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  • Financial aid fraud is growing at California’s community colleges

    Financial aid fraud is growing at California’s community colleges


    The Foothill-De Anza Community College District is one of many across the state trying to combat bad actors who enroll to steal financial aid. The district, which includes Foothill College, shown above, is now using artificial intelligence to sniff our scammers.

    Credit: Barbara Kinney

    Since the Covid-19 pandemic, California’s community colleges have been plagued by scammers who pose as students and enroll to steal financial aid — and now it’s getting even worse. 

    The state’s 116-college system has lost more than $7.5 million to financial aid fraud this year, state data shows. That’s already much higher than the colleges reported losing all of last year. Most of it is federal aid, in the form of Pell Grants intended for low-income students. 

    Colleges have increased their efforts to detect and deter the fraud through both more human interaction and automated detection. Officials believe they are getting better at doing so, but the increasing losses show that the college system is still vulnerable to scammers, who are often part of sophisticated crime rings, some overseas. 

    Community colleges have long been susceptible to fraud, since they are generally open access and usually don’t deny admission to students who meet basic requirements as the more selective University of California and California State University do. The problem was made worse by the Covid-19 pandemic. The shift to remote instruction “created fertile ground” for fraudsters, said Paul Feist, a spokesperson for the chancellor’s office overseeing California’s community colleges. The scammers wanted to get their hands on the nearly $2 billion in federal stimulus dollars available for emergency student aid available across the colleges. 

    That stimulus aid is now depleted, but the fraudsters aren’t slowing down, according to the data EdSource obtained through a public records request. In 2024, through September, community colleges in California reported disbursing more than $7.6 million in aid that they later wrote off as fraud. The data was provided to EdSource in late October, but the system did not yet have October data available.

    The $7.6 million is up from about $4.4 million that was reported lost all of last year. And that was much larger than the $2.1 million that was reported lost between September 2021 and the end of 2022. September 2021 is when the state chancellor’s office asked colleges to begin reporting monthly about application, enrollment and financial aid fraud. EdSource requested those reports via the state’s Public Records Act. In response, the state shared data on the amount of fraud reported each month but redacted the names of individual colleges. 

    Some officials attribute the latest spike in fraudulent activity to the Department of Education rolling back verification rules for the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), requiring colleges to verify fewer applications. Fraudsters may have seen those changes and sensed an opportunity to get their hands on aid. 

    Pretending to be legitimate students, the fraudsters apply online for admission. Some frauds are caught there, but those who successfully get admitted and enroll in classes can request financial aid, which colleges often distribute to personal bank accounts via direct deposit. 

    Some colleges, as a result, are going back to the old-fashioned method of requiring students to show up in person and prove they are real before they can become eligible for aid. Others, acknowledging the possibility of human error, are also turning to automated methods, including using artificial intelligence to detect suspicious applicants. 

    It is also likely that the colleges are more consistently reporting the fraud. When the chancellor’s office first began asking the colleges to report monthly, there was only “modest participation,” a chancellor’s office official said in a 2022 memo. Now, colleges are reporting at higher rates, though some have still not submitted their reports for months. College officials also believe they have improved at detecting fraud over the past three years.  

    Feist said it can take more than six months from when a scammer applies online for colleges “to detect, investigate and confirm” the fraud. He added that he expects the college system to have better information about the scope of the fraud by the end of this year.

    The scams can have consequences for actual students. With a finite number of seats for each course, real students are often left on waiting lists and unable to enroll in necessary classes because fraudsters are taking up space.

    For the colleges, combating the fraud is a never-ending battle. They have to constantly adapt to the fraudsters, who themselves evolve and come up with new tactics. 

    “This past year, essentially, we would think we’re a step ahead and then the next day we would be a step behind. We were always playing cat-and-mouse,” said Nicole Albo-Lopez, vice chancellor of educational programs for the Los Angeles Community College District. 

    Fraud going up

    In total, colleges since fall 2021 have reported distributing $14.2 million in financial aid that they wrote off as fraud. Federal aid has accounted for the majority of that, but colleges have also distributed more than $3 million in state and local aid to the scammers.  

    Feist noted that is a small percentage — less than 1% — of the total aid the colleges have distributed to students in that time. 

    The fraud initially spiked in 2021, when the colleges had billions of dollars available in emergency financial aid grants for students. Between March 2020 and March 2021, the federal government passed three pandemic relief bills and awarded California’s community colleges $4.4 billion, of which $1.8 billion was allocated for emergency grants. 

    The financial aid office at East Los Angeles College in Monterey Park.

