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  • North Dakota Becomes 47th State to Authorize Charter Schools Despite Decades of Broken Promises

    North Dakota Becomes 47th State to Authorize Charter Schools Despite Decades of Broken Promises


    North Dakota became the 47th state to authorize charter schools. There are three states that do not have a charter sschool law. Nebraska, South Dakota, and Vermont. Kentucky has a law but its courts declared them unconstitutional.

    When charter schools first began in 1991, they were sold to the public as a miracle cure. Their promoters said they would operate with greater accountability, no bureaucracy, and the freedom to hire and fire at will. Because of this flexibility, charters would produce higher test scores, would cost less, would “save” the failing students, would close if they didn’t get the promised results, and would produce innovations that would help public schools.

    None of these promises came true. The charters are no better than public schools, and many are far worse. The ones that produce higher scores choose their students carefully and avoid the neediest, most difficult students. Charters have produced no innovations. They have a well-funded lobby that fights accountability and seeks more funding. They close at a startling rate: more than one of every four are gone within five years of opening.

    Charters have also been notorious for waste, fraud, and abuse. Scores of charters have been rife with fraud and outright theft. One online charter operator in Ohio collected $1 billion over twenty years, donated generously to elected officials, and when confronted by an audit and demand for repayment, declared bankruptcy. An online charter operator in California stole nearly $100 million. Some operators of brick-and-mortar charter schools have gone to jail for financial fraud.

    The Network for Public Education keeps track of charter frauds. All this information is freely available. Yet North Dakota Governor Kelly Armstrong recited the same broken promises in signing charter legislation. The charters will not produce higher student scores, will push out students they don’t want, and will not produce innovation. In coming sessions of the legislature, their lobbyists will weaken or eliminate the provisions they don’t like. If North Dakota is fortunate, the big charter chains will ignore them because the market is small.

    Edsource reported:

    North Dakota Gov. Kelly Armstrong signed Senate Bill 2241 Monday, allowing public charter schools to operate in the state.

    The legislation takes effect Aug. 1.

    Charter schools are state-funded public schools that have greater flexibility in hiring, curriculum, management and other aspects of their operations. Unlike traditional public schools that are run by school districts with an elected school board and a board-appointed superintendent, most charter schools are run by organizations with self-appointed boards.

    Senate Bill 2241 requires charter schools to operate under a performance agreement with the state Superintendent of Public Instruction, according to a media release from the governor’s office. The schools must meet or exceed state academic and graduation requirements and be open to all North Dakota students.

    “The public charter schools authorized by this bill can drive innovation, improve student outcomes and increase parent satisfaction,” Armstrong said in a statement.



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  • How more Hispanic teachers could change the face of California education

    How more Hispanic teachers could change the face of California education


    Credit: Julie Leopo / EdSource

    California has had a racial imbalance between its teacher workforce and its student population for years, with a majority Hispanic student population being taught by teachers who are mostly white. That could be changing, as more people of Hispanic heritage enroll in college teacher preparation programs in the state.

    Overall enrollment in teacher preparation programs in California has decreased in recent years, but the biggest declines have been among white teacher candidates. The result has been a higher percentage of people of color entering teacher preparation programs, according to the state’s Commission on Teacher Credentialing.

    In the 2022-23 school year — the most recent year state data is available — more than half of the new teacher candidates identified themselves as a race other than white. Nearly 40% of the 17,337 newly enrolled teacher candidates that year were Hispanic, and just over 33% were white, according to CTC data.

    That was a stark contrast to the racial makeup of the state’s teacher workforce that same year, when 55% of the state’s 312,124 teachers were white, and Hispanic teachers made up 25% of the workforce from transitional kindergarten (TK) through high school.

    “Over half of our TK-12 student population identifies, and the majority of our English language learners also are Latino,” said José Magaña, executive director of Bay Area Latinos for Education. “The research is pretty clear that not just Latino students and English language learners, but all students, benefit from having a more diverse educator.”

    Latinos for Education offers fellowships to support Latinos in the education system. The Bay Area branch of the organization also has a Latinx Teacher Fellowship program to support beginning teachers and paraprofessionals.

    Research shows that when students are taught by educators who reflect their cultural backgrounds and understand their lived experiences, it results in stronger academic outcomes, greater social-emotional growth, and a profound sense of belonging, said Kai Mathews, executive director of the Urban Ed Academy in San Francisco, which recruits and supports Black male teachers.

    “Increasing the number of Latinx educators is about more than representation — it’s about creating classrooms where every student feels seen, valued and is liberated to be their authentic self,” Mathews said.

    Changing California demographics

    The change in the racial makeup of teacher candidates coincides with the evolving population of the state, where 56% of the K-12 student population was Hispanic last school year, according to the California Department of Education. The number increases to over 60% for children younger than age 5, said Shireen Pavri, assistant vice chancellor of California State University’s educator and leadership programs.

    In the years between 2018 and 2023, the percentage of Hispanic teacher candidates has slowly increased from 31.4% to 39.7%, while the number of white teacher candidates dropped by 10 percentage points, according to CTC data. The number of Hispanic teacher candidates also has been increasing, although it dropped from 7,154 in 2021-22 to 6,934 in 2022-23, when the overall number of teacher candidates declined for a second consecutive year.

    California State University, which prepares the majority of the state’s teachers, had the largest percentage of Hispanic students in its teacher preparation programs in 2022-23 — nearly 50%, according to the CTC’s  “Annual Report Card on California teacher preparation programs.” The number is currently 55%, Pavri said.

    During that same time, the percentage of white candidates in CSU teacher preparation programs decreased, and the percentage of teacher candidates of other races remained flat.

    CSU is leading the way

    “Anecdotally, a lot of our Latinx population, who come into our teacher preparation programs, come in because they want to make a difference,” Pavri said. “They didn’t necessarily see people who looked like them when they were going through school. Many of them came in as English learners. They want to make an impact now on their communities and give back.”

    Some of the recent success at diversifying the pool of teacher candidates at California State University can be attributed to the Center for Transformational Educator Preparation Programs, which has helped to recruit, prepare and retain teachers of color, according to the university.

    Its Transformation Lab, a four-year program that recently ended, increased the retention rate of teacher candidates at some campuses and improved teacher placement numbers at others, Pavri said. At CSU Bakersfield and CSU Northridge, for example, the completion rates for Black candidates increased by 17% and 31% respectively between 2020 and 2023, and Stanislaus State doubled its student teaching placements for historically underserved teacher candidates at Modesto City Schools over a two-year period. 

    The center’s leadership is seeking additional funding to support similar programs in the future.

    The university also operates CalStateTEACH, an online multiple-subject teaching credential program that focuses on recruiting male teachers of color from throughout California.

    In University of California teacher preparation programs, 35% of the teacher candidates are Hispanic, 29% are white, 20% are Asian and 2.8% are Black. There are still slightly more white teacher candidates than Hispanic, 38% and 32.6% respectively, in teacher preparation programs at private universities and colleges.

    State programs bearing fruit

    The increase in the number of Hispanic teacher candidates in teacher preparation programs could be attributed, in part, to efforts by state lawmakers to ease the teacher shortage and diversify the teacher workforce by making earning a credential easier and more affordable. The state has offered degree and coursework alternatives to several tests, established residency and apprenticeship programs and paid for school staff to become teachers.

    District grow-your-own programs and the state’s Classified School Employee Credentialing program and apprenticeship programs are meant to diversify the educator workforce because school staff recruited from the community more closely match the demographics of the student body than traditionally trained and recruited teachers, according to research.

