As parents, one of our greatest desires is to see our children thrive in every aspect of life. A key ingredient to this success is fostering a genuine love for learning in them. But in a world filled with distractions and pressures, how do we motivate your child to embrace this love for learning? Let’s explore some practical and effective strategies that can help spark and sustain your child’s enthusiasm for learning.
1. Make Learning Fun and Engaging
Children are naturally curious. They love to explore, ask questions, and discover new things. To motivate your child, try to make learning an enjoyable experience. Use games, hands-on activities, and creative projects that align with your child’s interests. For example, if your child loves dinosaurs, incorporate them into reading activities or visit a natural history museum. When learning feels like play, children are more likely to develop a positive attitude toward it.
2.Create a Positive Learning Environment
A supportive and nurturing environment at home can significantly motivate your child’s attitude toward learning. Set up a dedicated space for study, free from distractions, where your child can focus on their tasks. Ensure that this space is well-lit, comfortable, and stocked with all the necessary supplies. A well-organized learning area can help children feel more motivated and less stressed, making learning a more enjoyable experience.
3.Be an Enthusiastic Role Model
Children learn by observing the adults around them. If they see you engaged in reading, exploring new hobbies, or discussing interesting topics, they’re likely to mirror that behavior. To motivate your child, share your excitement about learning something new with them. Discuss books, documentaries, or interesting articles at the dinner table. Your enthusiasm for knowledge will be contagious and inspire your child to develop a similar passion.
4. Encourage Questions and Curiosity
Encourage your child to ask questions and explore their interests. Instead of giving them direct answers, guide them in finding the information themselves. This could involve looking things up together online, visiting the library, or conducting simple experiments at home. When children are actively involved in the learning process, it helps motivate your child to develop critical thinking skills and a deeper understanding of the subject matter.
5.Celebrate Effort, Not Just Results
It’s essential to emphasize the importance of effort over achievement. Praise your child for the hard work they put into learning something new, regardless of the outcome. This approach helps motivate your child by making them understand that learning is a process and that mistakes are a natural part of it. Celebrating effort encourages resilience, persistence, and a growth mindset, which are crucial for lifelong learning.
6.Connect Learning to Real Life
Help your child see the relevance of what they’re learning by connecting it to real-life situations. Show them how math is used in cooking, how science explains the world around them, or how history shapes the present. When children see the practical applications of what they’re learning, it’s easier to motivate your child to value and enjoy the process.
Motivating your child to love learning is a gradual process that requires time, patience, and a lot of encouragement. By creating a positive and engaging learning environment, being an enthusiastic role model, and celebrating their efforts, you can help motivate your child to develop a lifelong love for learning. Remember, the goal is not just academic success but fostering a curious, confident, and resilient learner who is excited about discovering the world around them.
Trump has been waging war against the nation’s top universities, demanding that they accept his orders to stamp out DEI or lose their federal grants. Trump uses the phony claim that he is combatting anti-Semitism, but the reality is that he is silencing academic freedom and free speech. For the record, Trump has accepted the support of American Nazis, so his concern for Jews cannot be taken seriously.
The first campus to receive Trump’s demands was Columbia University. Trump threatened to withhold $400 million if Columbia did not put several departments (Middle Eastern Studies, African American Studies, and South Asian Studies) into receivership. Sadly, Columbia complied.
Harvard was threatened with the loss of $9 billion in research grants. Harvard said NO. Harvard will not bend the knee to Trump as he seeks to trample academic freedom of faculty and students.
Lawyers for Harvard University said Monday the school will not comply with a new list of demands sent by the Trump administration on Friday, as part of the government’s purported crackdown on antisemitism and alleged civil rights violations at elite universities.
The new demands expand on a previous list sent to Harvard’s leaders on April 3, which ordered Harvard to close diversity offices and cooperate with federal immigration authorities, among other directives.
In a message to the campus community Monday, Harvard president Alan Garber vowed that the university will not yield to the government’s pressure campaign.“The University will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights,” Garber said.
