This is a very important chart to raise awarement across schools, districts, and the state; however, I think it needs to be corrected that these are students who don’t pass these college-prep courses with a C or higher. It sends the wrong message to say that these “students don’t take courses needed to apply to CSU or UC” as I know that most students in many schools/districts do take these courses — they just … Read More
This is a very important chart to raise awarement across schools, districts, and the state; however, I think it needs to be corrected that these are students who don’t pass these college-prep courses with a C or higher. It sends the wrong message to say that these “students don’t take courses needed to apply to CSU or UC” as I know that most students in many schools/districts do take these courses — they just don’t get a passing grade, which is another systemic issue that needs to be tackled.
A federal judge issued an order late Thursday blocking President Trump from deploying members of the California National Guard in Los Angeles, and ordered the administration to return control of the forces to Gov. Gavin Newsom.
The restraining order from District Judge Charles R. Breyer, which takes effect Friday at noon Pacific time, delivered a sharp rebuke to President Trump’s effort to deploy thousands of National Guard troops on the streets of an American city, a move has contributed to nearly a week of political rancor and protests across the country.
“His actions were illegal — both exceeding the scope of his statutory authority and violating the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution,” Judge Breyer wrote of Mr. Trump’s orders. But he gave the administration a chance to appeal.
A federal judge in San Francisco on Thursday ordered the Trump administration to “return control” of the California National Guard to Gov. Gavin Newsom after the president issued an extraordinary order deploying them to Los Angeles over the weekend.
U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer, presiding over the case, granted California’s request for a temporary restraining order, granting the federal government a stay until Friday to appeal the ruling.
Breyer had expressed skepticism at a hearing Thursday over the matter, questioning whether President Trump had operated within his authority.
“We’re talking about the president exercising his authority, and of course, the president is limited in his authority,” Breyer said. “That’s the difference between the president and King George.”
“We live in response to a monarchy,” the judge continued, adding: “Line drawing is important, because it establishes a system of process.
In the lengthy decision, Breyer wrote that he is “troubled by the implication” inherent in Trump administration’s argument “that protest against the federal government, a core civil liberty protected by the First Amendment, can justify a finding of rebellion.”
Christian Robinson always planned to go to college, but when she graduated from Adelanto High School in California’s High Desert, she felt aimless. Without a plan or preparation for higher education, she decided to go to work instead.
She regrets that now.
“I wish I would have gone straight into college because I would have had everything done, finished and over with,” said Robinson, who at 20 is now enrolling at Victor Valley College.
Currently, Robinson juggles two jobs, working for a security company and serving fast food. She wishes she had received more guidance about attending college from her school.
Robinson’s story was typical for Black students at Adelanto High School, where over 8 out of 10 Black students graduated in 2020 without the college prep courses — known as A-G — required for admission to California’s public universities.
The path has been different for her younger brother MarQuan Thornton, currently a high school senior at Adelanto. Months away from graduation, Thornton is one of a small group of students deciding not whether he will go to college, but which one.
MarQuan Thornton is a senior at Adelanto High in California’s High Desert. He credits the Heritage Program at his school, aimed at Black students, for helping to keep him on track for attending college.Emma Gallegos/EdSource
Thornton has worked hard but recognizes that the key difference between his trajectory and his sister’s is the support he’s getting from school that did not exist during his sister’s time there.
Three years after his sister graduated, his high school began the Heritage Program, which is aimed at ensuring that Black students, like him, are on track to complete their A-G requirements.
Thornton knows he’s on track to meet the requirements that will make him eligible to attend a state university.
“If she (Christian Robinson) had this type of chance when she was in high school, she probably would have been where I am at,” Thornton said. “I can see the difference.”
While the vast majority of students in California — 86% of seniors in 2023 — graduate from high school, most — 56% in 2023 — do not complete their A-G requirements, according to an EdSource analysis of data from the California Department of Education. EdSource’s analysis found that Black and Latino students are the hardest hit.
In 2023, 68% of Black students and 64% of Latino students did not meet A-G requirements, compared with 26% of Asian students and 48% of white students, according to EdSource’s analysis.
The highest non-completion group is foster students at 88%, followed by disabled students at 85% and English learners at 82%.
“These kinds of numbers should be treated as a five-alarm fire,” said Melissa Valenzuela-Stookey, director of P-16 research for Ed Trust-West, a nonprofit that advocates for justice in education.
Valenzuela-Stookey said high school graduates are being shut out of affordable four-year public college options, because they are not getting the support they need to complete the A-G coursework.
“Our education systems urgently need to invest more in our students of color,” Valenzuela-Stookey said.
As Robinson neared graduation in the early days of the pandemic, she said everyone, even teachers, seemed to lose track of how to prepare students for college and life after high school.
But long before the pandemic, the district was struggling to prepare Black students to meet their A-G requirements and be ready for higher education, according to Ratmony Yee, assistant superintendent of educational services for Victor Valley Union High.
Robinson’s mother, Crystal Francisco, says that she is proud of how hard her daughter works to earn her own money. But she concurs that if Heritage had been around, Robinson might have gone straight to college.
“She probably would have gone a different way,” said Francisco.
Snapshot of California
Of 1,766 high schools in California, about half graduated more than 56% of students lacking the required college preparatory courses.
Fewer than 2 out of 10 students met A-G rates in 2023 in many northern counties, such as Lake, Del Norte, Plumas, Lassen, Nevada, Tehama, Trinity. Just 3 out of 10 students in Kern, Merced, Tulare and Kings counties met the requirements. That compares to the Bay Area in San Mateo, Santa Clara, Alameda and Marin counties where more than 5 out of 10 students met A-G requirements.
Improving low A-G completion rates has been a longtime goal of both educators and state policymakers, but it’s a problem that resists easy answers or quick fixes, said Sherrie Reed, executive director of the California Education Lab at UC Davis and a researcher with Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE), an independent research nonprofit affiliated with several California universities.