    “All of those state investments, particularly around affordability, have helped incredibly with bringing more Black and brown students into our teaching field,” Pavri said.

    CSU teacher residency programs outpace even the traditional teacher preparation programs in terms of the number of teachers of color enrolled, she said.

    Numbers for other ethnic groups flat

    Despite the efforts, California State University continues to struggle to attract Black teacher candidates, hovering around 3% for years, despite several initiatives to improve their numbers, Pavri said. 

    “While we celebrate this progress, we must confront the persistent underrepresentation of Black, Asian and Pacific Islander educators,” Mathews said. “Our classrooms deserve to reflect the fullness of California’s diversity. Ensuring this kind of equity in the teaching workforce isn’t just good for students—it’s essential to building the inclusive, transformative and liberating system our communities deserve.” 

    Statewide, Black teacher candidates made up 4%, and Asian teacher candidates about 9.5% of total enrollment in California teacher preparation programs between 2018 and 2023, according to CTC data.

    There are fewer Black teachers because of obstacles they encounter on the way to completing their education, including an unwelcoming school environment, disproportionate discipline and overrepresentation in special education, Pavri said. 

    Pursuing a teaching credential, where traditionally student teaching is unpaid, is not affordable for some. Teacher salaries, which are generally lower than the pay for other jobs with the same qualifications, and working conditions also are a deterrent for students from families with limited generational wealth, Pavri said.

    More needs to be done to keep teachers

    The increase in the percentage of Hispanic teacher candidates is positive, but not significant enough, Magaña said. In order to reflect student demographics, the state will need to make significant investments to recruit and retain educators.

    “The numbers are staggering around the number of educators that are leaving the profession, especially our Latino educators,” he said.

    Magaña, who was a classroom teacher for 15 years, said Latino educators often have to take on extra work on campus, whether it is supporting translations or family engagement.

    “It can be a lonely role,” he said. “Sometimes there may be just one Latino educator on campus, and without mentorship and community, and network building, it makes it easier for folks to not feel supported.”





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  • Fresno Unified names Misty Her as superintendent

    Fresno Unified names Misty Her as superintendent


    Fresno Unified Superintendent Misty Her

    Credit: Fresno Unified / Flickr

    Top Takeaways
    • Most board members said Her, out of applicants from across the nation, was the best candidate to improve student outcomes.
    • The year-long selection process may have eroded community trust. 

    Fresno Unified, the state’s third-largest school district, named interim superintendent Misty Her to the permanent role Wednesday, ending more than a year-long, contentious process to select a leader for a school system that many say needs to improve student outcomes and rebuild trust in the community. 

    The board voted 6-1 in closed session to select Her, keeping her at the helm of the 70,000-student district with over 15,000 employees. Trustee Susan Wittrup who cast the sole “no” vote said Her does not have a “proven track record of action, urgency and accountability with accelerating academic achievement.”

    Late last school year, the school board picked Her, who was then a deputy superintendent in the district, to lead the district on an interim basis while the search for the permanent position went on. The board will approve Her’s contract at the April 30 meeting.  

    “We are not waiting for change to happen,” Her said after her selection. “We are leading it, and I am proud to be the leader at the helm of this critical work.” 

    An urgency to improve student performance

    For years, the district has struggled to bring students to proficiency. For example, the percentage of students meeting or exceeding standards on the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress (CAASPP) didn’t show significant growth from 2023 to 2024. 

    Despite a 1.52 percentage point improvement from the 2022-23 school year, 34.72% of students met or exceeded the state’s English standards in 2023-24. 

    For third grade – the school year hailed as being pivotal in determining reading proficiency and predicting future success – less than one in three students were on grade level in English standards, a GO Public Schools 2024 student outcome report showed. According to the report, the numbers are closer to one in five English learners, students with disabilities and Black students meeting standards. Specifically among the English standards, 30.7% of third graders were below the standard in reading and 43.3% were below the standard in writing, the report detailed. 

    In math, 25.14% of students met or exceeded standards, a 1.83 point increase from the previous school year.

    “Nobody should be even remotely satisfied with where we are,” said board member Andy Levine. “Selecting Misty as our next superintendent is our best bet to seeing Fresno Unified significantly improve academic outcomes for all students in the years ahead…”

    As interim superintendent, Her established two district-wide goals: improving student outcomes and achieving operational excellence, “recognizing that our district was not progressing because we lacked focus and clarity districtwide,” board president Valerie F. Davis said.

    In January, the school board expanded on those by setting five-year student achievement goals to:

    • Increase the percentage of first graders proficient in literacy
    • Support elementary and middle school students with underachieving reading test scores to accelerate their reading skills and close achievement gaps
    • Raise the percentage of students graduating from high school who are considered college and career ready
    • Build and equip students with essential skills, such as communication, collaboration and critical thinking

    Moving forward, the district will align its actions with those board-set goals, monitoring programs’ and initiatives’ “academic return on investment,” Her told EdSource during an interview in early April. 

    So far, Her’s own plans have included implementing, measuring the effectiveness and monitoring the progress of the district’s recently-launched Every Child Is a Reader literacy initiative to achieve first-grade reading proficiency for students, two years before third grade, when future success is predicted. 

    Also a part of her tenure, Fresno Unified gathered state, district, school and student data to identify and prioritize ways to enhance learning for each child while also focusing on historically underserved student groups, such as English learners and students with disabilities, who have significant achievement gaps compared to other groups. 

    This school year, educators have been able to adapt teaching and leadership strategies based on real-time data via a district dashboard, including data-informed and data-driven instruction. 

    But Her has had to hand down a tough decision by deciding to eliminate a nearly $30 million program that provides additional instruction to students but shows inconsistent results. 

    ‘I am this district’

    Her’s entire 32-year career has been in Fresno Unified where she’s held many positions, including a bilingual instructional aide, teacher, school administrator, districtwide leader and deputy superintendent in 2021.

    She became the nation’s highest-ranking Hmong education leader as deputy superintendent, then as interim superintendent — and now as superintendent.

    “I know this district because I am this district,” Her said. “My story, like so many of our students, began in hardship, but it is fueled by hope.” 

    Born in a prisoner-of-war camp in Laos, Her’s family escaped to a refugee camp in Thailand after the end of the Vietnam War before eventually coming to the United States and settling in Fresno when she was a young child. Both her parents worked as custodians cleaning Fresno Unified classrooms where she, as a student, later “learned to read, to dream and to lead.”

    “As an immigrant who overcame language and cultural barriers,” according to the district, “Misty understands the challenges many of our students face and is committed to ensuring every student has the opportunity to succeed.” 

    Of the more than 92% of Fresno Unified students who are from ethnic minority groups, around 6,500 are Hmong. Behind Spanish, the Hmong language, which was only developed in written form less than 75 years ago, is at over 10%, the second most common home language of Fresno Unified’s English learners. 

    “My lived experience — the struggles, the barriers, the perseverance — are not liabilities,” Her said. “They are my greatest leadership strengths.” 

    Wednesday’s selection concludes a long process

    While members of the Hmong community thanked the board for its “care” and “diligence” in the search process and commitment to diversity with Her’s hiring, some criticized the board for making closed-door decisions without community engagement.

    The search process in its early months was engulfed in community angst about an alleged lack of transparency and accusations that the process had been tainted by politics, EdSource reported.

    Respondents to a Fresno Teachers Association survey of teachers and school staff indicated that they’ve lost trust in the school board, “not because of the person you chose but because of the process that you led,” said Manuel Bonilla, president of the teachers union.

    “This isn’t just about process; it’s about trust,” Bonilla said. “It’s about a pattern of closed-door decisions.”