Harvard’s stance is the most forceful pushback yet against the Trump administration’s crackdown on elite universities. It is a sharp contrast to the approach taken by Columbia University’s leaders who acquiesced to a list of demands from the Trump administration last month. Columbia promised to change student disciplinary procedures and place a Middle East studies department under new oversight, among other measures.
Then, last Friday, the government sent Harvard a much more detailed explanation of its demands, which Harvard released Monday afternoon. Harvard’s lawyers said the university“is not prepared to agree to demands that go beyond the lawful authority of this or any administration.”
We’ve been receiving a lot of questions lately about how Wowzers can be used with Google Classroom. Google Classroom is a fantastic tool that helps students and teachers organize assignments, boost collaboration, and foster better communication, particularly for virtual learning. By assigning work from one central platform, teachers and students can easily find all their assignments, grades, and feedback in one location. We’ve put together some suggestions and tips on how to best incorporate Wowzers into this tool.
Assign work through Google Classroom
The first step is to assign specific content to students through Google Classroom. This can be a particular activity, section, or amount of time. For example, one of our teachers who currently uses Google Classroom often assigns, “Complete at least one lesson, game, and assessment in Wowzers.” This allows students to follow their own personalized curriculum path, but keeps all students moving at the same pace so no one gets left behind. When a student completes that assignment, they can mark it off as complete so you know it’s time to check their report. At that point, you can immediately review math concepts together using a digital whiteboard, if needed.
Open a line of feedback
Google Classroom allows students and teachers to communicate about particular assignments. Encourage students to provide feedback about each lesson. Was it too hard, too easy? Did they understand the content? Use this feedback to adjust the student’s curriculum path as needed, such as assigning an extra remediation video to reinforce a concept, or even moving them back to review a previous concept. Similarly, be sure to communicate back to your students. Congratulate them when they’re thriving or completing extra work, and provide support when they struggle. Let them know when you’re rewarding them with extra Wowzers coins.
To keep a record of this communication, you can open up a private Google doc with each student and attach it directly to the assignment in Google Classroom. You could also consider using a digital whiteboard to review concepts and collaborate. To review a student’s progress, share your screen with the student, and go over their recent reports. It’s even possible to use tools such as Google Docs to group students into a collaborative discussion. This allows all students can participate and contribute.
Provide supplemental activities
Did you know Wowzers includes offline activities, worksheets, discussion questions, and projects as well? These supplemental materials are available as PDFs, which can be attached to an assignment in Google Classroom. You could even use Google Docs or Google Slides to have students work together as a group and prepare a write-up or presentation of their project to share with the rest of the class. Using the rubrics available in Wowzers, you can grade these supplemental activities directly in Google Classroom.
Do you use Google Classroom alongside Wowzers? We’d love to hear your tips and tricks as well!
Cerritos College students honing their skills in ironworking during hands-on training.
Credit: Courtesy Cerritos College
A college degree or certificate is a proven pathway to higher earnings, job stability and economic mobility. Yet, nearly half of California’s adults have not pursued higher education due to barriers like cost, rigid schedules and a lack of local options.
California set an ambitious goal: By 2030, 70% of working-age adults should hold a college degree or certificate. However, instead of making it easier to achieve this, public universities are blocking one of the most promising solutions — community college bachelor’s degree programs.
Cerritos College is leading the way with its first-of-its-kind field ironworker supervisor bachelor’s degree, which was developed with the California Field Ironworkers. The program creates a direct path from apprenticeship to high-paying supervisory roles. Designed for working professionals, it offers flexible online coursework that fits the schedules of full-time ironworkers.
With over 1,300 supervisor job openings annually in Los Angeles County alone, this program helps close critical workforce gaps while fostering regional social and economic mobility. First-line supervisors with a bachelor’s degree earn an average of $34,000 more in their annual salary than those with a high school diploma or associate degree. At under $11,000 in total tuition costs — less than half the price of even the most affordable public universities, our students can recoup their investment in as little as four months, making this program a powerful tool for upward mobility.
