Your Return to Campus Survey | Oakley Appointed to Advise Biden

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The AFT 2121 Return-to-Campus Team depends on your input, leadership, and engagement. We need to hear from you. Please fill out this short survey (click here for link) with your thoughts about COVID safety and returning to campus. This information will help us advocate and plan to keep students, employees, and our communities safe.

State Chancellor Oakley Appointed to Advise Biden Administration

Eloy Ortiz Oakley, chancellor of the California Community Colleges statewide, has been appointed to advise the Biden administration. It’s a temporary appointment. We don’t have a firm end date, but Oakley’s press release says he will be back in “late fall.” In the meantime, the acting chancellor of the statewide system will be Oakley’s colleague Deputy Chancellor Daisy Gonzales. We do not expect Daisy Gonzales to make any major changes of direction in the statewide office.

We congratulate Chancellor Oakley on his appointment and hope that his time in Washington gives him a fresh perspective on the needs and future of California’s community colleges. First Lady Dr. Jill Biden has hailed community colleges as “America’s best kept secret,” and our “most powerful engines of prosperity.” President Biden’s Families First Plan would make community college free for every American. This is a historic moment in our country for expanding access to higher education, and we encourage Chancellor Oakley to join this movement.  

The “reform” agenda Chancellor Oakley has pursued for the past 5 years in California is out of step with the times. Oakley has advocated measures such as performance-based funding and the online-education boondoggle called Calbright. You can read about the state’s policies in this article by Debbie Klein.

We share Chancellor Oakley’s stated commitment to student equity and success, but urge him to consider that expanding public education and funding is the road to achieving both. Equity and student success take increased investment, not cuts. As teachers, counselors, and librarians, we know this, and we encourage Chancellor Oakley to follow the lead of educators around the country who are pleading for more resources, not fewer. Our students–diverse and striving–deserve nothing less.