    In January 2024, then-superintendent Bob Nelson announced his resignation to start a tenure-track position at Fresno State after his last day on July 31. 

    The school board considered both internal and external candidates in the search for a new superintendent — only after weeks of community outrage. 

    On March 20, 2024, the board’s 4-3 decision to interview internal candidates before deciding how to proceed with the search process sparked community anger. Details of the closed session were leaked to the media, pushing the board to reverse course on April 3 and postpone already scheduled interviews. 

    In May 2024, to avoid rushing the search process, the board named Her to the interim role, to “maintain momentum.” 

    Qualities the community asked for

    The district conducted 24 listening sessions. 

    Key themes deemed necessary for the district’s next leader included: 

    • An educational background that includes experience as a teacher, an administrator and other roles
    • Experience and understanding of the district’s history, culture, complexities and diversity
    • Effective communication skills and the ability to collaborate and engage with people in the school community
    • A strategic vision supported by data-driven strategies

    “Those are the qualities we found 100% in Misty Her,” board member Elizabeth Jonasson Rosas said.

    Fresno Unified’s Misty Her and district leaders
    Credit: Fresno Unified / Flickr

    Naming Her as interim superintendent wouldn’t restore community trust, Bonilla warned. 

    “You had the chance to build public trust through transparency and inclusion,” he said. “Instead, you allowed what many people thought was a secretive process.” 

    While the superintendent’s job description and criteria as well as other aspects of the search process were presented at public meetings where community members could comment, some people expected more participation in the search process, especially following last year’s alledged lack of transparency. 

    The teachers union, for example, requested a community forum for finalists, which didn’t occur. Candidate applications and interviews have remained confidential behind closed-door sessions. 

    In other places across the country, applications and interviews of those applying for a superintendency are open to the public because of state legislation. 

    According to the district, the board in its national search accepted applications from candidates from several states, in which Her’s “depth of experience, unparalleled skills and dedication to the students of Fresno Unified make her the ideal person to assume the top leadership role for Fresno Unified.”

    “This next chapter is not about politics,” said board president Davis during a press conference announcing Her’s selection. “It’s about our 70,000 students and their families. It’s about building on the progress we have made while boldly charting a new path forward: one that demands excellence out of every student, every classroom, every teacher, every school, every neighborhood we serve.” 





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  • West Contra Costa Unified struggles to stay solvent, avoid state takeover

    West Contra Costa Unified struggles to stay solvent, avoid state takeover


    West Contra Costa Unified’s Stege Elementary School in Richmond.

    Photo: Andrew Reed/EdSource

    West Contra Costa Unified School District is on the cusp of a new and uncertain era following the retirement of its superintendent, Chris Hurst, who stepped down in December after just over three years on the job. 

    Whoever is chosen to permanently replace him will face a daunting set of concerns, including ensuring that the district is not placed under state control. For now that job is in the hands of interim Superintendent Kim Moses, who until December was the district’s associate superintendent for business services.

    With an enrollment of just under 30,000 students, more than half from low-income families, the district comprises 54 schools in El Cerrito, Richmond and other East Bay communities in the San Francisco Bay Area.

    Chief among the issues the district faces are declining enrollment, persistent budget deficits, a sluggish improvement in post-Covid test scores, teacher shortages, and meeting the multiple needs of a diverse and largely low-income student body, along with a sometimes-contentious school board not always in alignment with its superintendent. 

    To a greater or lesser extent, these are problems facing many urban districts across California, including some larger neighbors around the Bay Area.  

    San Francisco Unified also got a new superintendent last month and is grappling with severe budget deficits and intense pressure to close schools. 

    While Oakland Unified’s superintendent, Kyla Johnson-Trammell, is still in her job after seven years, surviving a teacher strike, the pandemic, and other travails, the district is dealing with similar profound challenges. Both San Francisco and Oakland also face the prospect of a state takeover.

    Last Wednesday, at West Contra Costa’s first board meeting of 2025, Moses issued a blunt warning about the need to make further budget cuts to avoid insolvency. 

    After making $19 million in cuts during the current year, the district still has a “significant structural deficit,” she said, and warned that under current scenarios, its budget reserves “will be exhausted within three years.” 

    Without further reductions in the next two school years, the district would be “placed under (state) receivership, which means we’ll no longer be in charge of making financial decisions for our district,” she said.

    In 1991, the district had the unfortunate distinction of being the first in the state to go insolvent. To rescue it, the district received a $29 million bailout loan, which took 21 years to pay off. Now it is trying to head off a similar fate.

    In December, the West Contra Costa school board passed a budget that members said met the standard to receive a “positive certification,” which under state regulations means it would not spend its entire reserve over the next three years. 

    But the county office of education has refused to approve that certification without the district providing a multiyear deficit-reduction plan. That is what Moses presented to the board on Wednesday night, involving cuts of $7 million next year, and an additional $6 million the following year.   

    Declining enrollment — by 8% over the past four years alone — is perhaps West Contra Costa’s primary concern, according to Michael Fine, CEO of California’s Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team, an agency created by the state to help districts resolve financial and management problems.

    Fine largely attributes the decline — which is mirrored in many other districts, and the state as a whole — to lower birth rates.

    “It’s a long-term problem” for schools, he said. “Right now, schools are feeling it most in kindergarten and elementary school. In 10 years, it will be middle school, then high school.”

    The problem translates directly into money. In California, schools have a variety of sources of funds, but they are primarily based on “average daily attendance,” that is, the number of kids in the classroom each day. In 2022-23, the district received nearly $24,000 per student from various sources, most of it from the state based on actual attendance, according to Ed-Data.  

    As enrollment declines — either through lower birth rates or families leaving the expensive Bay Area — so, too, does the district’s revenues. Another factor reducing income is the end of the federal government’s Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief fund, designed to help with Covid-19 recovery. The fund brought the district some $53 million by 2023.

    All of which has had an effect on West Contra Costa Unified’s budget.

    One approach the district is examining to reduce its deficit is so-called “purpose-based budgeting.” The method, designed to more tightly control expenses, is to evaluate how well specific funds match the district’s priorities.

    But that may not be enough.

    “Look, I understand. No one joins a school board to lay off people,” Fine says. “But your revenue is going away, and they’re overstaffed compared to their enrollment.” 

    But Francisco Ortiz, president of United Teachers of Richmond, the union representing teachers, says there are already too many unfilled positions in West Contra Costa, and the district cannot afford to save more by further reducing staff. 

    “In secondary schools alone, we have 27 vacant FTEs — full-time equivalent (positions),” he says. “And in elementary, it’s 30.8 vacancies and 22 in special ed. The majority of these folks are teachers, some counselors, in elementary, but the majority are classroom teachers.” Most schools, he said, have to use substitutes on a daily basis.

    At the board meeting this week, interim Superintendent Moses argued that increasing student attendance and enrollment is the only realistic way to reduce the district’s deficits without making further cuts. For every 1% increase in attendance, the district would generate $2.75 million in additional state funding. To that end, the district is launching what it calls its “Why We Show Up” campaign.  “It’s really cut and dried,” Moses said. “We only get revenue based upon the number of children we have in a seat.”  

    At last week’s board meeting, many parents and teachers expressed concerns that there would be cuts in district offerings like its International Baccalaureate and bilingual and dual immersion programs. 

    But Moses tried to reassure the school community that no programs would be cut. A big chunk of reductions she is proposing would come from central office reductions, moving teachers out of classrooms with small numbers of students, and so on. 

