Standing up to cuts at CCSF

SAN FRANCISCO--The administration of City College of San Francisco is frantically trying to respond to the budget cuts that it faces now and in coming years.

Already, 6.3 percent of classes have been cut for the fall 2009 and spring 2010 semesters, and library and counseling hours and programs for disabled and poor students have been cut, making it difficult for students to succeed in college. The state of California raised in-state tuition by 30 percent, to $26 per unit, but none of this money goes out to the individual colleges for their students.

The president of the Associated Students comes to club council meetings to ask whether 90 percent of summer classes should be cut or if classes in all three semesters should be cut evenly--a mere formality of democracy that leaves students fighting over scraps.

The only new answer offered by the college's Board of Trustees is a flea market/garage sale to raise money that would save some classes. The board is expecting students already paying higher fees to donate their meager possessions to save maybe a class or two.

But one group has looked to the struggles in the University of California system, and is trying to organize a fightback against the budget cuts. The Defend Our Education coalition, comprised of mostly faculty and staff for now, has been organizing against the budget cuts since the summer. In preparation for the upcoming statewide Mobilization to Save California Public Education on October 24, DOE is reaching out to all staff, faculty and students for a General Assembly at Noon on Wednesday, October 21.

The movement that has been sparked at UC campuses needs to spread to all our schools across the state. The General Assembly and statewide conference can begin to cohere the buried anger at CCSF into a force that challenges the budget cuts instead of just accepting them.