Beyond the numbers, programs like these change lives. Rocio Campos, an ironworker and mother, defied societal expectations to pursue a career in construction. While balancing work, family and education, Rocio gained the training and resources to grow her career in ironworks through the field ironworker apprenticeship program at Cerritos College. She aims to earn a bachelor’s degree in ironworker supervision once the program receives full approval, giving her a chance to advance into a supervisory role.
Community college bachelor’s degrees are game-changers, especially for underrepresented communities. At Cerritos College, 73% of students in the ironworker apprenticeship program come from diverse backgrounds, and active recruitment efforts are bringing more women into this historically male-dominated field. These programs don’t just increase wages; they provide economic mobility by helping workers build stability, advance their careers, and lift their families into greater financial security.
Several community colleges have received provisional approval to launch bachelor’s degree programs in health care, technology and public safety — fields where California urgently needs skilled professionals. However, many of these proposals remain under review because of objections from public universities, particularly within the CSU system. Despite meeting workforce demands and serving students who might not otherwise pursue a four-year degree, these programs face unnecessary roadblocks. The final approval ultimately rests with the California Community Colleges board of governors, but these initiatives risk being delayed indefinitely without broader policy support.
California cannot rely on four-year universities alone to meet its growing workforce needs. Expanding community college bachelor’s degree programs will strengthen industries, create more opportunities and solidify California’s leadership in workforce innovation. It’s time for policymakers, industry leaders and educators to support these programs and invest in the future of our state.
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Jose Fierro is the president/superintendent of Cerritos College in Norwalk. Cerritos College serves as a comprehensive community college for southeastern Los Angeles County.
The opinions in this commentary are those of the author. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.
Wildfire smoke fills the air over the 110 freeway in Los Angeles.
Credit: AP Photo / Etienne Laurent
Before the Eaton fire this January, Alexander Ballantyne lived in Altadena, just a few minutes away from his Pasadena City College campus.
That all changed on Jan. 7 when the fire reached the home he’d lived in the past three years with his aunt and uncle, forcing them to quickly evacuate. He left with only the clothes he was wearing and the school backpack he had left in his car.
The home burned down later that day, and he was suddenly homeless, a situation he’d been in just a few years prior.
Among the people who lost their homes, livelihoods, and lives in the fires that ravaged Los Angeles early this year is a subset of young people who are in the foster care system and already knew the trauma of losing a home.
Ballantyne’s recovery from the devastation of the fire has not been easy, but it has been remarkably quick, a feat that highlights how imperative it is to pair stable housing with consistent, individualized support.
“I had stable housing with my legal guardians (in high school) and I had stable housing with my aunt. If it was just the stability, theoretically, I should have gotten through all of high school amazingly, flying colors,” he said. “I think it’s more so the type of support you get — you know it’s unconditional.”
Ballantyne, 25, was in the final stretch of transfer applications as the Eaton fire started. He was preparing the supplemental application for UC Berkeley’s business school, a highly competitive program. Less than 24 hours after it became available, however, he was fleeing from his family’s home, pushing finishing the application down his list of priorities.
Alex Ballantyne is a student at Pasadena City College, where he’s finishing his last semester before transferring to a four-year university.
“I almost felt like I was in my element, in the sense that it really wasn’t the first time I had nothing,” Ballantyne said in a recent interview. “And even though I say it feels pretty similar to how it was when I was homeless at 18, just having the support of my family … I feel like I landed on my feet.”
As soon as his friends and network found out that he had lost his home, they stepped in to help him rebuild. A friend started a GoFundMe donation page for him, and it quickly reached its goal. One Simple Wish — an organization that directly funds any need or want a foster youth might have — crowdfunded additional money to replace the school and office supplies he’d lost.
This quick support came from networks that Ballantyne had built over the years. He’s been part of organizations like First Star, a college readiness program for foster youth, where he met people like the founder of Jenni’s Flower, an LA-based organization that organizes events to empower foster youth. He is part of the foster youth programs at Pasadena City College, and he’s on the board of two nonprofits.