    Distribution of emergency grants ended in 2023, but the fraud did not. Some colleges have reported eye-popping losses of federal aid, leading to the $7.6 million the system has lost so far this year. 

    One college, its name redacted in the data shared with EdSource, reported losing $405,395 in April, $344,296 in July and $119,262 in May. Another college lost $193,286 in April and $76,303 in June. When colleges write off aid distributions as fraud, it’s typically because the recipient stops attending classes altogether after receiving the aid.

    At the same time, dozens of colleges did not report fraud numbers for at least one month this year, raising the possibility that the actual amount of aid lost to fraud is even higher than what has been reported.

    Some officials theorized that the federal government’s relaxed FAFSA verification requirements could be playing a role. Typically, about a quarter of FAFSA applications are selected for verification, which involves the colleges verifying the information a student reports on their application. Under the new rules, colleges are now required to verify a much lower share of FAFSA applications — even lower than during the pandemic, when rules were also relaxed, according to the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. 

    The changes were implemented to help colleges more quickly process aid applications, particularly after the FAFSA delays that plagued colleges and students last academic year.

    Victor DeVore, the dean of student services at the San Diego Community College District, said it is likely that the relaxed FAFSA verification led to more scams.

    “It’s letting people know that, ‘Oh look, they’re relaxing their verification rules, so now I have a better chance of trying to get some aid fraudulently,’” he said. 

    At the same time, colleges have also been have getting better at identifying the fraud. 

    This year, about 25% of applications have been flagged as possible fraud, up from 20% last year. “Part of the reason is that our systems are becoming more effective at detecting fraud, even as the attempts become more sophisticated,” Feist said.

    ‘Nobody’s trained in this’

    There are three stages of fraud: Application fraud, when scammers try to get admitted to the college; enrollment fraud, when they attempt to get a spot in a class; and financial aid fraud, when they successfully receive aid after enrolling.

    Fraudsters often target classes with no prerequisites, since those are easier to access, said Tina Vasconcellos, vice chancellor of the Peralta Community College District, which is based in Oakland and has four colleges in Alameda County.

    Spencer O’Bosky, a computer science major at Los Angeles Pierce College, tried several times in the spring to enroll in online math classes, only to see them fill up shortly after they opened for registrations. 

    When he eventually was able to enroll in one, some of the other students listed on the course roster didn’t turn in any work and were dropped as suspected scammers. 

    “I always thought I was the only one experiencing this, but then I heard about it happening a lot,” O’Bosky said. “I think it’s terrible. It stops people from being able to sign up for these classes.”

    To keep the fraudsters out, several college officials said they have turned to a simple yet effective tactic. When a student is flagged as suspicious, staff ask them to either come to campus in person or join a video meeting to prove they are a legitimate student. 

    But some still slip through the cracks, especially as scammers get more sophisticated.

    “Nobody’s trained in this. We have humans doing this all over the state, all over every state trying to figure out how to mitigate this issue that nobody’s trained for,” Vasconcellos, the Peralta vice chancellor, said.

    To reduce human error, colleges have looked for ways to automate fraud detection. 

    The state chancellor’s office last year piloted a new ID proofing system, working with the online platform ID.me to verify identities of applicants. Feist said the verification system “has been effective in helping to reduce the amount of fraud and help mitigate local workloads” but added that “bad actors continue to shift their attacks.”

    Some fraudsters now steal identities and submit the stolen but legitimate information — like a real address and real forms of identification — when applying, said Jory Hadsell, the vice chancellor of technology for the Foothill-De Anza Community College District. When the fraudster sets up direct deposit, they only need a bank account and routing number, not a name to match the one on their application. 

    Scammers also changed their approach at the San Diego district after officials there successfully started sniffing them out by detecting that they were using virtual private networks (VPNs), which create a connection between the user’s computer and a network in another location, making it appear like the fraudster is in that location. For example, one student applied with their VPN set to a Los Angeles location, but their IP address showed they were actually in China.

    Rather than VPNs, the fraudsters this past year started using burner phones, which come with a business IP address, said DeVore, adding that it’s harder to determine whether those are legitimate. “They switched up their game,” he said.

    To add another layer of fraud detection, the Foothill-De Anza district is one of two in a trial test with an artificial intelligence platform, Lightleap, to identify potential scammers by analyzing “key data and behavioral elements,” according to a report presented to the state’s board of governors this summer.

    The AI platform, for example, can identify “fraud clusters,” such as when many applications are coming from the same IP address, Hadsell said. 

    Vasconcellos, who wants to similarly use AI at the Peralta district, said she is hopeful it will become a more common fraud detection tool, both at her district and across California.