The idea of simply aligning the state’s minimum high school requirements with A-G requirements hasn’t gained steam because of the concern that it would result in fewer students graduating, said Mayra Lara, the director of Southern California partnerships and engagement with Ed Trust-West.
What are A-G requirements?
The details of A-G requirements can be arcane, especially for students and parents who are not familiar with the college admissions process. The state requires students to complete a minimum of 13 courses to receive a high school diploma.
But to attend a UC or CSU requires that a student takes 15 courses in seven areas: history, English, math, science, foreign language, arts and an elective. Each category has its own letter, A-G, which is where the requirements get their name.
These courses overlap with high school requirements, but they are also more rigorous. For instance, three years of English are required to graduate from high school, while A-G eligibility requires four years. Only one of those years can include English as a Second Language or English Language Development — courses that English learners are often enrolled in.
Low grades are a common way students fall off the A-G track. A “D” is considered a passing grade for a high school diploma, but A-G classes require at least a “C” to count as eligible.
The state, instead, has offered carrots for districts working on improving poor A-G rates, especially those that have a large marginalized student population, such as those who are low-income, English learners, homeless or have a disability. In 2021-22, the state set aside over $547 million for the A-G Completion Improvement Grant Program. The state has also pushed dual enrollment and career technical education to the high school curriculum, both of which can help students meet their A-G requirements.
Progress has been slow. The number of students who have met A-G requirements statewide has ticked up just shy of four points over the last six years.
Understanding why any given student may or may not meet A-G requirements requires examining what is happening in a particular region or district, as well as disparities within schools.
“The answer is that it is all of that,” said Reed. “No one factor accounts for it.”
Some students said that graduating without meeting A-G requirements sent them the message that they were not college material.
Brock Wooster-Mills, 20, said he felt “doomed to fail” as a student with a disability attending Liberty High School in Bakersfield, where 49% of students do not meet A-G requirements.
Partial hearing loss had affected Wooster-Mills’ ability to speak and follow lessons in elementary school. But even when his hearing improved, his counselors in the Kern High School District wouldn’t allow him to transfer into required A-G courses such as French and geometry.
He remembers one special education teacher telling his class that they likely wouldn’t even attend a community college, but Wooster-Mills said he always knew he was capable of more. He enrolled in Bakersfield College in 2021, the fall after he graduated.
He’s now in his sixth semester, but his lack of academic confidence and inadequate preparation continue to dog him. In high school, he had never been taught how to write an essay. He had never studied a foreign language, which made Spanish daunting. He failed the first time he took it.
“I feel like I’m still behind,” he said. “I wasn’t taught what I was supposed to be taught.”
Most high schools in the state — 91.4% of traditional district schools, according to PACE — do offer a full slate of A-G coursework that put them on track for college. But the degree of access students get to those courses or support, once they have enrolled, varies greatly, resulting in wide disparities between groups of students.
Interactive Map
View the map to see the percentage of students in each high school who graduate without A-G required courses.
PACE released a series of briefs and reports on the A-G completion rates in summer 2023, noting that access to rigorous coursework — whether dual enrollment, Advanced Placement or other college preparatory courses — can profoundly change the trajectory of a student’s life. These courses not only set students up for admission to college, but make it more likely that a student will pursue college in the first place.
Researchers found that some high schools do not offer the full range of A-G courses. In 2018-19, 2.5% of schools offered no A-G courses, and another 6% only offered some A-G courses. The list also includes small and rural schools that struggle to hire teachers who are qualified to teach A-G required classes in fields such as math, science or foreign language.
But 84% of schools that do not offer a full range of A-G courses are charter schools focused primarily on credit recovery for students at risk of not graduating from high school. Charter schools tend to be outliers in both directions; schools with the highest and lowest A-G rates — where fewer than 40% or greater than 80% of students meet A-G requirement — tend to be charters.
Changes in high school can help
Adelanto High is a part of Victor Valley Union High School District, which serves communities in the High Desert, including Victorville. Cheap, abundant land attracts residents priced out of the Southern California housing market, but there is little economic opportunity. Unemployment is high, and so is the poverty rate.
“The kids get stuck here, because there’s a cycle of poverty,” said Aleka Jackson-Jarrell, the coordinator of the Heritage program at Adelanto High.
Educators in Victor Valley Union High say that beyond ensuring that students have all of their options open to them upon graduation, it is not their role to choose a path for students. Military or trade school are options celebrated at the school, but educators tell students that a bachelor’s degree will be key for most students who aim to earn better wages and escape the cycle of poverty.
“Money talks,” said Yee, assistant superintendent of instructional services for Victor Valley Union High.
District leaders say ensuring that students meet their A-G requirements opens up two key options for students: being eligible to apply for a CSU or UC school, and also having the preparation to succeed at a community college.
Like much of inland California, the rate of students completing their A-G is low in Victor Valley Union High. In 2016-17, 13% of students in the district completed their A-G coursework, but it has been improving: that number rose to 29% last year.
Victor Valley Union High has been making districtwide changes that administrators say are key to putting more students on track for A-G completion.
Scheduling is important, Yee said. Creating a master schedule that prioritizes disabled students or English learners ensures these students aren’t missing A-G coursework because of a scheduling conflict. Some schools also build tutoring into daily schedules for struggling students.
The district studied students’ transcripts to figure out how to improve their chances of meeting A-G requirements. For instance, they found that students who took foreign language classes as freshmen or sophomores were more likely to fulfill this requirement, because they had time to retake classes to make up for any poor grades. Students are now required to begin their foreign language courses by sophomore year.
Victor Valley Union High also rolled out two programs aimed specifically at groups of students that were struggling the most: Black students and long-term English learners.
Homing in on groups who need the most help
The Heritage program, aimed at Black students like MarQuan Thornton, was piloted in 2022-23 at Adelanto High. Beginning sophomore year, every Black student in this High Desert school is automatically enrolled in this program that ensures students are prepared for graduation as well as college and a career.