What mattered to Ballantyne, more than anything else, was that the support he received came with no strings attached and from people he knew truly cared for him.
“It’s really not the money that will get a foster kid through school or training or whatever they want to do,” Ballantyne said. “It’s the support, it’s the human connection, and it’s the feeling like they have somebody to lean on. That’s the most important part.”
In the months since the fires, One Simple Wish has provided thousands in funding to 12 foster youth in Los Angeles alone, including Ballantyne.
“Especially for minor children moving through the system, there’s not a lot of choice. You don’t often get to choose the neighborhood or the church you go to, the school you go to, the friendships that you can or can’t maintain, whether or not you get to stay with siblings; there’s just so much choice already being removed,” said Danielle Gletow, founder of One Simple Wish.
Her organization’s mission is to fill the gaps that other groups might leave: Instead of asking someone if they need a backpack, her team leaves the question open-ended, asking, “What would you like to put your belongings in?”
“Our goal is to just make sure that … what an individual needs in a time of crisis or challenging times, we put that power back in their hands,” said Gletow, who said the majority of funds come in as donations from supporters across the country.
Ballantyne knows that lack of choice firsthand. He entered the foster system during middle school after an unstable childhood, andmoved through four placements during his freshman year of high school, before being placed with a family who became his legal guardians until the age of 18. He said that despite having housing stability through most of high school, he earned a 2.9 GPA.
Today, weeks after his home burned down along with all of his belongings, coupled with the stress of waiting to hear back from colleges he applied to as he finishes his spring semester, he has maintained a 3.6 GPA.
It’s all in the support
At 18, shortly after graduating from high school, Ballantyne said he was kicked out of his foster home of three years and was homeless, couch surfing and working four jobs to get by, until he landed in transitional housing.
He enrolled in community college shortly after, but left before the semester was over, right as the Covid-19 pandemic was starting. He fell into a deep, long-lasting depression, and for the next three years, he spent most days playing video games, drinking, smoking weed and taking pills, he said.
His “wake-up call,” as he calls it, came in March 2021, when he received a text notifying him his grandmother was dying in the hospital. “I just remember feeling so helpless. I didn’t have the money to get an Uber to go see her,” he said. “I didn’t drive. I was doing nothing with myself.”
Ballantyne’s grandmother had been like his mother, he said, and she’d just died in the same hospital he’d been born in about two decades earlier. She was his champion, always reminding him how much she loved him.
While in the foster system, he had been estranged from his family for years, but as he helped his aunt prepare his grandmother’s home for sale, he told her about his living condition.
It was around this time that Ballantyne’s life started turning around. His decision to get a job at a Best Buy “changed everything.” He initially wanted the job just for the discounts on video games, but he came away with companionship, which he needed after having been isolated in his depression for years.
His aunt soon invited him to move in with her rent-free as long as he worked or attended school full-time and helped out around the house. He grabbed the opportunity and enrolled at Pasadena City College, where he is now just months from transferring to a four-year college.
He learned what it was like to receive unconditional support when he moved in with his biological family as an adult.
“I don’t think I was ever dumb,” he said, referring to the many years in which he didn’t excel academically. “I just don’t think I ever was in a situation where I truly, 100% felt comfortable and secure with where I was at.”
Ballantyne is currently living in Burbank, renting a room in a classmate’s apartment, while his uncle and aunt are staying with family farther north in Los Angeles County.
He’ll be there through the end of the summer, at which point he’ll be moving to whichever university he chooses among the four that accepted him so far. His rent is paid through August, thanks to the funding he received after the fires.
The network of friends and resources that stepped up to support Ballantyne is there for all other foster youth, both he and Gletow emphasized.
“We really do stress the importance of making connections wherever you can because it will matter as you get older. And as you become an adult, you have less and less of a network or safety net,” said Gletow, whose organization also has an educational wish fund where school staff can submit requests for flexible funding to use as needed.