    “We just need to keep learning and keep trying to get ahead of it,” Vasconcellos added. “They keep changing, and we have to keep changing to address whatever new things, new ways they’re trying to get through.”

    Delilah Brumer, a former member of the EdSource California Student Journalism Corps, contributed reporting.





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  • Catherine Rampell: Why Does Trump’s Regime Have Your Data and How Will They Use It?

    Catherine Rampell: Why Does Trump’s Regime Have Your Data and How Will They Use It?


    Catherine Rampell is an opinion writer for The Washington Post who writes often about economics. She focuses here on the expansion of data collection by the Trump administration, even as it ceases to collect anonymous data about health trends. What worries me is the invasion of privacy by the DOGE team, who scooped up personally identifiable data from the IRS and Social Security about everyone, including you and me. Why did they want it? What will they do to it?

    She writes:

    It’s rarely comforting to appear on a government “list,” even (or perhaps especially) when compiled in the name of public safety.

    It was alarming in the 1940s, when the U.S. government collected the names of Japanese Americans for internment. Likewise in the 1950s, when the House Un-American Activities Committee catalogued communists. And it’s just as troubling now, as the Trump administration assembles registries of Jewish academics and Americans with developmental disabilities.

    Yes, these are real things that happened this past week, the latest examples of the White House’s abuse of confidential data.

    Last week, faculty and staff at Barnard College received unsolicited texts asking them whether they were Jewish. Employees were stunned by the messages, which many initially dismissed as spam.

    Turns out the messages came from the Trump administration. Barnard, which is affiliated with Columbia University, had agreed to share faculty members’ private contact info to aid in President Donald Trump’s pseudo-crusade against antisemitism.

    Ah, yes, a far-right president asking Jews to register as Jewish, in the name of protecting the Jews, after he has repeatedly accused Jews of being “disloyal.” What could go wrong?

    The same day, National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya announced a “disease registry” of people with autism, to be compiled from confidential private and government health records, apparently without its subjects’ awareness or consent. This is part of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s vendetta against vaccines, which he has said cause autism despite abundant research concluding otherwise.

    This, too, is disturbing given authoritarian governments’ history of compiling lists of citizens branded mentally or physically deficient. If that historical analogue seems excessive, note that Bhattacharya’s announcement came just a week after Kennedy delivered inflammatory remarks lamenting that kids with autism will never lead productive lives. They “will never pay taxes, they’ll never hold a job,” he said, adding they’ll never play baseball or go on a date, either.

    This all happened during Autism Acceptance Month, established to counter exactly these kinds of stigmatizing stereotypes. Kennedy’s comments and the subsequent “registry” set off a wave of fear in the autism advocacy community and earned condemnation from scientists.

    Obviously, advocates want more research and support for those with autism. They have been asking for more help at least since 1965 (when what is now called the Autism Society of America was founded in my grandparents’ living room). But few in this community trust political appointees hostile to scientific research — or a president who has publicly mocked people with disabilities — to use an autism “registry” responsibly.

    (An unnamed HHS official later walked back Bhattacharya’s comments, saying the department was not creating a “registry,” per se, just a “real-world data platform” that “will link existing datasets to support research into causes of autism and insights into improved treatment strategies.” Okay.)

    These are hardly the administration’s only abuses of federal data. It has been deleting reams of statistical records, including demographic data on transgender Americans. It has also been exploiting other private administrative records for political purposes.

    For example, the Internal Revenue Service — in an effort to persuade people to pay their taxes — spent decades assuring people that their records are confidential, regardless of immigration status. The agency is in fact legally prohibited from sharing tax records, even with other government agencies, except under very limited circumstances specified by Congress. Lawmakers set these limits in response to Richard M. Nixon’s abuse of private tax data to target personal enemies.

    Trump torched these precedents and promises. After a series of top IRS officials resigned, the agency has now agreed to turn over confidential records to help Immigration and Customs Enforcement locate and deport some 7 million undocumented immigrants.

    The move, which also has troubling historical echoes, is being challenged in court. But, in the meantime, tax collections will likely fall. Undocumented immigrant workers had been paying an estimated $66 billion in federal taxes annually, but they now have even more reason to stay off the books.

    This and other DOGE infiltrations of confidential records are likely to discourage public cooperation on other sensitive government data collection efforts. Think research on mental health issues or public safety assessments on domestic violence.

    But that might be a feature, not a bug, for this administration. Chilling federal survey participation and degrading data quality were arguably deliberate objectives in Trump’s first term, when he tried to cram a question about citizenship into the 2020 Census. The question was expected to depress response rates and help Republicans game the congressional redistricting process.