    Part of the problem, union leader Ortiz says, is that the district has done a poor job of budgeting for how many teachers it will need each year. As for covering the district’s deficit — to pay for more teachers — he says the district should draw further on its reserve. “The reserve is for a rainy day, and right now it’s flooding. Our most vulnerable students are the ones receiving the blunt end of this. Cutting classroom teachers is not the answer.” 

    But FCMAT’s Fine argues that has to be part of the equation. “Lots of school boards say cut as far away from the classroom as you can, but when you have declining enrollment, you cut at the classroom level. But it’s really tough. It’s difficult as heck. It is horrendous.”

    Fine argues that the issue of teacher vacancies is a nuanced one, and that there may be possible solutions. There may, for example, may be too many English teachers and not enough math teachers, or too many PE teachers and not enough special education teachers. He suggests that districts consider offering programs to re-credential teachers, even though this is not a short-term strategy. 

    “The solution doesn’t work for everyone, but why don’t we pay, say English teachers, to get credentialed to teach the sixth grade? Or invest in someone to get a special ed credential?”

    Before his departure, outgoing superintendent Hurst outlined several of the district’s recent accomplishments in his State of Our District report — a reminder that putting all the attention on finances can obscure progress in other areas.  

    Among those is the return to 100% in-person learning in the district after the pandemic. Another is “improved staff recruitment, development and retention,” with teacher vacancies declining from 143 two years ago to 64 in the current school year.

    Test scores have also improved somewhat in the district, according to results of the Smarter Balanced assessments students took last spring, though they still lag statewide averages, and, like almost all districts in the state, are not yet up to pre-pandemic levels. 

    The board recently hired David Hart as chief business manager, at least through the remainder of the school year. He’s the highly regarded former chief financial officer of the massive Los Angeles Unified, a district 20 times the size of West Contra Costa. Fine is hopeful Hart’s experience with a vastly more complex district will accelerate the district’s path to recovery. 

    “They are hiring a very skilled interim CBO,” he said. “I hope they listen to him.” 

    Louis Freedberg contributed to this report. 





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  • Wisconsin: State Superintendent Underly Hails Two Court Decisions Undercutting Trump DEI Ban

    Wisconsin: State Superintendent Underly Hails Two Court Decisions Undercutting Trump DEI Ban


    Jill Underly was recently te-elected as State Superintendent of Schools in Wisconsin. She is an active member of the Netwotk for Public Education and attended its last two meetings. She released the following statement after two courts hacked away at Trump’s threat to withhold funds from schools that taught diversity, equity, and inclusion

    MADISON, Wis. (WISCONSIN DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION PRESS RELEASE) – State Superintendent Dr. Jill Underly today issued a statement following two federal court rulings that limit the Trump administration’s ability to withhold critical school funding over an unclear certification form and process.

    “Our top priority in Wisconsin is our kids and making sure every student has the support they need to succeed. The past few weeks, school leaders have been scrambling to understand what the impact of the U.S. Department of Education’s order could be for their federal funds, forcing them to take their eye off what matters most.

    “Today, two separate courts reached a similar conclusion: the USDE’s new certification process is likely unlawful and unconstitutionally vague. That is a welcome development for our schools and communities who, working in partnership with parents and families, are best positioned to make decisions for their communities – not Washington, D.C.

    “We are closely reviewing today’s rulings and will continue to stand up for Wisconsin schools, and most importantly, our kids.”



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  • ‘Students are scared’: Border Patrol raids fuel fear in schools

    ‘Students are scared’: Border Patrol raids fuel fear in schools


    Denny Sicairos, 5, at a Bakersfield protest against an extensive Border Patrol operation held last week.

    Emma Gallegos/EdSource

    Advocates have called upon school leaders to take action to protect immigrants in the wake of an extensive operation by the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol in Kern County last week.

    Immigrant families have been afraid to send their students to school in the wake of the extensive operation, some opting to keep them home.

    “Students are scared,” said Belen Carrasco, a middle school teacher at Bakersfield City School District, who reported an increase in student absences in her classroom over the last week. Students have told her that Border Patrol agents knocked on their doors, and in one case, detained a parent. Students are asking Carrasco for information on what they should do if agents approach them.

    One resident, Samantha Gil, said that her daughter’s immigrant friends at West High School in Bakersfield are “hidden in their houses. She is very sad for them.”

    The fear is so great that community members have been afraid to show up to school sites in rural communities where food is being distributed, according to Ashley De La Rosa, education policy director for the Dolores Huerta Foundation, a Bakersfield-based community advocacy organization.

    Advocates are encouraging immigrants to know their legal rights under the U.S. Constitution and to document any encounters with immigration officials. They are encouraging school leaders to get in touch with community groups that can provide this education or pass out cards with information about people’s constitutional rights, as Delano Union School District does. Above all, families are looking for assurance that schools are safe places that will not alert immigration authorities to their immigration status or address.

    “The parents are really looking to school districts to take action,” De La Rosa said.

    ‘There was a lot of terror’

    Firsthand accounts show that border patrol agents are broadly targeting immigrant communities, according to Rosa Lopez, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Kern County. She works with the Rapid Response Network of Kern County — a group that offers a hotline for those who are a target of immigration enforcement or who may witness agents in the community.

    “What [agents] have done is terrorize communities and profile people who look brown, who look undocumented and who look like farmworkers,” Lopez said.

    The Rapid Response Network has also confirmed the presence of Customs and Border Patrol agents at gas stations and restaurants frequented by farmworkers and immigrants, pulling over farmworkers traveling to work, and even a Home Depot parking lot where day laborers look for work, Lopez said.   

    A video,shared by local NBC affiliate KGET showed a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agent detaining a U.S. citizen and threatening to break the windows of his gardening truck, after slashing its tires. He was later released, KGET reported.

    Gregory Bovino, chief patrol agent of the El Centro sector in Imperial County on the Mexican border of the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol called this week’s raids Operation Return to Sender.  He posted photos on social media, stating that the operation was aimed at protecting communities “from bad people and bad things.” His posts about the operation included hashtags for Bakersfield, as well as Fresno and Sacramento. The agency did not respond to questions from EdSource.

    Bakersfield City Councilmember Andrae Gonzales said families he represents in Bakersfield were being “harassed,” “intimidated” and “terrorized” by Border Patrol agents.

    “All of last week, I’ve gotten countless calls from people who wondered what to do, what their plan should be; employers who saw their employees staying home; principals and teachers upset and concerned for their students because they all were hiding,” Gonzales said.

    There was a lot of chaos, particularly on social media, about where the Border Patrol was operating and whom they were targeting. De La Rosa said there were sightings of agents near schools.

    “There was a lot of terror — or just fear — that trickled into kids not going to school,” Lopez said.

    News reports, videos and posts on social media about immigration enforcement have caused many local immigrants to question whether it’s safe to send their students to school or even leave their homes at all. 

    Residents from across Kern County showed up in Bakersfield on Friday to protest the agents’ presence, saying they were there on behalf of terrified families and friends in their community — the undocumented, those in the midst of applying for asylum, green cards or citizenship — who are concerned about federal immigration enforcement.  

    Vanessa Acevedo, one of those protesters, said her sister-in-law, who is undocumented, is afraid to go to work or leave her house for any reason and has been relying on others to take her children to school.

    Many of the areas targeted by Border Patrol agents are frequented by Latin American immigrants, but the video of a citizen being detained sent shock waves into the local Sikh community as well, according to Raji Brar, co-founder of the Bakersfield Sikh Women’s Association. 

    Many immigrants in the Sikh community have green cards or are going through the asylum process, she said. Seeing an American citizen being detained was “jarring” to them and a shocking “abuse of power,” Brar said.