Ballantyne did eventually submit his supplemental application to UC Berkeley’s business school on time when he was sheltering at a family member’s home. The application had a video component requiring applicants to record themselves answering prompt questions, but the desk in the room he was staying in was inside a closet — not an ideal setting for such an important video.
But Ballantyne knew he had everything he needed, including a newly replaced laptop, thanks to his friends and network, so he hit the record button and got to work making his goals a reality.
Home tuition jobs in Lucknow are becoming increasingly popular as parents seek personalized educational support for their children. This trend is driven by the desire for tailored learning experiences that cater to individual student needs. If you are considering a career in home tuition, it is essential to understand the qualifications and skills required to succeed in this field. This article will explore the necessary credentials and competencies needed for home tuition jobs in Lucknow.
Qualifications for Home Tuition Jobs In Lucknow
Educational Background
A strong educational background is fundamental for a home tutor. Most parents prefer tutors with a degree in the subject they wish to teach.
Minimum Qualification Requirements
Bachelor’s Degree: A bachelor’s degree in a relevant subject is often the minimum requirement.
Higher Education: Advanced degrees (Master’s, Ph.D.) can enhance your credibility and demand.
Certification and Training
Teaching Certificates: Certificates like B.Ed. (Bachelor of Education) add value to your profile.
Subject-Specific Certifications: Specialized certifications in areas like language proficiency or technical skills can be beneficial.
Professional Experience
Teaching Experience: Prior teaching experience, either in schools or as a tutor, is highly advantageous.
Subject Expertise: Demonstrated expertise in the subject matter you intend to teach.
Essential Skills for Home Tuition Jobs
Subject Knowledge
Comprehensive understanding and mastery of the subject you teach is crucial.
Communication Skills
Clarity and Articulation: Ability to explain concepts clearly and effectively.
Listening Skills: Understanding students’ queries and responding appropriately.
Patience and Adaptability
Patience: Essential for dealing with students of varying learning speeds.
Adaptability: Ability to tailor teaching methods to suit individual student needs.
Interpersonal Skills
Relationship Building: Creating a positive and supportive learning environment.
Motivational Skills: Encouraging and motivating students to achieve their potential.
Additional Competencies
Technological Proficiency
Familiarity with educational technology and online teaching tools is increasingly important.
Organizational Skills
Lesson Planning: Preparing structured and effective lesson plans.
Time Management: Efficiently managing time to cover the syllabus.
Analytical Skills
Assessment: Ability to evaluate student performance and identify areas for improvement.
Problem-Solving: Developing strategies to address learning challenges.
Building a Successful Home Tuition Career in Lucknow
Networking and Marketing
Establishing a strong network and marketing your services effectively can help in building a successful tuition career.
Professional Development
Continuously updating your knowledge and skills through workshops, courses, and seminars.
Feedback and Improvement
Seeking feedback from students and parents to improve your teaching methods and effectiveness.
Conclusion
Home tuition jobs in Lucknow offer a rewarding career opportunity for those with the right qualifications and skills. By ensuring you have the necessary educational background, teaching certifications, and a comprehensive skill set, you can provide high-quality educational support to students. Continuous professional development and effective communication are key to success in this growing field.
Are you looking for an engaging and creative way to incorporate digital learning into your classroom? Look no further than Google Slides Animation Projects!
Google Slides is often thought of as a traditional presentation tool. Yet, in the hands of students and their creativity, the possibilities are endless. The best part is that this project can be used repeatedly. It works with countless topics in all grade levels.
In this post, we’ll explore how to use this versatile tool. It can help create exciting stop motion animation projects with your students.
Why Use Google Slides Animation Projects?
Google Slides isn’t just a PowerPoint substitute – it’s a powerful platform for creative projects. Here’s why it’s perfect for stop motion animation:
Easy to use and accessible for students of all ages
Collaborative features allow for group projects
No need for specialized software or equipment
Teaches valuable digital skills alongside curriculum content
How Google Slide Animation Works
Just like a traditional flipbook, you can use Google Slides to position transparent images on a common background. Over the course of several slides, move them into various positions as the slide deck moves ahead. You can watch this video to understand how simple it is to copy an image. Then, you can paste it across an entire presentation.