    Courts ultimately blocked Trump’s plans. That’s what it will take to stop ongoing White House abuses, too: not scrapping critical government records, but championing the rule of law.

    Ultimately, the government must be able to collect and integrate high-quality data — to administer social programs efficiently, help the economy function and understand the reality we live in so voters can hold public officials accountable. None of this is possible if Americans fear ending up on some vindictive commissar’s “list.”



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  • Changing careers might mean becoming a student again – and that’s OK

    Changing careers might mean becoming a student again – and that’s OK


    When I decided to enroll in community college, my goal wasn’t to get a degree — I wanted a new job.

    I have my bachelor’s degree in acting and was a professional actor until the pandemic. At 25, I was happy with my life as an actor. My calendar was even booked out for the entire year, performing in theaters across the state of Washington.

    A week before I was laid off from a theater contract, I saw a video of NPR host Korva Coleman reading the hourly headlines. I watched her effortlessly move through the segment as she held her script and pressed play on audio clips, while simultaneously keeping herself to time. It felt like watching live theater for the first time.

    “I wish I could do that,” I thought.

    I never got another acting contract after the pandemic, and all of a sudden, I was 28. My acting resume suddenly looked useless to me and my other resume was just a list of odd jobs I did to support myself as an actor.

    My plan before the pandemic was to move to Los Angeles to further my career. I still made the move even though I let acting go. The only thing I still had in common with my previous life was my commute to work as a waitress — listening to the news. I thought about Korva Coleman operating a radio board. 

    I wasn’t alone in having an existential career change crisis at this time. In 2021, a U.S. Catalyst/CNBC poll said that 50% of employees wanted to make a career change because of the pandemic. I spent my days off looking at job postings for my local NPR affiliate stations that I wasn’t qualified for. I would get frustrated that I couldn’t intern because I wasn’t a student. 

    That’s when I decided to enroll at Pasadena City College. I started last spring with the goal of landing an internship — being a student was just a title to qualify.

    Everything I did during my first semester was strategic. I picked Pasadena Community College because it offered internships directly with LAist (formerly KPCC), a non-profit newsroom. I enrolled only in classes that would give me resume-building skills and certificates. By the end of my first semester, with only a couple completed courses, I networked my way to landing the internship position at LAist.

    This past summer marked the end of my yearlong internship and, through no fault of my own, I do not have a job.

    It still takes all my willpower not to count this as a defeat. 

    I told myself the title of student was just a qualifier for the internship, but I still made sure I got straight A’s. I took on leadership positions at the school newspaper while I was doing my office work for LAist in class. Anytime I wasn’t at school or at my internship, I was working as a server at a restaurant to pay my bills.

    More than 65% of community college students are working more than part-time, according to recent research. And, according to a survey by the RP Group, a nonprofit research center affiliated with the California community colleges, one-third of would-be returning community college students haven’t re-enrolled because they’ve prioritized work. 

    After this year, I wasn’t planning on enrolling back in school for the fall. But then my journalism professor approached me to be editor-in-chief for the campus newspaper, The Courier. I didn’t respond to him for weeks because I was still in the mindset that my return to college was strictly for the career. Being a student doesn’t pay for my rent, gas and food.

    When I was a student in my undergraduate theater program, a professor told me that you should only take an acting job if it meets two of three requirements:

    1. It is a paid job and it pays well,
    2. It offers an opportunity to network and grow as an actor,
    3. And/or it is a dream role.

    In other words, should an opportunity only fulfill one of these requirements, don’t bother with it. However, you should not expect every opportunity in your life to meet all three points. Those are few and far between.

    I thought about her advice a lot when I returned to college at PCC. Taking the role of editor-in-chief barely makes two out of the three requirements — but then I remembered that this list was to help you with taking jobs in your career, not for being a student.

    Being the editor-in-chief this semester has allowed me to push myself to be a better reporter, a stronger editor and a peer to turn to if a student needs help. I get weekly joy from reading work from my classmates who chose to show up simply because they want to learn. 

    For the first time in this academic journey to change careers, I have found myself at peace being a student learning in a classroom. While I’m still anxious about the unknown, I’m allowing myself to appreciate that I made the first step on this long journey towards a new career.

    •••

    Laura Dux is a second-year journalism and radio broadcast major at Pasadena City College and editor-in-chief of the student-run newspaper, The Courier. She is a member of EdSource’s California Student Journalism Corps.