    She said the local gurdwaras, or places of worship, were empty over the weekend. Some parents have told her that they’re not going to work and that they’re keeping their children home out of an abundance of caution.

    “It was a wake-up call for all of us who happen to look a little different,” Brar said.

    Preparing for the second term of Donald Trump

    As state and local school officials prepare for the second term of Donald Trump, who promised unprecedented mass deportations of immigrants, California Attorney General Rob Bonta recently released updated guidance for how K-12 schools and colleges should respond to immigration enforcement agents. Some school districts have reiterated they are “sanctuary schools” — a stance many developed during Trump’s first term — and that they wouldstrictly limit cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.

    But the operation conducted by the Border Patrol in Kern County seemed to come ahead of the expected schedule — Trump won’t become president until Jan. 20.

    “It’s really challenging, because I think we knew this was a possibility with this new administration,” De La Rosa said. “But (last week’s operation) caught everyone off guard.”

    Last week, Bakersfield City School District sent a message to its staff reminding them of guidance from the state attorney general and also a policy its board passed in 2017 called the Safe Haven Resolution, which designates schools as “protected areas” where immigration enforcement should not occur. District spokesperson Tabatha Mills clarified that no agents have visited the district’s schools.

    De La Rosa said that Bakersfield City School District is also planning to reach out to parents concerned about immigration enforcement through the district’s community engagement liaisons.

    This week, Delano Union School District plans to pass out cards to families, referred to as red cards, that have information about the rights everyone has under the U.S. Constitution, according to Assistant Superintendent April Gregerson.

    Delano is a rural community approximately 40 miles north of Bakersfield that is heavily populated by immigrants and farmworkers. The deaths of two residents fleeing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in 2018, after dropping their daughter off at high school, led to community protests against ICE.

    An estimated 1 in 10, or 1 million, children in California have at least one undocumented parent, and approximately 133,000 children in the state’s public schools are undocumented themselves, according to the Migration Policy Institute.

    A 2018 publication by the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research reported that zealous application of immigration laws causes school enrollment to drop and can set back the education of young people, including many U.S. citizens. The study found that Latino enrollment dropped nearly 10% in communities where local law enforcement collaborated with ICE.

    State leadership

    The Border Patrol’s actions in Kern County have drawn condemnation from state leaders. The California Latino Legislative Caucus released a statement saying the unannounced raids are “sowing chaos and discord.” The group urged the Border Patrol to announce their raids and to avoid sensitive areas, including schools. 

    “It is seemingly a rogue group of Border Patrol officers that just decided to take it upon themselves to hang out at where farmworkers hang out, hang out where day laborers hang out and decide to essentially round them up and do exactly what the Trump administration threatened that they were going to do,” said state Sen. Lena Gonzalez D-Long Beach.

    Gonzalez and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond have introduced a bill that aims to establish a 1-mile “safe zone” around schools and prohibit schools from allowing immigration authorities to enter a campus or share information without a judicial warrant. 

    Gonzalez, along with Thurmond, plan to reach out to educators for feedback on how best to craft and ultimately implement this bill so that families feel safe sending their children to school.

    Students who encounter any violation of their rights at their school — such as through harassment or bullying — can file a complaint through the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights or the Uniform Complaint Procedure through their local district, De La Rosa said.

    She also encouraged parents who are concerned about detention or deportation to file affidavits to instruct school or health officials about who may make decisions about a student. This can be especially crucial for disabled students who have an individualized education program.

    “Families really need reassurance from their district leaders and their elected leaders,” said De La Rosa. “If that doesn’t happen, they have a right to file a complaint and hold folks accountable.”





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  • Over $45 billion in local bonds coming to schools, community colleges

    Over $45 billion in local bonds coming to schools, community colleges


    A San Jose Unified teacher attends a rally Oct. 9 to promote candidates and a school bond measure that includes funding for staff housing.

    Credit: Photo courtesy of California Teachers Union

    This past November, hundreds of California school districts pursued local bond dollars to fix or update campuses across their communities. 

    Voters passed 205 of 267 proposed local construction bonds on the Nov. 5 ballot, including 14 of 15 for community colleges. Along with the largest number of bonds, the 77% passage rate was just shy of the historic approval rate of 79% since 2000, said Michael Coleman, founder of CaliforniaCityFinance.com, who compiled the voting results.

    That was the year voters lowered the threshold for passing school bonds from a two-thirds majority to 55%.

    Voters in major urban areas were the most receptive to bond proposals, including Los Angeles Unified (LAUSD), whose $9 billion bond was by far the biggest on the ballot; $1.15 billion in San Jose Unified, which included money to underwrite staff housing; and $790 million in San Francisco Unified. San Diego Community College District’s $3.5 billion bond proposal was the largest community college measure.

    The bond in Earlimart Elementary in Tulare County passed with the state’s highest approval of 81.6%. But in the if-only-we-had-knocked-on-more-doors category, bonds in Kingsburg Union High School District, spanning three Central Valley counties, and Elverta Joint Elementary District in Sacramento County, lost by only three votes, and in Weed Union School District, in Siskiyou County, by four votes. 

    Across the Central San Joaquin Valley, stretching from San Joaquin and Calaveras counties to Kern County, more than 40 measures were approved. 

    Enrollment is growing in some parts of the region, so voters decided on multimillion dollar measures to meet the demand, such as Clovis Unified’s $400 million bond and Sanger Unified’s $175 million measure. In both districts, 57.6% of voters said yes to meet the needs of their growing communities. 

    “We have emphasized that this bond measure is critical to keeping our schools in the great shape they are in today and to finishing the much-needed Clovis South High School,” Clovis Unified Superintendent Corrine Folmer said when voting results showed that the district’s bond measure had secured a win.

    Clovis and Sanger Unified listed finishing construction at their high schools as priorities. Estimating its student population doubling in the next 10 to 20 years, Sanger Unified is also looking to build a new elementary school to alleviate overcrowding. 

    Other school communities in the Central Valley and up and down the state approved bond money to address the deteriorating condition of aging facilities. For instance, in Fresno Unified, 64.5% of voters said yes to a $500 million bond — the largest in district history.

    In the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area, all districts but one, Vacaville Unified, passed bond measures. In Los Angeles County, only Saugus Union School District’s bond failed. In Orange County, all transitional kindergarten to grade 12 school district bond measures passed, but voters nixed Rancho Santiago Community College District’s bond.

    However, voters in many predominantly rural and low-property-wealth districts, from Humboldt County in the north to Imperial County in the south, voted down bonds that would have raised taxes. This included eight small districts in San Diego County and Del Norte Unified in Del Norte County. In October, EdSource highlighted Del Norte’s struggle with mold-infested, leaky portables and hazardous playgrounds in a roundtable on Proposition 2, a statewide school construction bond that voters passed.

    “Our one-district county is strained by a lack of economy, and the community is struggling with high tax rates. This wasn’t a lack of desire for our youth, but one based on meeting basic needs for household necessities,” said Brie Fraley, a parent of four boys and active bond supporter. “The structure of bonds in California doesn’t help the neediest communities.” 

    Nearly all parcel taxes pass

    Along with construction bonds, 26 school districts placed annual parcel taxes on the ballot, and 24 passed. Parcel taxes are also property taxes, but they must be a uniform amount per property in a district — whether it’s assessed for a run-down home or a five-star hotel. Although it requires a two-thirds majority vote for approval, 92% of the parcel taxes passed in November; 17 of those renewed existing taxes. 

    Particularly popular in the Bay Area and coastal Los Angeles County, they ranged from $647 per parcel in Lakeside Union School District, a small rural district lying in both Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties, and $369 per parcel in Woodside Elementary, near Palo Alto, to $59 per parcel in both Sunnyvale School District and Ventura Unified. 