When you get to the second and third characters in your story, you copy the image. Then, you paste the image instead of creating a brand new slide.
The principle behind stop motion in Google Slides is like a traditional flipbook:
Position transparent images on a common background
Move the images slightly across several slides
When played in sequence, it creates the illusion of movement
Students can easily copy and paste images across slides, adjusting their position to create smooth animations.
Step-by-Step Guide to Creating Google Slide Animations
Creating stop motion animations with Google Slides is a straightforward process that anyone can master. By using a few simple steps, students can bring their ideas to life through engaging animated sequences. Here’s a concise guide to help you and your students get started with this exciting digital storytelling technique.
Set up your background: Choose or create a static background for your animation.
Add characters or objects: Insert transparent PNG images of the elements you want to animate.
Duplicate slides: Copy your first slide multiple times.
Make small changes: On each slide, slightly adjust the position of your animated elements.
Add transitions: Use slide transitions to control the speed of your animation.
Play and refine: View your animation and make adjustments as needed.
Set up your background: Choose or create a static background for your animation.
Add characters or objects: Insert transparent PNG images of the elements you want to animate.
Duplicate slides: Copy your first slide multiple times.
Make small changes: On each slide, slightly adjust the position of your animated elements.
Add transitions: Use slide transitions to control the speed of your animation.
Play and refine: View your animation and make adjustments as needed.
Curriculum Integration Ideas
Once your students have mastered Google Slides features like drag, drop, flip, grouping, transparency, and recoloring, you can introduce the concept. Teach each feature until they feel comfortable using them. Then incorporate it into a curricular project.
One of the best ways to introduce this lesson in your classroom is at the end of the week. I recommend doing this activity on a Friday after lunch. At this time, your students are energized to go home. They can spend the weekend creating something extraordinary. On the next Monday or Tuesday, you can host a film festival for them to showcase their work. This approach allows students to test their digital learning skills. It also puts the application’s learning directly in their hands.
Stop motion animation with Google Slides can be adapted to various subjects:
Science: Animate cell division or the water cycle
History: Illustrate exploration routes or historical events
Math: Create visual representations of equations or geometry concepts
Language Arts: Bring stories or poems to life
Tips for Success
Introduce the project on a Friday, allowing students to work over the weekend
Host a “film festival” the next week for students to showcase their work
Teach Google Slides features like drag, drop, flip, grouping, and transparency
Encourage creativity and experimentation
Conclusion
Using Google Slides for stop motion animation is an innovative way to engage students in digital learning. It also reinforces curriculum concepts. It’s a versatile, accessible tool that can transform your classroom into a creative studio. Give it a try and watch your students imaginations come to life!
Contrary to previous announcements, Dr. Azar Nafisi will NOT appear at Wellesley College on April 15.
Non-tenure track teaching faculty are string, and Dr. Nafisi would not take the chance of appearing while faculty are striking. She would not cross a picket line.
Her lecture–about her book Reading Dangerously–will be rescheduled.
California’s most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores revealed troubling trends in student achievement. Despite significant financial investments, student performance continues to struggle to reach full academic recovery. Worse, achievement gaps between the highest- and lowest-performing students widened even further.
The timing of these results couldn’t be worse. With California districts spending the last of their $23 billion in federal relief funds last year, schools are now facing a critical juncture. With declining enrollment reducing their budgets and only modest new state investments coming this year, it will be tough for districts to dramatically scale up promising initiatives like high-dosage tutoring or extensive summer programming.
So, what levers do state and local policymakers have at their disposal? By looking at the data and learning from other successful low-cost interventions, the state has an opportunity to reverse its slide and drive student gains.
First, kids have to be in school to learn. In California, chronic absenteeism rates have come down significantly from their pandemic levels, but they’re still nearly twice as high as they were five years ago. Black students, English learners, students with disabilities, and other marginalized groups are missing too much school.