Thornton said the program has helped him, even ensuring that he made up classes he struggled with his sophomore year. He now boasts a 3.7 GPA.
A-G completion rates for Black students at his high school improved. In 2021-22, 6% of Black students met their A-G. The following year, when Heritage began, that number jumped to 26%.
Because of its early success, the program is not only being rolled out at other campuses in the district, but is being used as a model for Legacy, a program aimed at long-term English learners.
Students in both Heritage and Legacy are sorted in four groups. Level 1 students are on track to graduate from high school with A-G requirements, while Level 4 students may be in danger of not graduating from high school at all. The coordinators hold monthly sessions with each group on topics ranging from how to fill out the FAFSA form or make up failed classes to basic life skills that students approaching adulthood need. Students also visit college campuses.
Parents are invited for workshops to school so that they can understand the importance of A-G classes and learn how to support — and perhaps badger — their children into staying on track.
Heritage coordinator Jackson-Jarrell said that having a background similar to her students’ helps her connect with them. She dropped out of high school when she was younger. She tells students that earning degrees — starting with an associate degree and ultimately obtaining a doctorate — helped her go from making $4.25 an hour to making six figures.
Her counterpart at Silverado High, Jose Velasco, teaches Spanish and runs the Legacy program. Like many of his students, Velasco is a child of immigrants whose first language was Spanish. He checks in to make sure students have access to bilingual aides so that they can understand the content in their college preparatory classes, such as geometry or history.
When Heritage first began, Jackson-Jarrell experienced pushback from non-Black teachers, parents and students questioning the need for a program focused solely on one group of students and pointing to other programs such as AVID, that focused on college and career readiness.
“We were hit with questions like, ‘Why is this program just for Black students? It’s not fair,’” she said.
Jackson-Jarrell would tell them that the data was showing that overwhelmingly, Black students need the most support meeting A-G requirements and that they have unique needs and challenges that Heritage addresses. When students visit college campuses, they try to imagine themselves fitting in. Not seeing Black students on campus can reinforce the idea that they don’t belong on a college campus.
“They’re looking for themselves,” said Jackson-Jarrell. “They feel like they don’t belong.”
So, Heritage will often ensure that when they visit campuses, they can meet directly with students from the Black student resource centers. This upcoming spring, Heritage students are invited on a tour through the American South, visiting historically Black colleges and universities. Legacy makes a point of visiting with Latino student groups on campus for similar purposes.
Jackson-Jarrell said that programs like Heritage and Legacy are important for the economic development of the community and hopes to see more programs like them in other districts in the High Desert.
Superintendent Carl Coles concurs. Increasing the rigor of students’ coursework and preparing them for higher education doesn’t just set students up for success, it improves the prospects of their families and the larger community. The district’s renewed focus on A-G requirements, he said, goes right to the core of why education is so important.
Coles said, “It really is so that every kid can live a life of purpose.”
This post has been updated to clarify a source’s statement
Los Angeles City College, one of the state’s 116 community colleges.
Larry Gordon/EdSource Today
Latino students are enrolling at low rates in bachelor’s degree programs at California’s community colleges. But many of those who do enroll are graduating quickly and finding work after leaving college.
But, in many of the programs, Latino students are not applying or enrolling at high rates. Across the programs, which range from equine and ranch management at Feather River College to dental hygiene at West Los Angeles College, just 30.1% of students are Latino. That’s much lower than the 46% of students at those colleges who are Latino.
To address that gap, the study calls for greater recruitment of Latino students to the programs and for the state to invest more money in the programs.
However, for the students who do enroll, 64% of them finish their degree within two years after starting their upper-division coursework. That’s comparable to non-Latino students, 68% of whom graduate within two years after starting those classes.
Following graduation, the vast majority of Latino students in the bachelor’s degree majors — 94% of them — reported being employed. On average, they earned $22,600 more annually than they did prior to starting the program.
Those outcomes are encouraging, but the colleges could benefit from a “public awareness campaign” to make sure Latino students know about the bachelor’s degree programs available to them, said Cecilia Rios-Aguilar, one of the report’s authors.
“We have this tool now, so let’s make sure people are aware. We’re seeing very promising results once they’re there. But we want to make sure that they get there,” added Rios-Aguilar, who is a professor of education and the associate dean of equity, diversity and inclusion at UCLA’s Graduate School of Education and Information Studies.
The bachelor’s degrees are more affordable for students than attending a University of California or California State University campus. Students can finish their degree for just $10,560 in tuition and fees, less than half of what it costs at UC or Cal State. Lower-division classes at the community college are $46 per unit, while the upper-division courses in the bachelor’s degree programs cost the same $46 enrollment fee plus a supplemental $84 fee.
Community college students with financial need can often qualify for state aid to fully cover those costs. That typically includes a California College Promise Grant to cover their lower-division fees and a Cal Grant to cover the $84-per-unit upper-division fees.
The 15 programs examined in the study are California’s original 15 community college bachelor’s degree programs. The state established those programs in 2015 as part of a pilot program.
The state then built on that pilot program with the passage of a 2021 law that allows the community college system to approve up to 30 new bachelor’s degree programs annually. Since the fall of 2022, at least 18 additional programs have been approved, according to the state chancellor’s office.
Not every college included in the study struggled to enroll Latino students in the programs. At two colleges — Antelope Valley and Bakersfield — the share of Latino students in those programs exceeded the overall share of Latino students at the college.
At Bakersfield, which offers a bachelor’s degree in industrial automation, getting those students enrolled starts in high school. Students in the Kern High School District have the option of earning an associate degree in industrial automation while they work toward their high school graduation.
“This innovative collaboration enables these students to seamlessly transfer into our baccalaureate program. Innovations that bring opportunity to students help explain Bakersfield College’s success in successfully recruiting Latinx students to our program,” Jessica Wojtysiak, the college’s associate vice president of instruction, said in an email.
