Local Opinion: Less hyperbole, more factual data

Re: the July 1 article “Community colleges critical to economy.”

I agree with the writer’s opinion and analysis expressed that the importance of America’s community colleges is critical in the economic development and workforce preparation for the acquisition of 21st century skills and knowledge essential to effectively compete in a local and global economy.

However, I have several concerns with the vagueness and lack of any supporting details offered by the writer. His description of Pima Community College’s stellar performance, without a single citation or reliable data sources to support his analysis, makes this appear more of a promotional piece in favor of the institution and its former leadership than an objective analysis. Community colleges have multiple missions and must be advanced and focused with equal vigor. The writer neglects to include the other equally critical community colleges’ mission and purpose, such as: College and University Transfer preparation, Adult Basic Education, English instruction to speakers of other languages, the ever critical declining enrollment, and financial stability and debt service.

The writer refers to Pima Community College as “an extraordinary turnaround story” but does not provide details. He also mentions “sweeping administrative reforms” — clarify those reforms: What makes them unique or game changing? PCC “Centers for Excellence” are costly and labor intensive, funded by student tuition and our local property taxes including debt service bonds. It is a well-known fact reported by the Arizona Daily Star that property and student tuition has consistently increased year after year under Lee Lambert’s leadership. We need to identify and quantify actual student enrollment which has declined sharply over the last 10 years including during the pre-COVID years. And let’s not forget about completion rates and job placement in specific or related positions for which the learner trained.

The general public is interested in and supportive of their local community colleges. “Exemplary” institutions will systematically provide accurate, easy-to-understand periodic status reports to the community, demonstrating quantifiable results, something that Pima Community College administration has dismally failed to do.

Simple advocacy for current and future costly taxpayer investment in creative workforce preparation initiatives without supportive and measurable evidence of results does not an exemplary institution make. Simply put, we need to take the “wait and see” attitude to determine if all these perceived transformational changes really do result in an exemplary institution in both the technical and academic side of the equation.

The writer is an advocate for community colleges, as am I. But we need less hyperbole, more and clearer factual data — and less obvious promotion of an institution and its leadership. Only then can we accurately evaluate our institutions of higher learning.