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  • Heather Cox Richardson: Trump’s “Peace Plan” for Ukraine Is Putin’s Plan

    Heather Cox Richardson: Trump’s “Peace Plan” for Ukraine Is Putin’s Plan


    Trump has long demonstrated his admiration for Putin. No one can say exactly why Trump admires Russia’s ruthless dictator. But Trump insists that Ukraine is responsible for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. His lame efforts to broker an end to Russia’s war on Ukraine have robustly echoed Putin’s demands.

    Heather Cox Richardson analyzes how Trump has changed American policy towards the Russian war on Ukraine. Trump’s “peace plan” gives Russia everything Putin wants:

    She writes:

    After previously suggesting that the U.S. would not involve European representatives in negotiations to end Russia’s war against Ukraine, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and presidential envoy Steve Witkoff met in Paris last week for talks with Ukrainian and European officials. The U.S. presented what it called “the outlines of a durable and lasting peace,” even as Russia continued to attack Ukrainian civilian areas.

    A senior European official told Illia Novikov, Aamer Madhani, and Jill Lawless of the Associated Press that the Americans presented their plan as “just ideas” that could be changed. But Barak Ravid of Axios reported on Friday that Trump was frustrated that the negotiations weren’t productive and said he wanted a quick solution.

    Talks were scheduled to resume today, in London, but yesterday Rubio pulled out of them. The U.S. plan is now “a final offer,” Ravid reported, and if the Ukrainians don’t accept it, the U.S. will “walk away.”

    On a bipartisan basis, since 2014 the United States has supported Ukraine’s fight to push back Russia’s invasions. But Trump and his administration have rejected this position in favor of supporting Russia. This shift has been clear in the negotiations for a solution: Trump required repeated concessions from Ukraine even as Russia continued bombing Ukraine. Axios’s Ravid saw the proposed “final offer,” and it fits this pattern.

    The plan would recognize Russia’s occupation of Ukraine’s Crimea and its occupation of almost all of Luhansk oblast and the portions of Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts Russia has occupied. This would essentially freeze the boundary of Ukraine at the battlefront.

    Ukraine would promise not to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the post–World War II defensive alliance that first stood against the aggression of the Soviet Union and now stands against the aggression of Russia.

    Sanctions imposed against Russia after its 2014 and 2022 invasions of Ukraine would be lifted, and the United States, in particular its energy and industrial sectors, will cooperate with Russia.

    In essence, this gives Russian president Vladimir Putin everything he wanted.

    What the Ukrainians get out of this deal is significantly weaker. They get “a robust security guarantee,” but Ravid notes the document is vague and does not say the U.S. will participate. We have been here before. After the Soviet Union crumbled in 1991, Ukraine had the third-largest stockpile of nuclear weapons in the world. In exchange for Ukraine’s giving up those weapons, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Russia agreed to secure Ukraine’s borders. In the 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances, they agreed they would not use military force or economic coercion against Ukraine.

    Russia violated that agreement with its 2014 and 2022 invasions, making it unlikely that Ukraine will trust any new promises of security.

    Under the new plan, Ukraine would also get back a small part of Kharkiv oblast Russia has occupied. It would be able to use the Dnieper River. And it would get help and funds for rebuilding, although as Ravid notes, the document doesn’t say where the money will come from.

    There is something else in the plan. The largest nuclear power plant in Europe is Ukrainian: the Zaporizhzhia plant. It will be considered Ukrainian territory, but the United States will operate it and supply the electricity it produces to both Ukraine and Russia, although the agreement apparently doesn’t say anything about how payments would work. The plan also refers to a deal between the U.S. and Ukraine for minerals, with Ukraine essentially repaying the U.S. for its past support.

    Ravid notes that the U.S. drafted the plan after envoy Steve Witkoff met for more than four hours last week with Putin. But the plan has deeper roots.

    This U.S.-backed plan echoes almost entirely the plan Russian operatives presented to Trump’s 2016 campaign manager Paul Manafort in exchange for helping Trump win the White House. Russia had invaded Ukraine in 2014 and was looking for a way to grab the land it wanted without continuing to fight.

    Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s 2019 report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election explained that Manafort in summer 2016 “discussed a plan to resolve the ongoing political problems in Ukraine by creating an autonomous republic in its more industrialized eastern region of Donbas, and having [Russian-backed Viktor] Yanukovych, the Ukrainian President ousted in 2014, elected to head that republic.”

    The Mueller Report continued: “That plan, Manafort later acknowledged, constituted a ‘backdoor’ means for Russia to control eastern Ukraine.” The region that Putin wanted was the country’s industrial heartland. He was offering a “peace” plan that carved off much of Ukraine and made it subservient to him. This was the dead opposite of U.S. policy for a free and united Ukraine, and there was no chance that former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, who was running for the presidency against Trump, would stand for it. But if Trump were elected, the equation changed.

    According to the Republican-dominated Senate Intelligence Committee, Manafort’s partner and Russian operative Konstantin Kilimnik wrote: “[a]ll that is required to start the process is a very minor ‘wink’ (or slight push) from D[onald] T[rump] saying ‘he wants peace in Ukraine and Donbass back in Ukraine’ and a decision to be a ‘special representative’ and manage this process.” Following that, Kilimnik suggested that Manafort ‘could start the process and within 10 days visit Russia ([Yanukovych] guarantees your reception at the very top level, cutting through all the bullsh*t and getting down to business), Ukraine, and key EU capitals.’ The email also suggested that once then–Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko understood this ‘message’ from the United States, the process ‘will go very fast and DT could have peace in Ukraine basically within a few months after inauguration.’”

    According to the Senate Intelligence Committee, the men continued to work on what they called the “Mariupol Plan” at least until 2018.

    After Russia invaded Ukraine again in 2022, Jim Rutenberg published a terrific and thorough review of this history in the New York Times Magazine. Once his troops were in Ukraine, Putin claimed he had annexed Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson, two of which were specifically named in the Mariupol Plan, and instituted martial law in them, claiming that the people there had voted to join Russia.

    On June 14, 2024, as he was wrongly imprisoning American journalist Evan Gershkovich, Putin made a “peace proposal” to Ukraine that sounded much like the Mariupol Plan. He offered a ceasefire if Ukraine would give up Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson, including far more territory than Putin’s troops occupy, and abandon plans to join NATO. “If Kyiv and the Western capitals refuse it, as before,” Putin said, “then in the end, that’s their…political and moral responsibility for the continuation of bloodshed.”

    On June 27, 2024, in a debate during which he insisted that he and he alone could get Gershkovich released, and then talked about Putin’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Trump seemed to indicate he knew about the Mariupol Plan: “Putin saw that, he said, you know what, I think we’re going to go in and maybe take my—this was his dream. I talked to him about it, his dream.”

    Now that plan is back on the table as official U.S. policy.

    Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky has said that his country will not recognize the Russian occupation of Crimea. In this determination, he speaks for the global rules-based order the U.S. helped to create after World War II. Recognition of the right of a country to invade another and seize its territory undermines a key article of the United Nations, which says that members won’t threaten or attack any country’s “territorial integrity or political independence.” French president Emmanuel Macron and other European leaders are standing behind those principles, saying today in a statement from Macron’s office that they reject Russian territorial gains under the U.S. plan. “Ukraine’s territorial integrity and European aspirations are very strong requirements for Europeans,” the statement said.

