"Testimony given at Joint Committee for Review of the Master Plan on Higher Education - December 7, 2009)
The Master Plan for Higher Education promised affordable access to a high quality post secondary education for all Californians who wished to pursue it.
It wedded a visionary economic blueprint for the state’s workforce to the moral, intellectual and political purposes of providing our state’s citizens with the means to participate in our democratic institutions.
It was meant to be accountable due to its substantial cost.
Its goals remain the right ones, but changing political and economic circumstances have undermined its promise today, and threaten, if unaddressed, to renege on its promise for future generations."
Legitimacy of our perspective:
The California Federation of Teachers (CFT) represents librarians and lecturers in the UC system, and in the community college system, we represent full and part-time classroom faculty, counselors, librarians, and paraprofessional classified staff.
We have followed closely the deteriorating circumstances in which they work, with increasing workloads; and now more recently with furloughs and layoffs.
The CFT and our members are committed to equipping our students to take their places in the economic, social and political life of California.
We value equal educational opportunities for all people and we continue to support any legislative efforts to benefit the students and educational employees in the State of California.
I am an Accounting Professor at Sacramento City College in the Los Rios Community College district and have been a teacher in California for more than thirty years.
I have participated directly and indirectly in past reviews of the Master Plan for Higher Education and most recently in 2002, was a CFT representative to assist in the work of the Joint Committee to Develop a Master Plan for Education (Pre-K-16) chaired by Senator Dede Alpert.