![]() It’s all about the students’ success, they remind those of us who teach in these schools, as if we had somehow forgotten them on the way to collecting our fat paychecks and gold-plated pensions. The latest stalking horse is “completion,” with all the requisite hand-wringing and intellectually disingenuous bracketing off of the larger socio-economic forces which make it harder for our students to complete their degrees. With the release of the California Community College Board of Governors Task Force on Student Success’s report we see yet another push by some “system representatives” and their “external partners” to advocate for a dumbed-down, totally instrumental view of the mission of community colleges that focuses nearly exclusively on making them more efficient machines in cranking out workers for business. ![]() There is a kind of creeping academic Taylorism that comes with the movement toward “student learning outcomes” in higher education that can only be understood if one recognizes the long history of American corporate interests seeking to discipline and, in turn, profit from institutions of higher learning, whether it be plutocrats railing against “dangerous” ideas in the academy or business leaders seeking to transform American colleges into narrow job training factories that provide them with skilled workers without the accompanying bother of having to foot the bill for this service in the form of paying their fair share of taxes. Last week the California Community College Board of Governors met here in San Diego to address the results of their task force on “student success.” While much ink has been spilled detailing the ongoing efforts to impose corporate style “reforms” on education at the K-12 level (see Diane Ravitch’s fine work, little attention has been paid to the reform efforts in higher education. By Jim Miller and Jonathan McLeod / Special to the OB Rag
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