    But Trump himself seems eager to rewrite the world order. In addition to his own threats against Greenland, Canada, and Panama, in a post today on his social media site he echoed Putin’s 2024 statement blaming Ukraine for Russia’s bloody war because it would not agree to Putin’s terms. Today, Trump said Zelensky’s refusal to recognize the Russian occupation of Crimea was “inflammatory,” and he pressured Zelensky to accept the deal.

    Curiously, he felt obliged to write that “I have nothing to do with Russia…”.

    —



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  • Future farmers grow real-world skills at Cal State’s working farms

    Future farmers grow real-world skills at Cal State’s working farms


    Fresno State animal science major Toi Johnson givies a bull an oral dewormer on Feb. 20, 2025, to help prevent fungal infections like ringworm from infecting and spreading to the rest of the herd. Adjunct faculty Ryan Person oversees her while other students practice giving shots to the animal.

    Credit: Jesus Herrera/EdSource

    In the heart of California’s bountiful Sacramento Valley lies Yuba City, a small town of about 68,000 people that is rich in agriculture and community.  

    This is where Taryn Chima, a fourth-year animal science major at California State University, Chico, grew up.  

    Growing alongside her were orchards of peaches, walnuts and almonds. Born into a third-generation farm family, Chima knew she wanted to pursue a career in agriculture from a young age. In 2021, Chima began her animal science education at Chico State. 

    Of the 23 campuses of California State University, just four have a college of agriculture: Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Chico State, Fresno State and Cal Poly Pomona. This also means they have working farms that provide food for their campuses and research opportunities for ranchers and farmers in areas like regenerative agriculture, which aims to keep growing systems healthy and effective.

    Students working the land

    Most importantly for the students attending these schools, working on their campus farms enriches their classroom learning with hands-on experience.

    Max Eatchel, a senior majoring in plant sciences at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, had few familial ties to farming, and instead found his passion for gardening while looking for a new hobby during the Covid-19 lockdown. 

    “I got super into all this regenerative agriculture, sustainable agriculture, permaculture stuff, and I just went deep down that rabbit hole,” said Eatchel, who has worked on the school’s organic farm for over a year. “When it came time to apply to college, I thought, ‘Why not try plant science?’”

    Until he worked on the farm, Eatchel didn’t realize how much he still had to learn in the practical application of his education. But with his graduation in June, he now feels “super prepared” for the professional world because of his hands-on experience.

    “I’ve been talking to this orchard back in Utah, and they were looking for someone who could repair tractors. I really hadn’t had any experience with that,” Etchel said. “So I just asked my boss, and he’s like, ‘Yeah, we’ll get you a shift right now.’ So it’s very fluid, and it helps you build the skills you want to build.” 

    Similarly to Eatchel, an agricultural education wasn’t in Anthony Zaragoza’s sights at all. Zaragoza got his associate degree in biology and was planning on eventually attending medical school. That was, until a revelatory six-month experience with the Western Colorado Conservation Corps gave him a new vision. 

    But even when he got to Cal Poly Pomona as an agribusiness and food industry management major, he wasn’t certain how he could turn his education into a career path. Getting his first job with the student farm eased his mind.

    “Out here in the city, we aren’t surrounded too much by a lot of agriculture,” Zaragoza said. “So it could be a little disheartening when we’re not having a chance to get out on an operation and see that what we’re learning is actually a feasible future for us.”

    Zaragoza started as a maintenance technician at the equine center and is now the harvest assistant lead, a new position in which he works with farm operations director Jeremy Mora on the business and marketing side.

    He has noticed peers in his major with the same confusion he had about how their studies translate to the working world. That is why he strongly recommends pursuing a job with the campus farms.

    “They have that passion, but they really need that connection,” Zaragoza said.

    For Chima, that connection and passion are enhanced at Chico State’s University Farm. “If I was not a part of a working farm, I would not be where I am today,” said Chima, who works as the lead student herdsman at the Chico State sheep unit, overseeing daily operations and supporting student research projects. “I’ve developed confidence, and I get to see a lot of different perspectives within the industry.”

    Growing up in Salinas, Karla Ahumada was always surrounded by agriculture and knew she wanted to pursue it as a career. The fourth-year plant science and agribusiness major at Chico State has been grateful for her hands-on experiences at the university’s farm. 

    In a class last semester, Ahumada and her classmates were each assigned a crop to grow at the farm and were graded on how well they took care of their plots.

    Since freshman year, Ahumada has also been offered paid research positions at the university farm. “It is something very unique about our farm, that we can cater to students pursuing both industry and academic focuses,” Ahumada said. 

    At Fresno State, agriculture education sophomore Emma Piedra works in the dairy unit doing milking and maintenance while also learning veterinary skills. The milk is used to produce cheese and ice cream sold by the school. 

    She has no plans to go into the dairy industry after graduation. Rather, Piedra wants to use her time at the farm to help improve her knowledge about how it works and give her future students connections to work there, just as her teachers did for her. 

    “Ever since getting into dairy, I’ve wanted to help students raise dairy heifers someday when I’m a teacher. So this has given me a lot of hands-on experiences of what to do and how to help them,” Piedra said. 

    Another Fresno State student is putting this thinking into practice at the neighboring swine unit. Hannah Williamson is a student manager and graduate teaching assistant while finishing her final semester of her agricultural science masters in animal reproduction. 

    Williamson grew up around the swine unit alongside her father, a professor at Fresno State. Though she worked in a few different farm units during her undergraduate years, it was her experience as a teaching assistant for the swine lab class that helped her realize she wanted to follow in her father’s footsteps and teach at the college level.

    As for students considering taking some agricultural courses, she said, “I will say that the more you get involved, the better it is for you, because it opens a lot more doors. You have a lot more opportunities.”

    Operating, financing student farms

    Though each of these farming operations is different, they all give students experience in numerous areas of agricultural production, from cultivation and conception to marketing and accounting.

    The schools have lab classes where professors can make use of the facilities for the general student population. Research opportunities and paid student positions help students gain advanced knowledge and hands-on skills.

    “We hear often from employers that they really like our students because they can actually do stuff,” said Jim Prince, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo’s associate dean of the College of Agriculture.

    The San Luis Obispo campus has a range of farms and production facilities, including a vineyard, beef production and ornamental operations, among others. This may sound expensive to operate, and though Prince says it is a “complex mix” of funding, most of the farms are self-supported through their food production businesses.

    Among the products they sell are cheese, ice cream, jam, meat, organic produce, plants and wine. Most of these are available through their online shop as well as the campus markets, and some are available through local retailers. The organic produce is sold directly at local farmers’ markets and during the farm’s U-pick hours.

    The Chico State University Farm has a similar mix of financial support. It consists of 14 units and employs 18 full-time staff and 40 students. 

    All four universities were each awarded $18.75 million in a grant from California’s 2022-23 budget. For Chico, $11.5 million of that is funding the Agricultural Teaching Center and Farm Store, which is expected to be operating by this fall, according to College of Agriculture interim associate dean Kevin Patton. Amid statewide CSU budget cuts, Patton believes this money will not be touched.

    Chris Van Norden graduated from Cal Poly Pomona with a plant sciences degree and continued working on the campus farm until he became the agronomy farm coordinator, overseeing 125 acres. His brother, Bryan, also an alum, runs the orchard, organic farm and sales. 

    California agricultural production variety is extremely diverse, and Van Norden said their 700 acres of farms are well-suited to familiarize the student assistants with a wide range of career possibilities.

    “We’ve got (year-round) overlapping egg production, vegetables, permanent trees (and) subtropical, growing everything possible in California,” Van Norden said. “And showing the students that, ‘Hey, you could do any of this with agriculture,’ it’s a … giant, wide spectrum of agricultural potential.”