In addition to that program, Bakersfield also now offers a bachelor’s degree in research laboratory technology.
At another college, MiraCosta, the share of Latino students in the college’s bachelor’s degree program in biomanufacturing was only 0.8% less than the college’s overall share of Latino students.
“In our diverse and vibrant student body, we are proud to observe that the majority of those enrolling in our programs — specifically the bachelor’s degree in biomanufacturing — represent a majority of non-White/Asian backgrounds, showcasing our institution’s appeal across various ethnicities,” Dominique Ingato, MiraCosta’s biotechnology department chair, said in an email.
To ensure that other colleges have similar success, the study released Tuesday suggests that the state should invest more money in the community college bachelor’s degree programs.
That could include spending more on outreach, marketing and recruitment to attract more Latino students. It could also mean investing in “research infrastructure” at the colleges, Rios-Aguilar said. She pointed out that community colleges don’t have the same research capacity as traditional research institutions like UCLA and other four-year colleges.
“It’s important to highlight that community colleges are severely underfunded compared to other sectors of higher education and yet they’re doing these amazing things and these promising tools are emerging,” she added. “Colleges are working really hard to make this happen.”
California’s Commission on Teacher Credentialing approved long-awaited revised Standards for the Teaching Profession on Thursday that emphasize culturally responsive teaching, social-emotional learning and family engagement.
The standards, which guide teachers’ professional development and evaluation statewide, broadly describe the knowledge, skills and abilities expected of effective experienced teachers. State law requires that they are updated regularly.
During the meeting Thursday, the overwhelming sentiment — from commissioners members, speakers from the public, and the letters received — supported the new standards; however, some asked the commission to push back the 2025-26 rollout of the new standards to allow university teacher preparation programs, school districts and commission staff more time to implement changes.
“The revised CSTP aims to rehumanize our system by focusing on the whole student, their identities and what’s meaningful in this world to them, not us,” said Leigh Dela Victoria, an instructional coach in the Fontana Unified School District in San Bernardino County.
“They havethe potential to transform all of our classrooms into culturally and linguistically responsive and sustaining communities,” she said. “As a coach, I can tell you firsthand the impact this type of teaching has on students when their identities, assets and agency are valued.”
She told commission members that the current standards, approved in 2009, are out of touch with what needs to be taught in classrooms.
The six overarching domains of teaching in the new document are similar to the previous standards, and are parallel to other state standards, according to the commission. The elements within the domains include definitions and examples. The six domains are also used in the Teaching Performance Expectations, which outline what beginning teachers should know.
Going Deeper
Domain 1: Engaging and supporting all students in learning – Teachers apply knowledge about each student to activate an approach to learning that strengthens and reinforces each student’s participation, engagement, connection and sense of belonging.
Domain 2: Creating and maintaining effective environments for student learning – Teachers create and uphold a safe, caring and intellectually stimulating learning environment that affirms student agency, voice, identity and development, and promotes equity and inclusivity.
Domain 3: Understanding and organizing subject matter for student learning – Teachers integrate content, processes, materials and resources into a coherent, culturally relevant and equitable curriculum that engages and challenges learners to develop the academic and social–emotional knowledge and skills required to become competent and resourceful learners.
Domain 4: Planning instruction and designing learning experiences for all students – Teachers set a purposeful direction for instruction and learning activities, intentionally planning and enacting challenging and relevant learning experiences that foster each student’s academic and social–emotional development.
Domain 5: Assessing students for learning – Teachers employ equitable assessment practices to help identify students’ interests and abilities, to reveal what students know and can do and to determine what they need to learn. Teachers use that information to advance and monitor student progress as well as to guide teachers’ and students’ actions to improve learning experiences and outcomes.
Domain 6: Developing as a professional educator – Teachers develop as effective and caring professional educators by engaging in relevant and high-quality professional learning experiences that increase their teaching capacity, leadership development and personal well-being. Doing so enables teachers to support each student to learn and thrive.
“The revised CSTP features several key shifts from the 2009 version, chief among them a more holistic approach to teaching and learning,” said Sarah Lillis, executive director for Teach Plus California, in a letter. “For example, the move from goal setting to designing learning experiences shifts the focus from results to students’ learning. Another notable shift is recognizing that all teachers, regardless of subject-specific credential areas, are teachers of literacy skills.”
Family engagement is a key element of new standards
The new standards also focus on family and community engagement, requiring teachers to find effective strategies for communicating and creating relationships with families.
“These standards provide an invaluable road map that will undoubtedly strengthen how teachers, schools and communities partner with families,” said Bryan Becker, of the Parent Organization Network.
Also new to the standards are two sections, one asking teachers to examine their personal attitudes and biases, and how these impact student learning, and the other asking them to reflect on their personal code of ethics.
After speakers expressed concern about the few references to English learners and students with disabilities in the document, Chair Marquita Grenot-Scheyer made a motion to approve the standards with amendments that would “shine a brighter spotlight” on those students.
She also asked that the amendment include direction to ensure teachers attend individualized education plan meetings. School staff and parents attend these meetings to review the education plan of students with special needs.
Revision put on hold for two years
According to the commission, the revision was a long time in coming. Originally adopted in the 1990s, the standards were most recently updated in 2009. An expert group of educators, administrators, researchers and state education staff came together in 2020 to update the standards. The group met online five times between June 2020 and May 2021, but work was paused a few months later “as Covid and other critical world events demanded pause and reflection.”
Over the past two years, the commission has been focused on other state initiatives that would impact the new standards, including the new PK-3 Early Childhood Specialist Instruction Credential and the implementation of revised literacy standards and literacy-related teaching performance expectations mandated by legislation. Members of the expert group returned in 2023 to review and finalize the document.
Board denies pleas for delay
The commission voted for the newly revised standards to go into effect in the 2025-26 school year, despite numerous requests by speakers to extend the rollout to give teacher preparation and induction programs and the commission staff more time to prepare for them.
