day which works well with their work schedules and life’s demands.
A couple of other things about non-credit ESL students: Many have had no or very little formal schooling in their native countries. Many have absolutely no or very little command of the English language. Many need English for the most basic of reasons – to be able to call 911 in an emergency, to talk with a doctor, to write a note to their child’s teacher, to speak to their grandchildren, to communicate with their co-workers. For all these reasons, and the above-mentioned situations, they are not able to take the more academically-oriented credit classes. Additionally, new immigrants often enroll in non-credit courses within days or weeks of immigrating to the U.S. Not only would they have to wait for the semester to start in order to take credit classes, they would have to live here for one year in order to pay resident’s tuition. (Non-resident fees are prohibitive for the majority of new immigrants.)

and they spend 184 million of that on salaries? That's crazy. Out of 200 million dollars they spend only 16 million on student services? Let's see, 90000 students and 16 million dollars compared to 2000 employees and 184 million dollars? What a joke! City College cares about students? Yeah right! There is your one-percent.

I think the central problem with saying that 92 percent of the school's budget going to faculty and staff salary is the argument that its a disservice to students.

I mean seriously, what do faculty do? They teach.... students.

When you have lots of faculty, it means you have more classes. The reason there is so much pay for CCSF instructors is because the school did EVERYTHING it could to shave off everything BUT providing classes. Peter Goldstein, Vice Chancellor of Administration and Finance, used to call it P P and P, Pens Paper and Power. They even went to as much detail as rationing power usage in the school to avoid cutting classes... and even with that level of detail and work, they still ended up having to cut over 113 classes when the state knocked over $17 million out of their fund mid semester.

Bottom line is, its all for the students. The questions are, what works, and which students are you talking about?

United efforts is what our college needs. It's such a necessary institution in a community like ours. Our children stand a better chance for higher education because of it, that's why I am an active supporter in this project.