California college instructors used to help keep students honest. Now they’re the ones gaming the system

It used to be students who found ways to game the system, getting higher grades for less work.

Now it’s the professors. 

A media investigation found dozens of community college instructors who hold teaching gigs at several districts simultaneously — amassing annual pay of up to $800,000.

They do this not by working harder. 

They do this by repackaging pre-recorded online content.

It’s crazy.

The state and its community college system need to rein in the overreach, cap instructor workloads and ensure that both taxpayers and students get their money’s worth from those teachers who take more and do less.

In one egregious example, Thien-Huong Ninh Villarreal, who teaches sociology, ethnic studies and business, worked for eight college districts, taught 30 classes and enrolled 1,135 students — collecting nearly $800,000 for the whole shebang.

That’s almost double the pay of the statewide community college chancellor, who oversees 116 campuses across California — a clear sign that something’s askew.

Indeed, reporters found more than 70 California community college instructors running much the same scheme, collecting pay for gigs at five or more districts at once.

These instructors quintuple-dip, in effect, by using pre-packaged, portable online content, computer grading and other shortcuts that let them “teach” hundreds or even more than 1,000 students at a time.

Is this really the best way to educate young people and train the next generation of workers? 

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Many students thrive in hands-on, interactive courses with rigorous in-person testing. 

It’s hard to see how they get any of that with canned coursework, little to no personal feedback and limited time for interaction with teachers.

And if these courses do meet some student needs, why can’t the community college system do taxpayers a solid and pay for them once per semester? Why pay the same instructors for the same canned content five or even eight times over?

California does have many dedicated community college professors who work hard in often-difficult circumstances, teaching students in-person and online. 

And some adjunct instructors at state community colleges are poorly paid and cobble together a modest income by teaching in-person at multiple locations. 

Others, however, clearly take advantage, running up the tab on taxpayers with canned courses spread across multiple districts.

That’s called phoning it in.

If only this group put as much ingenuity into student learning as they do into gaming the system.