Grenot-Scheyer also directed commission staff to develop an implementation plan that will support school districts and teacher preparation programs during the transition.
Audry Wiens, induction coordinator for Fontana Unified, was among those who asked the commission to delay the implementation of the standards for a year. She said programs would need to come to a common understanding of the shifts that need to take place, revise relevant documents, train mentors in induction programs and update accreditation websites.
Some wanted the standards implemented as soon as possible.
“I am not an induction program provider, but it really causes me pause to extend any sort of timelines, because we have got things to do here,” said Commissioner Megan Gross. “… I want us to capitalize on this sense of urgency that we have to do better for our kids.”
DeSantis has prided himself on being a leader of the War on Woke. He passed a bill to ban any mention of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), which was known as the “Don’t Say Gay” law.
Gov. Ron DeSantis’ annual statement on the Pulse shooting anniversary released Thursday makes no mention of the LGBTQ and Hispanic communities — the two groups most devastated by the massacre that left 49 dead.
DeSantis mentioned those communities last year and in other previous statements recognizing the shooting on June 12, 2016. Those anniversary statements called it a “a horrific act of terrorism against the LGBTQ and Hispanic communities.” In his first year in office, however, the two-term governor faced blowback when an initial statement also failed to note who was most impacted by the shooting.
The deletion this year seems in line with efforts by both the DeSantis and Trump administrations to purge what it calls “diversity, equity and inclusion” from the government, which has included similar deletions that reference sexual orientation and race from the National Park Service website and others.
“Gov. DeSantis’ erasure of the LGBTQ+ and Latino communities today may say a lot about what kind of person he is, but it doesn’t change the fact that those were the communities most directly impacted at Pulse,” said Brandon Wolf, a Pulse survivor from Orlando who serves as spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign.
Anaheim Union High School District student ambassadors in front of City Hall.
Credit: Jason Moon/Anaheim Union High School District
My 16-year-old son, Eli, came into my bedroom the other night to share a story that was upsetting him. He had been on the phone with Everett, one of his closest friends. They were talking about marketing strategies for Eli’s streetwear business. At some point, Eli paused and asked Everett, “What do you plan to do for a career in the future?” Everett replied, “I have no idea.” And then followed with, “Maybe I’ll just continue to work with my uncle.” Eli knew that was a fallback option, and not one driven by a sense of purpose or passion.
For Eli, a kid fortunate enough to inherently have a true sense of purpose and passion, Everett’s comments saddened him. The fact is, the vast majority of young people go through school without a sense of purpose. Our school system does not foster it. The majority of schools and districts remain compliance-focused and attend narrowly to the flawed set of outcomes represented by our state’s accountability system, like test scores, attendance rates, suspensions, etc.
Fortunately, there are exceptions. In California, we have many examples of innovative teachers, schools, and even entire districts that are fostering student purpose exceptionally well. The problem is, these examples sit as islands of excellence in a sea of mediocrity.
In Cajon Valley Union School District, their vision is “Happy kids, in healthy relationships, on a path to gainful employment.” The vision is unusual in two ways: First, it’s rare for a K-8 district to focus on employment, and second, it says nothing about academic achievement. Yet, it’s truly visionary because it makes a calculated assumption that, if kids find joy at school and in learning, if they feel a sense of belonging and trust from being in healthy relationships with peers and adults, and if they know themselves well enough to have a purpose and direction for their futures, then they will learn. The vision includes an understanding of psychology and treats students as humans, rather than as parts on an assembly line. Best of all, in Cajon Valley, from Superintendent David Miyashiro on down, they live their vision every day.
At the district’s Bostonia Global high school, students are in advisory with a known and trusted adult for a full eight hours per week, including time at the beginning and end of every day. There, they not only build strong and trusting relationships with their adviser and peers, but also have a forum for exploring their identities, working through social-emotional challenges, setting goals, pursuing their college and career interests, and making plans for the future. Their “classes” are more like workshops with extended periods of time to delve into projects based on their interests and/or in service to their school and community. They feel like learning is relevant and purposeful. For that reason, they show up.
Through their World of Work program, kids come to know their strengths, interests and values. Through their TEDxKids@ElCajon program, students have freedom to pursue and articulate their passion.
In Anaheim Union High School District, Superintendent Mike Matsuda and his team have developed the Career Preparedness Systems Framework that blends three driving forces: giving students voice and purpose; promoting a set of durable skills, called the “5Cs” — collaboration, communication, critical thinking, creativity and compassion; and teaching students technical skills needed to succeed in the world of work. Students see relevance in many ways. They participate in career pathways aligned to their interests. They pursue projects of personal value and in service to their community. In doing so, about 2,000 AUHSD students per year earn the state’s Seal of Civic Engagement.
In Porterville Unified School District, about 4 of 5 high school students opt to participate in one of 14 open-access “linked learning” pathways across multiple fields, including engineering, hospitality, law and justice, multimedia, environmental science, agriculture, business and finance, and health. Through these pathways, students pursue their interests by doing interdisciplinary projects, participating in internships, running student enterprises and connecting with industry mentors. One of the district’s partners,Climate Action Pathways for Schools, engages students in internships to support the district’s many grants to reduce greenhouse gases (HVAC systems, solar energy, electric buses and more).
It’s no surprise that all three districts are seeing tremendous results. While pursuing distinct approaches, all are organized to foster students’ curiosity, exploration and pathway interests. They honor students’ identities, cultures and languages. They nurture trusting relationships and a sense of belonging. And, they give students a voice in what they learn, a choice in how they learn and demonstrate their competency, and agency to take ownership over their learning journey.
In education, it’s unjust for some students to have access to learning opportunities like these, while others do not; our commitment to equity must be systemic. While some students, like my son Eli, will create their own path driven by their own sense of purpose, we should not assume that all young people have the inclination, capacity and support to do so. Until we shift to a system that is increasingly student-centered, equitable, and competency-based, too many students will lack purpose. In turn, that lack of purpose will continue to feed chronic absenteeism, flat test scores and other challenges that ail the education system.
