The Chancellor of Foothill-DeAnza CC district has been appointed the Under Secretary of Education. Martha Kanter, you are my girl! I’m sure Foothill is crying at the loss though. Good leaders are tough to find and hold on to. This is great for CC’s. I know she won’t let us down so here are my requests:

1.) Increase Federal funding to Community Colleges. Give incentives for innovative projects aimed at increasing retention. Brookings says 50% of community colleges students drop-out. I can’t find the report they cite right now but even if its less than that we need to fix this. To do that we need…
2.) Funding. CC’s only get like 30% of Fed support that four-year schools get. We do get state and county money but since the economy has tanked, so have our budgets. And our communities need us to be great right now, not limping along and cutting every non-essential service in response to budget cuts. (These “non-essential” services usually turn out to be student support services, FYI. Can anyone say “retention?” At-risk students, anyone? God!)
2.) Help us figure out how to help displaced workers coming back to school for retraining and career changes. No, I mean really help them not just send them to registration. CC counselors and advisers need specific training for this purpose. “What Color is Your Parachute” just doesn’t get it for professional adults who really don’t know how to deal with unemployment and getting back out there in the workforce.
3.) Help CC’s improve their IT infrastructure and services to students. I bet dollars to donuts that part of CC’s retention problems are related to access to broadband and having no money for decent technology in some of our CC’s. Make somebody take care of that, Martha! Its shameful that so many citizens of the U.S. don’t have decent Internet access.
4.) Maintain the NSF/ATE’s recent windfall. The ATE offers a special program for applicants new to the NSF with looser guidelines but why can’t they also fund smaller programs even if the College has received a grant in the past? Sometimes you just need 50-75K to get something going. Then accountability can kick in if the funds are drawn from the Govt.
5.) One last thing. Please don’t let them wear you down! I don’t need to tell Martha Kanter that CC’s train this nation’s workers. We should be great. We can be great. We need to build MORE community colleges, not strip them down.

I’m very excited. This is such great news. You Go Martha!