Editorial: California State University gets an F on this report card

CALIFORNIA State University has come out with its "Legislative Scorecard" for 2011-12, grading Sacramento lawmakers from A to F. Let's hope Cal State is smarter when it grades students.

The legislative grades are based on how members of the state Senate and Assembly voted on bills pertaining to public universities, including bills that affect university funding.

The intent, according to the CSU report, is "to inform the public on lawmakers' support of the CSU and public higher education."

What leaps off the page is that the graders took points away from lawmakers who voted for bills aimed at limiting the controversial salary raises that the CSU trustees have given to campus presidents - the raises that angered students whose tuition continues to rise.

CSU officials' myopia must keep them from seeing that for many people (perhaps most people), votes against pay hikes for already well-compensated campus bosses are not votes against education but votes for more equitable financial decisions at a time of state education-funding cutbacks.

For what it's worth, the CSU report card lists no A's for California lawmakers. The highest-graded Los Angeles-area representatives, each with a B-plus, were Democratic Assembly members Mike Feuer of West Hollywood, Bonnie Lowenthal of Long Beach, and Sen. Alex Padilla of Van Nuys. The only F among local legislators went to Republican Assemblyman Steve Knight of Palmdale.

Sen. Fran Pavley,

a Santa Monica Democrat, a former schoolteacher who lists education as her top issue, received a D-minus. She voted for a bill that sought to prohibit raises for CSU employees with salaries of more than $200,000.

According to CSU's website (calstate.edu), its grading method paid special attention to legislators who authored bills that "support" or "negatively impact" the university. Thus Assemblyman Anthony Portantino, a Democrat from Pasadena, was taken down from a C-minus to a D because he authored a bill to forbid raises until 2015 for state employees already making six-figure salaries, and Sen. Ted Lieu, a Democrat from Torrance, went from a C-plus to a C because of his bill related to public-employee strikes.

As we've seen from the justified howls of protest from students and their families about presidents' pay raises amid tuition hikes, there often are two sides to issues of which policies "support" higher education in California and which "negatively impact" it.

The CSU administration's legislative ratings are self-serving and, sad to say, should be taken no more seriously than any other interest group's.

Source: http://www.dailybreeze.com/opinions/ci_21823372/editorial-california-state-university-gets-an-f-this?source=rss_emailed

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