Ultimately, as educators and society, we have become complicit — valuing what we measure, rather than measuring what we value. Let’s change that.
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Roman Stearns is the executive director of Scaling Student Success, a California partnership dedicated to educating the whole child.
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.
The LAUSD School Board meeting on Aug. 30, 2022 in Los Angeles. Credit: Julie Leopo, EdSource
The Los Angeles Unified School District school board voted 4-3 Tuesday to adopt a policy that would prevent charter schools from sharing a campus with the district’s Black Student Achievement Plan (BSAP) schools, community schools and priority schools.
This decision means that when making co-location offers, the board will try to avoid offers that “compromise district schools’ capacity to serve neighborhood children” and that “result in grade span arrangements that negatively impact student safety and build charter school pipelines that actively deter students from attending district schools.”
“This policy, in the eyes of some, does not go far enough; and, in the eyes of others, it goes too far,” Carvalho said at Tuesday’s meeting. “And somehow, experience tells me that any time you’re in that position, you probably achieved some degree of balance.”
Supporters of the co-location policy, including United Teachers Los Angeles, have claimed that the presence of charters in district schools has created an atmosphere of ongoing hostility and that charter schools take critical resources — including spaces used for enrichment programs and social-emotional support services — away from district students who are more vulnerable.
“Before we became a community school and a BSAP school, we had no arts, no sports, no clubs, and our students [compared] our school to a prison,” said a science teacher who spoke during public comments at Tuesday’s board meeting.
“The school has transformed….The students that used to want to leave immediately now want to stay after club hours. And this is only possible because we have the space available to host these resources.”
Pro-charter organizations maintain that the new policy is detrimental to the future of charter schools in Los Angeles and that it will likely result in more charters being divided across multiple LAUSD sites. They also anticipate charter closures will become more common.
“The district has finally made its intentions clear: to run charter schools out of town,” states a letter to Carvalho and LAUSD’s school board members by the L.A. Coalition for Excellent Public Schools — consisting of about half of charters in the district — including 107 charter schools that educate more than 50,000 students.
“If the district can just elbow charter schools out of the campuses they’ve been sharing – if it can engineer feeder patterns, if it can remove charters from predominantly Black campuses, if it can make it all but impossible for kids to enroll in charters throughout their K-12 education – then L.A. Unified will keep more students and save a few bucks.”
The letter further alleges that the district’s policy is not about students’ education or equity, but rather about the district’s enrollment and financial challenges.
“The resolution will most immediately and severely impact thousands of predominantly Black and Latino students. Even more alarming is that it paves the way for L.A. Unified to eradicate charter schools altogether, denying so many families their civil rights, their hopes and dreams for their children’s futures.”
Myrna Castrejón, president and CEO of the California Charter Schools Association, said in a statement that “the decision of the LAUSD Board of Education to enact this policy is divisive, discriminatory, and unlawful.”
Castrejón added, ”It is a shameful day when the second-largest school district in the nation puts politics ahead of students and families. . .. Instead of following California law and providing equitable facilities for charter public school students, LAUSD’s Board voted today with their campaign donors and against the very students they took an oath to support.”
‘Merely moving and enlarging challenges’
In addition to a wealth of support, the policy has also garnered backlash — from both pro-charter organizations and from individuals who said the policy doesn’t do enough to protect vulnerable students.
“This resolution is the capstone of a relentless, decades-long campaign….to cast blame rather than take responsibility,” the letter reads.
A survey conducted by CCSA’s Local Advocacy Team of 28 organizations also found that 10% of charter students in district facilities are Black/African American, in comparison to 4% of all public school students in LAUSD. About 90% of those students are from low income backgrounds.
Charters were also found to have more socio-economically disadvantaged students and students who are English learners.
Meanwhile, the coalition’s letter also states that blocking co-locations on BSAP campuses will lead to fewer charters being able to serve Black students in the long run, adding that it takes “gall to rob Black families of the critical lifeline that our schools provide.”
School Board Member Nick Melvoin, who voted against the policy, also said that while he appreciates the policy’s intentions, “the district’s own analysis suggests that this policy will create not fewer, but more co-locations.”
“This may placate some folks in the room, but next year, we’ll have folks from 600 other schools back here with concerns because we’re not solving anything,” Melvoin said. “We’re merely moving and enlarging challenges.”
Spreading a charter school across multiple campuses can have negative effects, according to charter proponents — and CCSA’s survey specifically found that:
“89% (8/9) reported a negative impact on staffing due to a split campus.”
“77% (7/9) reported a negative impact on school culture due to a split campus.”
“66% (6/9) reported a negative impact on student enrollment and the ability of families to maintain access to the school due to a split campus.”
“66% (6/9) reported a negative impact on school finances due to a split campus.”
“55% (5/9) reported a negative impact on programs or academic offerings available to students due to a split campus.”
Meanwhile, LAUSD board president Jackie Goldberg, who co-authored the initial resolution passed in September, rebuked claims from charter proponents, insisting that she was not “complaining about charters” and had no intention to “un-do anything.”
“This resolution simply says if we can undo some of the problems we’ve created, let’s try to do that as we go forward,” Goldberg said.
Rather, she faulted Proposition 39 — which requires public school districts to share space with charters — calling it “flawed from the day it was written.” She also criticized the “privately owned, publicly funded” nature of charter schools.
Goldberg also blamed the CCSA and the current state of the charter movement — which she said is more focused on competing with public schools rather than improving them.
“Prop 39 overrules everything,” Goldberg claimed on Tuesday. “And the enormous amount of money that the California Charter Schools Association is willing to spend suing districts … .is a design for them to contain power in Sacramento.”
Meanwhile, Scott Schmerelson, vice president of the LAUSD school board, who voted in favor of the policy, said that while he sees the policy as a step forward, he also recognizes that some do not feel it is enough to protect the district’s most vulnerable students.
