Category: Educational Reform

Tackling Opposition to the One-tier Vision

Part-time parity…raising the cap…it seems like every organization and union in California has their own idea about what will make part-time faculty “more equal” to full-time faculty. Legislatively, these movements have been stopped, some by the Governor himself. Now, all of these organizations have started exploring the idea of moving away from or even eliminating the multi-tiered system. But what does it mean to be “One-Tier”?

2025-05-07CPFA Journal, Educational Reform, Publications

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CFT Pushes Forward on a Vision of a One-Tier/Unified Faculty Model

By Geoff Johnson, Originally published on July 30, 2024 at CFT.org CFT’s One-Tier Task force and CFT members, after over eight months of discussion, has created a definitive list of basic components deemed essential for […]

2024-08-15e-Newsletter, Educational Reform

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A Unified Faculty Model

The California Community Colleges (CCC) system plays a pivotal role as an engine for economic and social mobility in California and as a driver for the fifth largest economy in the world. In the past two decades, the CCC system has undergone significant “reform,” narrowing students’ educational opportunities and shrinking the student body by over one million students. During this period, the CCC system’s student outcomes have declined, stagnated, or only slightly improved despite decades of “reform” efforts. This paper illustrates that transitioning from a two-tiered to a nontiered—unified faculty—model will better serve students, colleges, and the state of California. The concept of a unified faculty emphasizes the elimination of the two employment tiers—part-and full-time faculty—to create a nontiered structure. This model is based on faculty and collegewide unity as opposed to the current structure that has produced a divided faculty, inequitable service to students, and stagnant or diminishing student outcomes. Presently, the K-12 system and Vancouver model are structured around a unified, nontiered faculty model. It is time for the California Community Colleges to address the hypocrisy at the heart of its institutions: decades of disinvestment from the faculty and thus, students. Investing in a nontiered, unified faculty model will remedy the CCC system that is currently struggling to bring back the millions of students who have been pushed out of their colleges.

2024-06-19e-Newsletter, Educational Reform, Publications

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CPFA Sponsors AB 2277: Raising the Part-Time Faculty Workload Cap

AB 2277 will increase the maximum number of instructional hours that a part-time California Community College faculty member may teach at any one community college district and allow students to build stronger relationships with existing […]

2024-02-28e-Newsletter, Educational Reform

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Parity Pay or Equal Pay?

“Pay parity” is a term perennially associated with part-time faculty in a two-tiered workplace, not part-time workers in other professions paid on the same basis as full-time workers, such as part-time engineers, physicians, retail cashiers, or K-12 teachers. The “parity pay” bill, AB-1752...

2022-06-30e-Newsletter, Educational Reform, Publications

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How can California improve the working conditions of community college adjuncts?

Panel says worsening circumstances call for novel solutions By Michael Burke of EdSource.org (Article republished with permission of EdSource) The second class status of part-time faculty at California’s community colleges is a decades-long problem that demands […]

2022-05-22e-Newsletter, Educational Reform, Health Benefits

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Can Colleges Reform Their Police Departments?

One Says Yes, and Here’s How

2021-09-21Educational Reform, Newsworthy

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New Vision for the College for All Act of 2021

California Part-time Faculty Association Endorses the following Vision The One-Tier Model of Faculty Employment Context: The College for All Act of 2021, has been heralded as “the most substantial federal investment in higher education in […]

2021-07-15Educational Reform

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80% Workload for Part-Time Faculty: NEW CFT Resolution

Report (with some personal commentary) on The CFT 80% Resolution By John Govsky, Co-Chair CFT Part-Time Faculty Committee The California Federation of Teachers (CFT), at its 2018 convention, passed a resolution stating that the CFT […]

2018-03-28California Community Colleges, Educational Reform, Newsworthy

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How Privateers Undermine Our Education System Flow Chart

This chart shows the insidious web of assault on our public education system. While the chart reveals the system behind privatizing our primary and secondary schools, many of the same groups are actively involved in […]

2014-07-18Educational Reform, Follow the Money, Neoliberalism & Higher Education

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Discipline and Punish Revisited: Teaching Evaluation

by Dennis Selder A wonderful example of Foucault’s observations about how power and knowledge interact is teaching evaluation. Teaching evaluation is a special sort of knowledge that requires a difference in the power relationship among […]

2014-05-13California Community Colleges, Community College Decision-Making, Educational Reform, Improving the Learning Environment, Neoliberalism & Higher Education

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Challenges Contingent Faculty Face in Improving Their Teaching

by Dennis Selder As a newbie teaching nights at Southwestern College, I was lucky to run into a guy named Steve Kowit. We both had three-hour classes on the same nights of the week, […]

2014-01-30Educational Reform, Improving the Learning Environment

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