Basic Skills Program Violates International Non-Proliferation of Non-Feasible Learning Treaty

Sam Hatch, reporting
Stockton, CA 10/12/09

The college's aim has been to provide "everything to everybody," said Trustee Teresa Brown. "I don't think that's feasible. I don't think that's practical." Record, 10/09/09

Many students in Basic Skills courses have acquired knowledge and skills they could not possibly have learned through a practical and feasible course of instruction, Delta College officials revealed today.

Proliferation of impractical and non-feasible learning is a serious problem because many basic skills students have failed to transfer, earn an associate’s degree, or earn a certificate. Instead, they have left the college seeking better jobs or promotion in their current workplaces, thus straying from their appointed path and proliferating impractical and non-feasible learning. There is also anecdotal evidence that even more dangerous second-generation proliferation is increasing: former basic skills students are helping their children with homework. However, it’s
not easy to know what to do to stop it.

The Office of Destitutional Research is looking into the practical and legal ramifications of a region-wide effort to recover learning from students who acquired it under false pretenses because they later failed to meet any of the benchmarks of success recognized by the Chancellor’s Office. Former basic skills students, who declined to be identified, justify their bootleg learning with vague references to “improved quality of life” and “greater earning power.” In a telephone interview, Professor James Hartwig, who holds joint appointments at the UC Berkeley Schools of
Education and Business, observed that “Region-wide mental repo is basically unexplored territory. Way outside the envelope. Some attempts have been made using consultants trained in VMMT [for non-initiates, Vulcan Mind-Meld Techniques]. But the costs have been prohibitive.

You’ve got to admire the Delta leadership for thinking outside the box. They have a vision, and they aren’t shy about hiring consultants.”

A source at the college, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press, commented, “The mantra here is that we can’t provide ‘everything to everybody.’ So I guess that means we’re still providing ‘something to somebody,' otherwise we'd be out of business. The students who are somebodies seem to be adapting well to getting some of the things they want.”

He lamented that “the real sticking point in our transformation of the college is really those balky former somebodies, the Basic Skills students. And of course, their myopic allies among the faculty. Under current policy these students are being phased out and must adapt to being nobodies. For some reason, they can’t seem to get with the reverse Jesse Jackson thing. You know, ‘I am--Nobody, I am—Nobody.‘ Hello, can’t they see it? It’s as plain as the nose on your face. In a down economy, in a
down budget year, these people just aren’t economically viable, they aren’t practical and most of all, they aren’t feasible, and unfortunately, they are going down, too.”

However, he said the college would “remain flexible. I mean, hey, enrollment. We need quite a few of them until the census date. We do the Emma Lazarus thing until the census date. It’s sad. They all have stories that tug at your heart strings--if you listen. But money talks, level 1 walks. We’ve got a responsibility to the long-term solvency of the college and the transfer and voc. ed. students.”