The move to get a new accreditation plan in place could take a decade, while the state’s 2.1 million community college students look for guidance in a complex system.

The fatal action for the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges was its challenge to City College of San Francisco. The commission in 2012 began raising concerns about financial and governance practices at the college and at one point threatened to revoke the college’s accreditation, landing the two parties in court.

City College has acknowledged its precarious financial position and its revolving door of administrators. The school has pruned expenses and tightened its finances, according to a bond filing issued earlier this year.

Which leaves the state with a black eye in terms of accreditation of community colleges. Is the accreditation commission being punished for doing its job? Or was it unfairly severe in its application of standards?

Need for Accreditation

Accreditation is crucial for most institutions as it is required to access federal student loan money.

The state’s community colleges have seen a decline in enrollment over the past five years and faced an $18 million revenue decline in 2014, although state legislation propped up the San Francisco Community College District — of which the City College is part of — through additional funding last year.

The commission has been on the radar of the California Community Colleges Board of Governors for over a year.

In a report issued by a review committee from the community colleges board, the fate of the accreditation board was sealed.

From the report:

“Between 2009 and 2013 the ACCJC issued 143 sanctions out of the 269 accreditation actions it took. This sanction rate is approximately 53 percent, compared to approximately 12 percent sanction rates within the other six regional accreditors. The quantity and frequency of sanctions issued by the ACCJC, in conjunction with other controversial actions and practices of this accreditor, have led to frequent calls for reform of the accrediting process from member institutions of the ACCJC.”

The accreditation commission responded with a four–page announcement of new practices and noted that as of 2014, there were 30 percent fewer benchmarks required for approval.

“The new standards will be the basis for comprehensive institutional evaluations for reaffirmation of accreditation beginning spring, 2016,” a spokesman for the commission said.

The commission also announced it would host annual conferences for schools to receive input and answer questions about the accreditation process. The first conference is to be held in October 2016.

RELATED – State agency struggling to police for-profit colleges

The commission is part of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, one of six regional groups in the U.S. that are charged with ensuring higher education institutions adhere to standards that begin at the federal level. The accreditors are overseen by administrators at the U.S. Department of Education and a board called the National Advisory Committee on Accreditation and Institutional Eligibility.

In addition to angering the state community college board of governors, the accreditation commission in California has drawn the ire of teachers unions and their powerful allies. The California Federation of Teachers filed a lawsuit against the commission to keep the San Francisco City College open and registered a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education against the commission.

The American Federation of Teachers said the commission has “failed to focus on improving learning and academic achievement.”

Democratic U.S. Reps. Nancy Pelosi, Jackie Speier and Anna Eshoo called the ACCJC’s actions “outrageous.”

The commission is accused in one complaint of “extensive financial and political relationships with advocacy organizations and private foundations representing for‐profit colleges and powerful student lender interests.”

The commission accepted a $450,000 grant from the Lumina Foundation for Education, a group that has endeavored to change community college education and create a more universal accreditation system. Some onlookers have noted what they call the libertarian roots of Lumina.

But the practice of accreditation stems from federal regulation, which has increased in recent years. Community colleges in the U.S. collectively spend up to $6 billion to keep in compliance, according to a Vanderbilt University study. The study also listed 29 categories that colleges and universities are subject to monitoring and reporting.

Community colleges are subject to review every six years.

Steve Miller can be reached at 517-775-9952 and avalanche50@hotmail.com.

By Katy Grimes

Touting “community values” and the need to reduce crime, Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, wants the Crossroads of the West gun show tossed out of the Cow Palace in South San Francisco.

But a closer look at the issues suggests that Leno’s “values” might not reflect the larger community and shows little substance to the claim that crime is linked to the gun show. Instead, the real goal appears to be to give Leno and other San Francisco Democrats a chance to demonstrate their hatred for gun rights by running one of the last remaining legal gun venues out of town.