“I hear you, I want to say that I understand you don’t feel we’ve done enough,” he said. “But we have made progress. And for now, I am willing to say OK, we will approve this, but we will keep the conversation going.”
‘A substantial risk of litigation’
A letter released by Latham and Watkins LLP on behalf of the California Charter Schools Association, claims that the newly adopted policy is illegal and places the district at “a substantial risk of litigation.”
“By prioritizing public school students attending District-run schools over public school students who attend charter public schools, the policy violates Proposition 39’s mandate that ‘public school facilities should be shared fairly among all public school pupils, including those in charter schools,’” the letter reads.
According to the letter, there are currently 13 co-locations on the district’s priority schools this academic year — as well as seven on community schools and 19 on BSAP campuses.
“I just hope that as we walk out of this building today,” Carvalho said, “we recognize that at the end of the day, that the only thing that matters, the only thing that should matter…. is what we do for kids, how we do it for kids despite our positions as adults.”
Nine years ago, a lone gunman entered the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, armed with a high-powered weapon, and slaughtered 49 people. The victims were dancing, relaxing, partying. It was not the worst massacre in the U.S. (that was the one in Las Vegas in 2017, when 58 people were murdered by a lone gunman firing from a hotel room above a concert; two more died from their injuries). But it was nonetheless horrific.
The story of what happened in the early morning hours of June 12, 2016, began with gunshots, pain and terror. Forty-nine lives lost, dozens more injured in bodies and souls. The violence unleashed by a single gunman at Pulse nightclub left scars on this community that will never disappear. And at long last, local leaders have a plan for a fitting memorial to that tragedy. But that is not the end of this story, and that memorial will not be the most important way the Orlando area honors the legacy of Pulse.
Even before the sun set on that fateful day, Central Floridians were building their own monuments, written in flowers, candles, prayers and tears. In public spaces across the region, people gathered, strangers coming together to reassure each other that this ugly act did not represent what this community stood for. And before the eyes of the world, that steadfast insistence made a difference. Orlando rebutted any suggestion that it provided a haven for hatred — by responding to ugly violence with love, kindness and solidarity.
That response was anchored in common but often unspoken knowledge. Even before the Pulse massacre, Orlando was known as a place where members of the LGBTQ community could live in relative peace, even though homosexuality was a crime in Florida until 2003, and same-sex marriage was only legalized in 2015. It was also recognized as a haven for people from all over the world — not just tourists, but those who came to this country looking for a new start, even if they didn’t speak perfect English. Clubs like Pulse provided safe spaces for people regardless of sexuality, national origin or skin color to come together in safety, to dance, to celebrate their common humanity instead of focusing on their differences. But many of Orlando’s neighborhoods, businesses and houses of worship also worked to ensure that all were welcome.
That made Central Florida unusual, particularly in the South. But what happened after Pulse made it extraordinary.
Even as the shock of the massacre reverberated, there was little tolerance for intolerance. We’re certain that there were people who attempted to preach the massacre as the wages of this area’s acceptance of alternative sexualities, or who attempted to use the Islamic ideology of the killer (who also died that night) as a wedge for anti-Muslim hatred. But those voices were barely heard — even when they came from presidential campaigns. Instead, the Orlando LGBTQ community quickly forged an alliance with local Muslim leaders and Latino organizations, standing together against the kind of persecution that each community had far too much experience with.
This is the legacy of Pulse, and one that we need today more than ever.
Over recent years, Americans have seen their state and national leaders attempt to exploit ugly prejudice for political gain. In Florida, elected leaders tried to parlay angst about drag queen story hours and overly “woke” teachers to distract attention from their attempts to weaken the strength of public schools and erase history lessons that underscore the toll that hatred extracts from today’s society. More recently, unfounded antagonism against immigrants is being used to sow fear across many Orlando-area communities.
The goal seems obvious: Every attempt to divide our communities makes us more vulnerable, more easily manipulated, more vulnerable to acts of political aggression that can easily flower into actual violence. That reality also hit hard locally in the aftermath of the January 6, 2021, attacks on the Capitol: The revelation that many of the ringleaders and their misguided followers hailed from Central Florida was a gut check, but that knowledge was tempered by the understanding that these groups, who called themselves “Oath Keepers” and “Proud Boys,” were in fact too ashamed of their own hateful ideology to embrace it publicly.
Within a year, Orlando residents will see the new Pulse memorial taking shape at the corner of Kaley Street and Orange Avenue, and it will be beautiful: A stirring, color-shifting tribute to the 49 angels who died that morning, and the community that is still brought to tears by their memory. But residents don’t need to wait for architects or builders to remember those victims, or to protect their legacy. We honor the victims of Pulse by rejecting attempts to divide us, by celebrating our shared humanity, and by remaining Orlando United — not just today, but every day.
Jovenes Inc., a Los Angeles-based organization, supports transition-age youth in accessing housing.
Credit: Courtesy of Jovenes Inc.
The lack of stable housing is often cited by researchers as a significant barrier for current and former foster youth to continue attending school, and studies have shown that those exiting the foster care system face disproportionately higher rates of homelessness in California.
Even so, two reductions totaling millions in funds targeted toward preventing homelessness and housing instability among youth exiting the foster care system are detailed in Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed 2024-25 state budget. The governor’s cuts to extended foster care housing programs would help close only a sliver of the state’s projected $68 billion budget gap.
“It’s unclear to me why programs that help support the housing needs of some of our most vulnerable residents would be singled out for elimination,” said Debbie Raucher, director of education at John Burton Advocates for Youth (JBAY), a nonprofit organization that advocates for homeless and foster youth.
Among the proposed cuts is $18.8 million from the general fund that’s intended to help youth (ages 18-21) in extended foster care with supplemental funding to cover their housing costs. Those millions were approved last year to be implemented in 2025-26; the governor’s latest budget proposal, however, eliminates them before they go into effect.