    The opinions expressed in this commentary represent those of the author. EdSource welcomes commentaries representing diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.





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  • UC approves hefty tuition increase for non-Californians

    UC approves hefty tuition increase for non-Californians


    UCLA campus in westwood on Nov. 18, 2023.

    Credit: Julie Leopo / EdSource

    This story was updated to note that the full board of regents voted to approve the tuition increase.

    The University of California will increase annual tuition by $3,402 for out-of-state undergraduate students who enter the university next fall, under a plan approved Thursday by the system’s board of regents. That will bring the total cost of tuition for nonresident students to $52,536. 

    Tuition for incoming California residents will not be impacted by the policy, but those students still face separate, inflation-based increases that UC previously approved. Next year’s incoming class of Californians will pay about $500 more in tuition than the 2024-25 cohort, bringing the total to $14,934 before campus fees.

    The supplemental tuition charged to UC’s nonresident undergraduates will go from $34,200 to $37,602 — a 9.9% increase. The supplemental portion is on top of UC’s base tuition charged to in-state students. The total $52,536 price for nonresidents will be frozen for that cohort of incoming students for up to six years. 

    The hike, which was opposed by student leaders, was approved by the full board Thursday. It had cleared the regents’ finance and capital strategies committee on Wednesday.

    Nonresident students in fall 2023 made up 16.6% of UC’s total undergraduate enrollment, or 38,701 students from other states and nations. More than half of those, just under 21,000, are international students. 

    The share of out-of-state students varies greatly across the campuses, with Berkeley, Los Angeles and San Diego campuses enrolling the most. In recent years, however, those three campuses have started to reduce enrollment of nonresident students at the direction of state lawmakers, who have provided UC funding to replace spots for nonresidents with Californians at those campuses. 

    The increase for now is a one-time hike, but UC could raise tuition further for future entering classes when it sets its budget for future years. Short of that, those future cohorts could also still be subject to inflation-based tuition increases, thanks to the plan UC previously approved for annual tuition hikes that apply to both resident and nonresident undergraduates.

    In defending the tuition raise, Nathan Brostrom, UC’s chief financial officer, cited a challenging 2025-26 budget outlook for the university. As part of this year’s state budget agreement, UC was told to prepare for annual budget cuts of 7.95% beginning in 2025-26. “So that was why the timing made sense,” he said.

    UC officials also said UC’s tuition for nonresident students is relatively low compared to peer institutions. At public universities in Virginia and Michigan, out-of-state students pay $7,000 and $11,500 more in nonresident fees than students at UC, according to UC officials.

    “We were quite a bit behind. And so that’s why we looked at whether we had some headroom to raise it,” Brostrom said in an interview.

    Separately, a UC spokesperson said in a statement that the increase will “support core operations” amid anticipated state budget cuts “without raising costs for current students and California residents.”

    The cost of UC’s supplemental nonresident tuition has steadily increased over the years. The regents approved a $762 hike in 2019, and the supplemental portion has been subject to further increases since the 2022-23 academic year as part of the annual tuition increases UC approved in 2021. But the increase approved Thursday represents by far the largest of those hikes.

    The approval of the tuition hike came over the objections of several students, including Eduardo Tapia, who is the university affairs chair for the UC Student Association.

    “Opportunity to higher education should not face any more barriers,” Tapia said during the Wednesday’s public comment period. “Instead of increasing the salaries of UC administrators, let’s make sure college is more affordable for all.”

    Francis Villanueva, an undergraduate student at UCLA, expressed concern that the tuition increase would impact the “most underserved, underprivileged, and marginalized” students across UC.

    “UC claims that the UC system is already cheaper than other institutions across the nation,” Villanueva added during Wednesday’s public comment period. “But in such a crucial time as this one where futures are on the line, how can the UC claim to care about students and making higher education affordable?”

    Brostrom, the UC chief financial officer, said he appreciates the students’ “passion” about the policy, but added that UC’s out-of-state students skew toward higher income brackets. Nonresident students aren’t eligible for Cal Grants, the financial aid awards available to California residents. Domestic out-of-state students can qualify for federal Pell Grants, but international students do not.





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  • Jonathan V. Last: MAHA Is a Fraud

    Jonathan V. Last: MAHA Is a Fraud


    Jonathan V. Last writes for and edits one of the liveliest and most informative sites on the Internet: The Bulwark. That is home base for a significant number of Republican Never Trumpers. In this post, he explains that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is not only unqualified in medical issues but his ignorance puts all of us in danger.

    America has never been healthier. Going backwards is going to mean more people getting sick and dying.

