San Francisco City College and SF Works (a non-profit organization sponsored by the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, the Committee on Jobs and the United Way) received $1.1 million from the National Science Foundation to fund and expand the CCSF Bridge to Biotech program which prepares low income adults with skills at the 6th to 9th grade levels to successfully attend CCSF classes that will prepare them for employment in the biotech industry. On the surface it sounds like a great idea, but it has created a quiet disaster at City College.
Serious, intent students who have an eventual transfer to SFU in mind and higher degrees in their plans find themselves sitting in classrooms with students who have not only 6th grade skills, but also have 6th grade behavior patterns. City College is not free for many. Some students pay upwards of $2,000 for their tuition. Others sacrifice good jobs and live marginally in order to attend classes. Imagine the shock when they end up in a classroom with ill-prepared, noisy, disrespectful, loud-mouthed, disruptive "adults" with 6th grade behavior.
Not all Bridge to Biotech students fit this stereotype, but there are more than enough who do fit the stereotype to create a war-zone environment in "college" classrooms. Bridge to Biotech may be able to provide some young people with low-level jobs in the biotech industry thus saving them from a life of washing dishes or pushing brooms, but it also inflicts a severe and unjust handicap on intelligent, well-mannered, serious students who want an equally serious education.
Is City College a true academic college or a nursery school for culturally-deprived and behaviorally-challenged juvenile brats in adult bodies?
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