There is also a proposed cut of $13.7 million from the Housing Navigation & Maintenance Program, formerly known as the Housing Navigators Program, effectively eliminating the program whose entire annual budget in the past two years was $13.7 million.
This program, often referred to as HNMP, offers supportive services to current and former foster youth ages 18-24 who receive a federal housing voucher. The vouchers are funded by the federal government, but participating states are mandated to provide supportive services for young people who are granted a voucher.
The services vary by region but could include recruiting landlords who might be open to renting to someone with no rental history, help with security deposits, answering questions the foster youth tenants might have about their lease, and more.
“It’s important because you almost can’t make use of their voucher without support. These are young people that have no rental history. They are at an age where many landlords are not excited to rent to them. They’re college age, they don’t have co-signers because they don’t have families that are supporting them, and they have no experience finding housing on the private market,” said Simone Tureck Lee, director of housing and health at JBAY. “So to expect them to just take a voucher and sort of turn it into housing is largely unrealistic.”
The proposed budget cuts seem to ignore the housing needs of this population of California’s youth and their vulnerability to homelessness, say Tureck Lee and other advocates.
The distribution of two foster youth-specific housing vouchers — the Family Unification Program and the Foster Youth to Independence Initiative — increased by 54% in the past two years, from 870 in 2021 to 1,341 as of last Oct. 1, according to a recent report by John Burton Advocates for Youth.
The increase, according to Tureck Lee, is in part due to changes in federal policies that made it easier for the housing vouchers to be distributed to youth and in part due to an increase in state funding toward supportive services — the very services now at risk of being eliminated.
“The end game here is to keep people stable in their housing,” said Tureck Lee. Without this funding, she added, the vouchers would still be available, given that they are federally funded, but the growth they’ve seen in voucher distribution will likely be curbed.
Lillee Taylor, 21, is one of the 1,341 California youth in extended foster care who received housing vouchers and found some stability. She received her voucher just under one year ago.
Today, Taylor, majoring in psychology at Cal State Fullerton and a single mom to a 4-year-old, also works full time for an Orange County organization as an outreach and engagement coordinator, providing resources for youth and adults leaving incarceration.
Only four years ago, however, she was 17 years old and sleeping in a 1999 Toyota Corolla she bought on Craigslist for about $1,000.
She was living there despite having been placed in a foster home. Taylor said she isn’t sure how the foster parent’s home was approved for fostering, given that the woman was uninterested in housing Taylor. So she made a deal with the woman: She could continue receiving the payment she’d get for housing Taylor if she at least took in Taylor’s dog.
This was the arrangement until Taylor graduated high school and found out she was pregnant. She told the foster mom that she couldn’t live in her car any longer. The woman refused to take her in, so Taylor picked up her dog.
She continued living in her car, now with her dog, while working full-time as a veterinary technician and saving money. On her 18th birthday, she applied for two apartments in Phoenix and moved there two days later. The apartments were not subsidized, but she moved there because it was what she could afford.
“There was no possible option that I could find anything in California, it was just super unrealistic, so Phoenix was a lot easier to rent in,” she said. “It was also really close to California so it was easy to come back and forth to see friends.”
Her daughter was born in Arizona and Taylor relied on funding from a federal program for foster youth to sustain them both, while attending community college remotely.
Taylor eventually made her way back to Orange County, where she was born and eventually returned after being taken from her mother and placed in foster care, two days before her 10th birthday. It was also the area she spent her teenage years — moving in and out of foster homes and group homes.
The housing voucher, which she received last year, is perhaps the most critical resource that makes it possible to now live more comfortably with her daughter.
Without the voucher, she wouldn’t be able to afford her current neighborhood in the southern part of the county — the area she wants to live in because it has good schools for her daughter and is close to her small support system of friends.
The voucher has also given her the opportunity to choose her living environment. “After living so many years in places you have no choice of being, like foster homes and group homes and just not great situations, when it comes to where we live, I’m pretty picky,” she said.
Taylor is not alone in her pursuit of a safe and stable home. Of all youth who experienced homelessness in 2022, 29% were former foster youth, says a report from Children Now, an organization that evaluates progress made on California policies and investments.
“If the foster care system is supposed to do one thing, it’s supposed to ensure that every youth in the foster care system has a roof over their head,” said Raucher of JBAY.
What would become of Taylor and others in her situation if the voucher is discontinued? Taylor said she’d figure out a way to find stable, safe housing for herself and her daughter. She is resourceful and has, for years on end, found safety for herself and her daughter — first as she navigated the foster care system and then as she fought to place a restraining order on an abusive ex-boyfriend.
And even though the voucher has not come without obstacles — Taylor has found it incredibly challenging to find new housing even with a voucher, something she’ll be doing once her current lease is up — she’s relieved she has it.
“Having the support of the voucher gives me the opportunity to be able to go do fun things with my daughter because I do have a little bit of extra money,” she said. “She actually has a pretty decent-sized savings account right now because I’ve been able to save some extra money from what I’m not paying in rent, so that would definitely not be a thing if I had to do everything completely on my own.”
It’s that support that might be reduced if the governor’s proposed budget cuts are ultimately approved later this year, said Tami Di Paolo, director of youth support services at Orangewood Foundation, which provides support services for youth who might be exiting foster care, experiencing homelessness, or at risk of being trafficked in Orange County.
“Young adults like Lillee and other youth coming out of the foster care system, they’re able to secure housing, and now they can take a moment to focus on other needs because they feel safe and secure in their home,” she said.
The elimination of state funds might sunset certain services that Orangewood provides, such as support paying for utility bills, groceries, and hotel stays in between leases, or might lead to a reduction in their staff, said Di Paolo.
If any of their programs have a gap in funding, Di Paolo said they look to fill it as soon as possible to prevent service interruptions for youth.
“But that also means that we would not be able to increase other services because we needed to fill this gap,” she added. “We know this is working for the young adults, but that funding needs to come from somewhere.”