    (Composite / Photos: GettyImages / Shutterstock)

    1. The Past Sucked

    I had a great conversation with Your Local Epidemiologist, Katelyn Jetelina, yesterday. It’s here if you missed it.

    As she was explaining the state of play with measles outbreaks and falling vaccination rates, I asked her if there was any analog to this moment in the history of public health. She couldn’t think of one.

    What America’s new public health establishment—by which I don’t mean actual public health experts but their dilettante conspiracist bosses—is doing is choosing to move the country backwards. Less medical research, a pull-back on life-saving vaccines, turning away from science and embracing folk medicine.

    Our new health establishment is explicit about wanting to go backwards. It’s right there on the hat: Make America Healthy Again.

    Again.

    Meaning: America used to be “healthy” and now is not.

    I’m sorry, I know we’re supposed to meet people where they are and give them a loving truth sandwich, but this is the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever heard.

    Does anyone remember what “health” looked like in America a generation or two ago? Half the country smoked. People dropped dead at 50 on the reg. Child birth was dangerous. Seatbelts were suss. Drug use was off the charts.

    Dangerous communicable diseases were still around. Cancer was a death sentence. AIDS looked like an unstoppable tsunami.

    Food? Do remember what grocery stores looked like in 1980? Aisles of canned vegetables, processed foods, and frozen TV dinners. Fresh produce? Good luck. That section of the Acme was a shoebox.

    But that’s all anecdotal. Let’s look at the data. Because it shows—absolutely, unequivocally—that this is the healthiest period in American history.

    Let’s start with the dumbest possible metric: life expectancy.

    We’ve had a slight downtick in the last year or two largely driven by COVID. You know why a lot of people died from COVID? Because they refused to follow public health advice during the pandemic and then refused to get vaccinated once we had vaccines in hand. So it was precisely the MAHA idiocy that moved our life expectancy backward.

    Let’s zoom out and look at America compared to the rest of the developed world:

    You want to “Make America Healthy Again”? Get the fucking COVID vaccine like everyone else in the civilized world did.

    How about infant mortality? That’s another excellent marker of health in a society. Oh, look—it’s incredibly low: 5.61 deaths per 1,000 live births. This is up slightly from 2020 because, again, COVID. But it’s still a historic low.

    When do you think the golden, “healthy” past was? In 1980, the infant mortality rate was more than double what it is today (12.0). In 1960 it was more double that number (25.9).

    Real problems do exist. For instance: Access to healthcare for African-American women. The black infant mortality rate is double that of white Americans and the maternal mortality rate for African-American women has been rising sharply for a generation.

    These statistics are absolutely shameful. Yet you don’t hear a lot about them from the beef-tallow crowd, do you?

    How about infectious diseases? In 1900 half of all deaths in America were from communicable diseases. Through medical advances—especially vaccines—we got that number down to about 5 percent—until COVID. All by itself COVID accounted for 12 percent of all deaths in the United States in 2021.

    So again: If you want America to be healthy you’d do exactly the opposite of what the Trump administration is doing and urge everyone to get vaccinated.

    And while we’re talking about healthy habits: Americans don’t smoke like they used to.

    Also, forty years ago less than a fifth of people in cars used seatbelts. Today that number is well over 90 percent.

    2. The Big C

    Let’s talk about cancer. You ever feel like, “Man, people are getting cancer like crazy these days?”

    Here’s what happened. There was a huge spike in the incidence of cancer diagnoses from 1975 to 1995. Why? Two things.

    First, people were living longer and you have to die of something. Since people weren’t dying from polio, measles, and communicable diseases, they were living long enough to get cancer.

    Second, medical science developed more tools to detect cancer. Inventing effective tests and screenings means finding more incidences. Donald Trump knows this.

    So when you look at this graph the solid lines are cancer incidences. You see that they go up, and then down. But I want you to look at the dotted lines:

    The dotted lines are the cancer mortality rates. And what you see is that in the early 1990s, people started surviving cancer at higher rates even as the incidences of cancer increased. And from 1995 to 2000, as the cancer incidence rate peaked, the mortality rate fell off a cliff.

    Why?

    Because better tests = more cancer diagnoses = earlier interventions + therapeutic advances = much higher survival rates.

    The pattern we see with cancer incidence describes a lot of our health challenges today. Why do so many people get dementia or Alzheimer’s now? Because they’re surviving cancer and—again—something is going to get us eventually.

    Why so many autism diagnoses? Because 40 years ago doctors didn’t understand what they were seeing in kids who had ASD. Now they do. Once medical science understands what it’s looking at, you’re going to get more diagnoses. This isn’t hard to understand.

