PHOTO/XANDIAN PRODUCTIONS
LONG BEACH, CA — On January 23, 2013, the Board of Trustees of Long Beach City College (LBCC) surprised students and the community by terminating 11 technical and applied arts programs, including aviation maintenance, diesel mechanics, interior design and welding. Using the excuse of a budget deficit, the College President formed a plan to persuade the members of the Board of Trustees to cut these important programs.
Lead by the Lumina Foundation, a non-profit, conservative organization, the president and the Board of Trustees aim to turn a community college with 86 years of teaching skills into a college preparatory institution. Current articles have exposed the true intentions of the Lumina Foundation, whose hidden agenda is to corporatize public education, coated by a supposed interest in increasing graduation rates. The discontinuation of these programs doesn’t simply deny many students the opportunity for bright futures outlined by the American Dream; it prevents them from becoming active members in their community, while also eradicating skills that are essential to building a progressive society.
In addition to this, several members of the Board have betrayed the will of Long Beach City voters, essentially stealing their hard earned cash by misusing public funds. Voted by over two thirds of the electorate, $700 million in bond money was given to LBCC to renovate and construct new buildings that would house the trade programs and supply cutting-edge equipment to train students. It should be mentioned that three of the board members are liberal Democrats. Rather than fighting for the rights of these students, board members voted to shut down the trade and applied-arts programs, lock up the state of the art buildings, and leave thousands of students angry and cheated, many of them a few classes away from completing their programs. Many student leaders have directed marches and protests across the campus against these cuts, including Student Board of Trustees, Jason Troia.
But a new type of people’s politician, Dr. Marshall Blesofsky, has entered the race in Long Beach as a candidate for one of the board seats. A USC trained educator and an activist, he has worked with groups like Veterans for Peace, Occupy Long Beach, the Homeless Organizing Committee in the 90s, and the Long Beach Area Peace Network, fighting for peace and social justice. He is a member of the Green Party who is disenchanted by the dominant political parties. Although the race is non-partisan, his campaign is inspired by the Green Party presidential campaign of Jill Stein. He sees this upcoming election as an opportunity for educational reform, and to begin breaking the hold of corporate controlled political parties.
“The upcoming elections give the people of Long Beach a chance to reverse these trends and restore the programs that are so important to our community and the young people of Long Beach,” he says. If elected to a seat in LBCC’s Board of Trustees, Blesofsky will commit to revitalizing and expanding the trade programs, turning LBCC into a student-centered, public institution rather than a corporate one, and preparing students for productive roles in a renewable, self-sustaining, green future.