Leno’s SB 475 would ban the gun show. If the measure passed and Gov. Jerry Brown were willing to sign it, the Legislature would be able to intervene because the Cow Palace is owned by the state and managed by the Department of Food and Agriculture’s Division of Fairs and Expositions.

Such a ban would be against the state’s financial interests. According to the Department of Finance, the Crossroads of the West gun show brings in $150,000 to $180,000 in rent every year for the Cow Palace, in addition to the state and local tax revenue the event generates.

Leno’s claims undercut — and mocked — in testimony

On Wednesday, SB 475 was heard by the Assembly Appropriations Committee in an often-testy hearing. Leno once again declared that the community surrounding the Cow Palace in South San Francisco does not want the gun shows. Here is the succinct version of his argument from his website:

“For years, residents, community organizations and elected leaders from the neighborhoods surrounding Cow Palace have asked to have a voice in the decision to hold gun shows in their backyards, but they have been ignored. Meanwhile, firearms related crimes persist in these communities, tearing apart the lives of innocent families who reside in the surrounding area. We must give local communities a say in determining whether they want gun shows in their neighborhoods, especially when they live in daily fear of gun violence.”

The Cow Palace is located in Bayview-Hunters Point, which has been overrun with gangs and drugs since the 1970s, and has a high rate of murder, violent crime and poverty. Though it has only a small fraction of San Francisco’s entire population, the area has 40 percent of San Francisco’s homicides, according to Leno.

Yet as testimony showed, the high murder rate has never been tied to gun sales at the Crossroads of the West Gun Show. In fact, there have been no reported incidents involving gun violence at the gun show.

And the idea that the Cow Palace’s booking decisions should reflect “community values” triggered joking and barbs at the hearing, given that Leno is mum about the annual Erotic Exotic Ball and the Cannabis Festival, also held annually at the venue.

Ban would create huge headaches for gun owners

John Lovell, representing the California Police Chiefs Association, said banning the Crossroads of the West gun show from the Cow Palace would send anyone wanting to buy or sell a gun to “Nevada,” since there’s nowhere else in San Francisco left to make a gun transfer.

Lovell said California has the strictest and safest gun-show laws in the country. “The Cow Palace gun show has as much to do with gun violence as the Exotic Erotic Ball has to do with marriage infidelity,” Lovell said.

“You want to limit choices to consumers,” said Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, R-Twin Peaks, to Leno. Donnelly pointed out people pay to get into the gun show at the Cow Palace and wait in line for two hours.

“Obviously there is a demand for this,” Donnelly said. “No one is holding a gun to their heads to go to the gun show.”

“You want it in your front yard? I’ll support that,” Leno retorted. “The community doesn’t want it. I represent the values of the neighborhood.”

“How do you know the community doesn’t want it, with a two-hour line?” Donnelly asked.

Leno said the parents of a nearby middle school signed a petition.

“The police chiefs pointed out the Erotic Exotic Ball,” Donnelly said, noting the irony of Leno worrying about the interests of a nearby school only when guns were involved.

“Neighbors care so much about this,” Leno added. “They just don’t want it in their front yard.”

But Leno never made a connection between the gun show and violent crime in the area.

An ongoing crusade by anti-gun San Francisco pols

Leno’s crusade is nothing new. For a decade, Leno has wanted to boot the gun show out of the Cow Palace, including twice before offering bills to that end that failed to win passage. The measures were identical to legislation by former state Sen. Jackie Speier, a Democratic lawmaker from Hillsborough. Speier’s bill was introduced in 2004 but failed to get through the Assembly.

Speier, then-Mayor Gavin Newsom and then-District Attorney Kamala Harris were all supportive of banning the gun show from the Cow Palace. “Gun shows at the Cow Palace threaten our most vulnerable residents,” Newsom said in 2007, Inside Bay Area reported.

If that were the case, then there would have been crime victims coming forward to back Leno’s legislation and testifying at the hearing. There were not.

Leno’s anti-gun show rhetoric may be in keeping with his anti-gun ideology, but it isn’t backed up by reality.