    Look: There are some things that have legitimately gotten worse over time. The incidence of Type 2 diabetes has increased dramatically since 1950. Some of this is linked to increasing obesity.

    What’s the answer? Diet and exercise, which you may recall Michelle Obama talking a lot about (and getting ridiculed by Republicans for her trouble). Semaglutide drugs show tremendous potential for helping curb obesity and reduce the incidence of diabetes.

    You may be surprised to hear that MAHA does not like this class of pharmaceuticals.

    So what’s going on here? Why does the “Make America Healthy Again” movement romanticize the health outcomes of the past (which were worse) and misunderstand the health outcomes of the present (which are significantly better along the most important vectors and continue to improve over time)?

    Why do people like RFK Jr. oppose medical practices that create better outcomes (vaccines; the Ozempic-class drugs)?

    I don’t know. Maybe you have a theory and can discuss it in the comments.

    But at the end of the day, the “why” doesn’t matter. What matters is the results. And the results are going to be bad.

    3. Worse Than Fraud

    Buildings used to catch on fire all the time in America. It was a serious problem. That’s why cities had as many fire stations as churches.

    Over time, we cut way down on the number of fires. We switched construction materials. We came up with safer mechanisms for delivering gas and electricity. We developed best-practices and enshrined them in building codes. The big thing was the invention of the sprinkler system.

    The result was that even as the total number of buildings in America kept growing, the annual number of structure fires kept going down. Dramatically.

    Imagine a movement that looked at this data and decided America didn’t need sprinkler systems anymore.

    Modern building costs are too high. There’s too much red tape. We spend billions on sprinkler systems every year that are never used. Let’s go back to the old ways. Make Buildings Great Again.

    After all, we don’t have to worry about fires anymore.

    The MAHA movement is like that. Except that while trying to get rid of sprinkler systems and building codes, they are also walking around carelessly tossing lit matches.

    These people aren’t just frauds. They’re arsonists. And right now they run the U.S. government, the CDC, the NIH, and the fire department, too.



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  • Shortage of teachers and classrooms slows expansion of arts education in Los Angeles and beyond

    Shortage of teachers and classrooms slows expansion of arts education in Los Angeles and beyond


    EdSource file photo courtesy of Oakland School for the Arts

    Raising the curtain on California’s landmark arts education initiative, funded by voter approval of Proposition 28 two years ago, has been a highly complex endeavor marked by a lack of arts educators, classroom space and free time in school schedules, according to a new report.

    These challenges are among the key issues schools must address to make Proposition 28’s ambitious vision of arts education a reality, according to a new report studying the impact of the groundbreaking statewide initiative on schools in the Los Angeles area. Passed by voters in 2022 by a wide margin, the measure sets aside roughly $1 billion a year toward TK-12 arts education programs statewide.

    “Given the historic nature of this investment in arts education, all eyes are on California and our schools, and so we want to make sure that we get it right,” said Ricky Abilez, director of policy and advocacy at Arts for LA, the arts advocacy organization that commissioned the report. “I also know that there are a lot of really tough challenges that schools are facing on the ground.”

    Accountability is among the most critical issues in building trust with families, according to this analysis, which focuses on 10 Los Angeles school districts. The report recommends creating a statewide oversight and advisory committee of administrators, teachers, families and community partners to make sure that arts education funds are properly spent. It also calls for subsidizing teacher credential programs to combat the teacher shortage.

    “We hear these resounding calls for transparency from our community members, but many district arts leaders also share those same interests and concerns,” said Lindsey Kunisaki, the Laura Zucker fellow for policy and research, who wrote the report. “They wanted to make sure that they’re putting their best foot forward with Prop 28 implementation, but they also had questions about their peers and neighboring districts and wanted to make sure that ultimately everyone is doing their best work and using these funds responsibly.”

    The need to build bridges between schools, communities and families is part of what drives that recommendation. Roughly 66% of respondents to the survey were uncertain whether Proposition 28 was being implemented in their school, according to the report.

    “One of the central insights of the report is the link between confidence in Prop 28’s success and public involvement,” said Kunisaki, a research and evaluation specialist at the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture’s visual and performing arts education program. “Respondents expressed less skepticism when they believed their communities were actively involved.”

    Arts education in schools can help foster a sense of social connection that has frayed in the wake of the pandemic, many experts suggest. The rub is that many community members express passion for arts education (89%) but have not yet gotten involved with their schools for a variety of reasons. Only 20% of respondents have been actively involved. 

    Districts with vibrant arts advisory councils make it easy to participate, Kunisaki notes, but other paths also exist.