    Vincent Roos, the farm operations manager at Fresno State, emphasized the school’s unique position in the Central Valley, which allows for the growth of nearly 400 different crops.

    He noted the importance of hands-on experience in preparing students for diverse agricultural careers.

    “In other words, they can take anything, any kind of circumstances that you’re in, and make it work,” Roos said.

    Jesus Herrera is a third-year journalism student at Fresno State; Layla Bakhshandeh is a senior at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo majoring in journalism and graphic communication; and John Washington is a senior journalism student at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. All are members of EdSource’s California Student Journalism Corps.





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  • Trump attacks a key strategy for California schools: Flagging racial disparities in discipline

    Trump attacks a key strategy for California schools: Flagging racial disparities in discipline


    Fremont High School students in Oakland Unified use restorative justice circles to welcome newcomers, get to know each other and build bridges between different cliques and ethnic groups.

    Credit: Tatiana Chaterji / Oakland Unified

    Top Takeaways
    • Trump executive order challenges the concept that race-neutral policies can be discriminatory.
    • Administration said focus on equity in discipline has harmed student safety, while advocates say it’s an excuse to roll back civil rights protections.
    • Experts say executive order threatening to withhold funding from schools doesn’t have much bearing on California schools — for now.

    The Trump administration has taken aim at a key assumption of federal civil rights enforcers and California’s school discipline strategy: that large racial disparities are a red flag for discrimination.

    Trump’s executive order, released Wednesday, attacks the concept of disparate impact — the idea that a policy that may seem neutral actually harms a racial or ethnic group. The order calls this approach to discipline, championed by both the Biden and Obama administrations, a “risk to children’s safety and well-being in the classroom.”

    “Their policies placed racial equity quotas over student safety — encouraging schools to turn a blind eye to poor or violent behavior in the name of inclusion,” U.S. Department of Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement.

    The previous Trump administration rescinded Obama-era guidance from the Department of Education, which warned it would initiate investigations based on reports of racial disparities in discipline. 

    The executive order takes this a step further by threatening state agencies and districts that fail to comply with the Trump administration’s “colorblind” interpretation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which protects against racial discrimination.

    The introduction of the California School Dashboard, the state’s school accountability website, raised public awareness of suspension rates and other indicators of school performance. The dashboard designates the performance of every district and every school as well as their student groups — including racial groups — in one of five colors. No statewide student group’s suspension rate was red, designating the worst performance, but 674 schools — 7% of 9,671 schools — had that designation. They may have been designated for state assistance to determine the cause of high suspension rates. They would also have to commit to lowering suspensions as part of their district’s annual accountability plan.

    Suspensions in California have dropped dramatically over the last decade, but disparities remain: 8.6% of Black students were suspended in 2023-24, compared with 2.7% of white students.

    California has also taken action and banned schools from suspending students solely for “defiance.” Many advocates claimed it was a “catch-all” justification to punish students, particularly students of color, for smaller infractions, like refusing to take their hat off. The state banned the practice for K-3 students in 2013, expanded it to K-8 in 2019 and, this school year, expanded it to high school students.

    Los Angeles Unified School District pioneered this policy to reduce suspensions. In 2013, its school board passed the School Climate Bill of Rights. A district spokesperson said in a statement to EdSource that the district follows state law and district policy regarding student discipline.

    “Race is not a consideration in the application of student discipline policies at the district,” the statement said. 

    Carolyn Gorman, an analyst with the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, says California is at risk of losing funding for schools with its policies on willful defiance that reference disparate impact.

    But other experts disagree.

    Michael Petrilli, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, said the executive order is no surprise. “I expected them to write about it, but it’s so vague, it’s important to wait for the guidance to see, really, what they are trying to say.”

    “It’s one of those threats that I would advise districts to ignore,” said John Affeldt, managing attorney at Public Advocates.

    Affeldt points to recent court rulings that blocked Trump from enforcing an executive order he signed in January that promised to withhold funds from schools that have diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies.

    It is not illegal to simply have a racial disparity in discipline statistics, Affeldt notes. Instead, disparities serve as a red flag that triggers an investigation to examine whether certain policies or practices are discriminatory and violate civil rights.

    Daniel Losen, a civil rights attorney, education researcher and former director of the Center for Civil Rights Remedies at UCLA’s Civil Rights Project, called the executive order “fear-mongering — making up unproven harms to discourage folks from considering the possibility that maybe their school policies are inequitable.”

    “They are hoping that people think that looking at racial differences is unlawful, even though the law requires that we address disparate impacts” of education policies, he said.  “And those regulations, which have been in effect since the ’60s, have not been rescinded.”

    Losen explored nationwide data on suspensions in his 2020 report “Lost Opportunities: How Disparate School Discipline Continues to Drive Differences in the Opportunity to Learn.” He concluded that the lack of instruction time from suspensions, combined with lost access to mental health services and the stigma of punishment “for breaking a rule, no matter how minor their misconduct,” causes racially disparate harm.

    Those sharp disparities, he wrote, “also raise the question of how we can close the achievement gap if we do not close the discipline gap.”

    Sixth grade teacher Thomas Courtney said he is concerned about the message that an order from the country’s highest office sends to teachers about addressing racism. He worries that it may reinforce a perception among a largely white workforce of teachers that students of color are to blame for the rise of misbehavior in classrooms.

    “The scapegoat is brown and Black children and the fact that they’ve been getting away with murder in your classroom — that’s how this is going to be interpreted,” said Courtney, who teaches humanities and English at Millennial Tech Middle School in San Diego.

    He worries some teachers will read the order and say, “I can finally write suspensions on all those Black kids causing all these problems in my class.”

    Looking at discipline through the lens of disparate impact tends to highlight one glaring fact: Black students — boys in particular — are far more likely to be disciplined. 

    “It’s historically egregious that it is Black males in particular who get referred much more often, suspended much more often, expelled much more often,” Affeldt said.

    Order is an ‘opening salvo’

    This executive order may have little immediate legal effect, but experts expect to see much more from the administration on the topic of discipline.

    “If they say, do not treat kids differently based on race, that should be fine. But they could go further to say that the Office of Civil Rights can investigate only individual circumstances, and cannot assume a disparate impact based on suspension data,” said Petrilli, of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

    “They could go looking for principals who would say they did not discipline students because of mandates to reduce the number of suspensions,” he said.

    Or they could find teachers who say that restorative justice in lieu of suspensions, without staff training and administrative support, doesn’t work. As Brian Foster, a retired California teacher, wrote in a comment to EdSource, “When there are no real consequences to bad behavior, it spreads. Behavior is excused and pushed right back into the classroom unresolved, degrading the real learning of all other students.”

    Courtney, who wrote a commentary for EdSource on the topic, worries that this executive order could represent an “opening salvo” in an effort to turn the practice of restorative justice into a politically toxic concept, as critical race theory was. Restorative justice focuses less on punishment and more on strengthening a school’s culture through righting wrongs, solving disputes and building relationships.

    Trump’s executive order doesn’t mention restorative justice practices, but it does refer to a joint letter in 2014 by the U.S. Department of Education and U.S. Department of Justice. That letter notes that strategies such as conflict resolution, restorative practices, counseling and positive interventions may be used.

    Affeldt also expects to see more from the administration on the topic of disparate impact — both inside and outside of schools. He says conservatives have been pushing for a case that would outlaw disparate impact theory. He calls it a “moonshot” for the movement to get a case that would invalidate California’s take on racial discrimination.

    “That’s a real stretch,” Affeldt said, “but that’s their game plan, and they’re trying to tee it up.” 

    EdSource reporter Mallika Seshadri contributed to this story.





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