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The Voice of Business,
Industry & the Professions Since 1942
North Carolina's largest
business group proudly serves as the state chamber of commerce
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January 2005
Editorial
Higher Education
Consultants’
recommendations to legislative committees usually end up gathering dust on
a shelf in the General Assembly. But one submitted recently to the Joint
Legislative Education Oversight Committee stirred up a fuss and is
straining the important relationship between the UNC System and the
Community College System. What’s the controversy? It’s the recommendation
that students who successfully complete their first two years of higher
education at their local community college be guaranteed admission to a
UNC System campus, where they would complete their degrees.
The recommendation initially drew approving nods from many lawmakers on
the Education Oversight Committee, but the reaction since then largely has
been negative. Opponents of the recommendation raise some good points,
such as how the UNC System campuses, where enrollments already are
exploding, would find enough seats for even more students. In many of
these dissenting views, however, is the implied concern that community
college graduates somehow aren’t smart enough to make it at Carolina or
N.C. State, which just isn’t true.
Going on to a four-year school after two years of community college is
much easier than it once was since the two-year schools revamped their
schedules and academic requirements to match those at the universities.
These so-called articulation agreements have been signed by the 59
community colleges, all 16 branches of the UNC System and some 20 private
colleges. As a result, the number of community college graduates entering
the UNC System as juniors has jumped 27 percent since 1997.
Because we aren’t experts on education issues, we can’t offer a solution
to this worrisome problem other than to observe the following: This is the
type of problem that North Carolina’s leaders should love having because
it so clearly reflects the state’s commitment to creating the nation’s
best education system.
It might help to attack this problem one piece at a time. Rather than
debating whether all community college graduates should automatically be
admitted to a UNC System campus, perhaps it would be wise to consider it
for some. The some we have in mind are those hoping to become classroom
teachers.
It’s estimated that North Carolina will need 80,000 additional teachers
over the next decade. The UNC System campuses that offer teaching degrees
currently are turning out less than a third of what is needed each year.
Local school systems even have resorted to recruiting new teachers from
overseas.
Some innovative efforts already are underway, and most involve
partnerships between UNC System campuses and nearby community colleges.
ASU has such a program in the Northwest. East Carolina has started one in
the Northeast with a major grant from Wachovia.
We need to do all we can to fill our growing need for classroom teachers.
If we can accomplish that goal, even at least partially, by guaranteeing
aspiring teachers coming out of community colleges a seat in a UNC System
school of education, we should seriously consider it.
Steve Tuttle
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