Panel: Tech college system should take on 2-year schools

Education committee submits recommendations
By Jennifer Johnson | Correspondent | Story updated at 11:58 am on 4/22/2009
A committee created by Gov. Sonny Perdue delivered its final report on the Georgia education system Monday, including recommendations to strip the state's nine two-year colleges from the University System of Georgia.

The "Tough Choices or Tough Times" committee was established in July to follow up on a national study of the educational system and was charged with recommending how to better prepare Georgia public school students to compete in the global economy.
The committee offered three key suggestions:

► Give high school students an early introduction to college-level work when they demonstrate readiness to move on.
► Attract and retain "world-class educators" in pre-kindergarten through 12th grades.
► Bolster students' analytical and creative problem-solving skills in earlier grades to help prepare them for workplace demands.

To ease students' transition from high school to college, the report recommends restructuring Georgia's higher education system by transferring nine two-year colleges from the University System of Georgia, which oversees 35 two- and four-year institutions, including the University of Georgia, to the Technical College System of Georgia, which traditionally has overseen technical education and adult literacy programs.

Or, if the transfer is impractical, the committee suggested standardizing credit transfers between schools and eliminate duplication between University System schools and technical colleges.

The transfer would "streamline the whole process" for students who want to move from two-year to four-year schools, said Mike Light, executive director of communications for the Technical College System.

Gainesville State College President Martha Nesbit, though she has not seen the official recommendations, said she thought the transfer would be a mistake.

"The community college system and the technical school systems have very different missions," Nesbit said. "It would be difficult to combine them without diluting them."

Although Gainesville recently became a state college and technically no longer is a two-year school, "our primary focus is to provide the first two years of education for students wishing to get their baccalaureate," said Nesbit, whose institution often transfers students out to University System schools.

The committee, co-chaired by former UGA President Charles Knapp, recommended increasing the number of high school students in "joint enrollment" - taking college courses before graduating.

Under the proposal to merge two-year and technical schools, successful programs already in place may change because educational objectives differ between two-year and technical school programs.

"Most of the students who do joint enrollment through a technical school aren't planning to go to a university system school," said Susan Loftstrom, joint enrollment coordinator at Georgia Perimeter College. "They are looking to stay on the technical school track."

Perdue plans to review the committee report and appoint action committees charged with finding ways to implement selected recommendations.

Clarification: This sentence was added to the latest version of this story to clarify the recommendation contained in the final report: Or, if the transfer is impractical, the committee suggested standardizing credit transfers between schools and eliminate duplication between University System schools and technical colleges.

Originally published in the Athens Banner-Herald on Wednesday, April 22, 2009