One of the largest community colleges in the country, City College of San Francisco is widely recognized as one of the best. But in 2012, the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges told City to prove it deserved to stay open. The next year, the accreditor—a visible backer of the proposal to shrink community colleges in the name of education “reform”—ruled that the school should close, and the state of California seized control from City’s elected trustees and installed an emergency manager.
Free City! The Fight for San Francisco’s City College and Education for All tells the story of the five years of organizing that turned a seemingly hopeless defensive fight into a victory for the most inclusive free college measure in the US. Free City! follows the multi-pronged strategies of the campaign to keep City College open and accredited, and the diverse characters that carried them out. Teachers, students, labor unions, community groups, public officials, and concerned individuals saved a treasured public institution as San Francisco’s working-class communities of color battled the gentrification that was forcing them out of the city. Activists’ research uncovered the policy network behind the national “reform” agenda for community colleges, which drives students towards debt and sidelines lifelong learning and community service programs. The long campaign not only kept City College open, but affirmed its broad mission with the ballot initiative that made attendance free to almost all San Franciscans. Combining analysis with narrative, Free City offers a case study in the power of positive vision and solution-oriented organizing, and a reflection on what education can and should be.