Fortunately, there are low-cost, high-impact strategies that schools can adopt to ensure students are present and engaged. For example, a research study looking at a large California district found that missing a part of the school day — for referrals for in-school discipline or participation in extracurricular activities — predicted short- and long-run outcomes for students. Many school districts are already tracking these measures; the next step is using them to inform and implement interventions such as parent notifications or individualized support.
Second, once kids are back in school, the next step is ensuring that classroom time is used well. This is especially critical in California, given that it ranks in the bottom 10 states in terms of total instructional hours per school year. Last year’s law to ban or limit the use of cell phones during school hours should help reduce digital distractions, but the research on attention is clear that humans are not good at multitasking and can take a long time to refocus when our thinking is interrupted.
For schools, that means that every little interruption counts. Students being pulled out of class for special interventions or testing, outdoor noise and intercom announcements are all important in their own way, but they also add up. One study found that a typical classroom might be interrupted 2,000 times per year and that these disruptions can result in the loss of 10 to 20 days of instructional time. School district leaders could conduct attention audits to maximize and better understand how schools are using time and all of their technological tools.
Last but not least is the question of what students are (and are not) learning. California’s test results suggest that reading is a particular problem area. Since 2019, California’s reading scores on NAEP are down 4 points in fourth grade and 5 points in eighth grade. But those are averages. Last year, just 7% of California’s Black students met the “Proficient” benchmark and 72% fell below “Basic” in fourth grade reading.
When students lack foundational reading skills, the impact compounds across subjects. All students need and deserve evidence-based literacy instruction, with sustained focus on the relationships between sound and print, exposure to rich text, thought-provoking content, and both general and domain-specific vocabulary that builds knowledge of the world.
Improving reading scores is hard work, and other states are dealing with similar challenges. But California — unlike many other states — has not yet passed a comprehensive reading bill.
This is where California could stand to learn from some of the higher-performing states on NAEP, sometimes called “the nation’s report card.” Specifically, it might surprise some readers to learn that Mississippi made the largest reading gains over the last 10 years. Last year, Mississippi ranked seventh overall but third for Black students and first for low-income students. California, in contrast, came in 37th, 33rd and 28th, respectively.
How did Mississippi make this turnaround? It took a long-term, systematic approach to its literacy efforts. It invested in teacher development and coaching, identified and supported struggling readers as early as possible and equipped teachers with high-quality instructional materials.
This combination of high-quality instructional materials with diagnostic data and student supports has the potential to improve outcomes for California’s most vulnerable students, and to create a more equitable education system for all. By leveraging data it already tracks and focusing on the delivery of core instruction, California can build a stronger foundation for student success.
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Lindsay Dworkin is senior vice president of policy and government affairs at NWEA, a K-12 assessment and research organization.
The opinions in this commentary are those of the author. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.
UC Davis scientists Marcelo Prado and Katie Zegarski load samples onto trays to test for the coronavirus in 2020. UC officials say cutting-edge research will be threatened if federal funds are reduced.
Courtesy of UC Davis Health
More crowding in undergraduate classes. Worse patient care at health centers. Harm to academic and scientific research.
Those are some of the impacts officials fear will result from an across-the-board hiring freeze announced Wednesday by the 10-campus University of California in response to threatened cuts in federal funding and worries about state budget support. But given those uncertainties, UC leaders said they had no choice but to act now to conserve funds.
The potential decline in federal contracts and grants would “threaten our ability to deliver on our core missions, education, research, patient care, and student support services, and our work to expand educational access for all Californians,” UC President Michael Drake said in announcing the freeze and other austerities.
Thousands of vacancies that already exist across UC would remain unfilled under the new policy. In addition to the hiring freeze across all UC campuses, six academic health centers and 20 health professional schools, Drake directed every UC location to implement additional cost-saving measures, such as delaying maintenance and reducing business travel when possible. All that would “help the university manage its costs and conserve funds,” Drake said, also noting a cut in state financial support for UC.
UC receives about $6 billion annually in federal funds for research and other program supports, with the National Institutes of Health being the largest source. That does not include more than $8 billion the university gets through Medicare and Medicaid for patient care, funding that Drake noted Wednesday is also at risk. Cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, he said, “would have significant impacts on the UC Health enterprise and on the patients we serve.”
UC is the latest of a growing number of universities nationwide to pause hiring in the wake of new policies and threats to funding from the Trump administration. Other institutions that have taken similar steps in recent weeks include Harvard, Stanford and North Carolina State University.
President Donald Trump’s administration has threatened to slash university research funding and other money for what he says is needed streamlining and in response to what he has labeled illegal race-based programs, such as cultural graduation ceremonies or racially themed dormitory floors. UC Berkeley is among three California campuses, along with Cal Poly Humboldt and Cal State San Bernardino, that are currently being investigated for running programs that the administration alleges hurt white and Asian students.
Trump has also threatened campuses over the handling of pro-Palestinian protests last year. His administration has sent letters to 10 California colleges, including four UC campuses, threatening to pull funding if they weren’t doing enough to protect Jewish students on their campuses. The four UC campuses were Berkeley, Davis, San Diego and Santa Barbara.
Potential federal funding cuts would be especially consequential for research-heavy institutions like UC.
Jesse Rothstein, director of UC Berkeley’s Center for Studies in Higher Education, said he had been expecting the hiring freeze because the Trump administration has “dramatically threatened the kind of funding” on which research universities depend.
The ramifications of the hiring freeze and possible funding cuts could be felt for decades to come, Rothstein said. “It’s going to be harder to persuade people to be scientists in the future if they know that their careers can be upended at any moment,” he said. “It’s going to create problems in terms of attracting the best researchers from around the world. All of that is going to damage the scientific enterprise in this country.”
Further complicating the matter is that UC is separately facing a nearly 8% cut to its state funding as part of this year’s budget process. In a typical year, that level of funding reduction would be “alarming,” said Drake, the UC president. Pairing it with the prospect of federal funding cuts makes it even more worrisome, he said.
Leaving vacancies unfilled for service and health care workers will have far-reaching consequences on UC campuses and hospitals, said Todd Stenhouse, a spokesperson for AFSCME 3299. That union represents tens of thousands of workers across UC, including patient care technical employees, security guards, parking attendants, custodians, food service workers and others.
Even before Wednesday’s announcement, union leaders were already irritated by the growing number of vacancies across the system and blamed UC for not investing in those employees. The hiring freeze will exacerbate the problem, Stenhouse said. UC hospital patients, for example, will face longer wait times when they press their call buttons and need a worker to come to their aid, Stenhouse said.
“UC is a world-class institution, but you have to have enough staff to deliver the services,” he added. “Our members are what make it run.”
The announcement of the hiring freeze was disappointing to Constance Penley, a professor of film studies at UC Santa Barbara and president of the Council of UC Faculty Associations.
Penley said she sees the hiring freeze as part of a “wave of capitulation” on the part of universities toward the Trump administration. She noted, for example, that Columbia University was reportedly planning to yield to the Trump administration’s demands to change, among other things, the handling of student protests and discipline to get $400 million in federal funding restored.
“If there were a hiring freeze or other tactics within some kind of overall plan, then I could understand it,” she said “But this seems to just be totally defensive.”
During his remarks Wednesday, Drake said that groundbreaking advancements in medicine, such as learning to diagnose and treat HIV, is in “large part due to research discoveries made at universities,” including UC. That kind of work, he said, “is at risk today.”
“I recognize that this is frightening for many people in our UC community, and these feelings can make it hard to study and to work and to teach,” Drake said. “But still, I can say unequivocally that the University of California will be here. At the end of the day, the rules of engagement may have changed, but our foundational values have not.”
The UC Student Association and the faculty’s Academic Senate leaders did not return requests for comment Wednesday.