    “If it isn’t clear how to get involved,” said Kunisaki, “then even just showing up at a school board meeting, getting to know the school site leaders, principals, that could be a great way to start the conversation.”

    Proposition 28 represents an attempt to bring arts education back into California schools after many decades of budget cuts eliminated many such programs. Before this influx of funding, only 11% of California schools offered comprehensive arts education, research suggests. Wealthier schools were far more likely to be able to fundraise enough to foot the bill for arts education.

    Spearheaded by former Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) Superintendent Austin Beutner, the measure is an attempt to give all students access to the arts, which has long been associated with everything from higher test scores to greater social-emotional learning.

    All the money must go to arts education, but that is very broadly defined. The disciplines include, but are not limited to, dance, media arts, music, theater and such visual arts as folk art, painting, sculpture, photography and animation. Film and video pursuits are also encouraged, from script writing to costume design. Each school community is invited to design the program to meet the needs of its students.

    The report also notes that some districts are falling behind others. While some districts quickly launched new arts ed programs, from music to dance, others are still in the planning phase, according to the report. Districts with preexisting arts councils and strategic arts plans have the upper hand. Proposition 28 funds are allocated based on enrollment, so larger schools get more money. Also, schools with more low-income students receive extra money.

    Uncertainty and confusion about the rules, heightened by a lack of clarity from the California Department of Education (CDE) on spending, have significantly complicated this process, the report suggests. 

    “One of the recommendations that I heard was basically for CDE to take more of a central leadership role,” said Kunisaki, “especially when it comes to oversight and accountability.”

    The long-standing teacher shortage also remains a critical obstacle. In 2022-23, California schools employed about 11,113 full-time arts teachers, primarily teaching music and visual arts. Another new Proposition 28 report, commissioned by the Hewlett Foundation’s Performing Arts Program and conducted by SRI Education, concluded that California must increase the arts teacher workforce by roughly 5,457 teachers to meet the new demand. Many experts estimate a much higher number.

    The need for greater transparency in the rollout of Proposition 28 is another key concern. At the core of Proposition 28 is the rule that funds are designed to supplement, and not supplant, existing funding, which means that you can’t use the new money to pay for old programs. Nevertheless, there have been reports of districts using the funds to pay for existing programs. Amid these allegations, State Superintendent Tony Thurmond issued a letter reminding superintendents of the law’s requirements.

    One potential fix, the study suggests, would be a statewide oversight committee charged with monitoring the rollout and settling disputes on key issues. 

    “There’s a real need for CDE to step in here, to create a more formal advisory and oversight committee, and most importantly, to include practitioners,” said Kunisaki.

    “That’s administrators at the district level, at the school site level, teachers, parents and guardians, families, students and community partners, because we know how important community involvement is.” 

    CDE has provided guidance in FAQs and webinars to help districts navigate the rules. Thurmond has also established a new task force to clarify the issues facing the field. It remains unclear whether the task force will provide the depth of oversight that many experts suggest is needed.

    “The California Department of Education commends the districts represented in this report who have approached Prop 28 implementation with urgency, care, and a commitment to expanding all students’ access to arts education,” said Elizabeth Sanders, spokesperson for the department. “Especially as California’s local educational agencies are still in the beginning of this implementation process, CDE will continue to provide guidance and technical assistance to support effective and robust implementation.”

    Beutner, the former LAUSD Superintendent who authored Proposition 28, is also calling on the department to hold districts accountable for how they spend the money. 

    “CDE needs to provide more leadership on the proper implementation of Prop 28,” said Beutner. “They’re understaffed to handle the implementation of a new law like this, but some of the confusion and misinterpretation that is happening is because CDE hasn’t been on top of this. CDE should be pursuing public enforcement action now against school districts that are alleged to have violated the law.”





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  • What to know about changes in STEM math placement at California community colleges

    What to know about changes in STEM math placement at California community colleges


    FERMIN LEAL/EDSOURCE TODAY

    Este artículo está disponible en Español. Léelo en español.

    The guidance for math placement at community colleges has changed since this article was written. For more current information, visit this article.

    If you’re a student at one of California’s community colleges and you plan to study a STEM field, you’ll typically have to pass calculus first before diving into many of the other required classes in physics, engineering, computer science, biology or chemistry. 

    A decade ago, you might have started college by taking algebra, trigonometry or precalculus class — or even a remedial class like prealgebra — before getting to calculus. But a body of research has suggested that having to complete a string of prerequisites before enrolling in calculus wasn’t working for many students and that too many never made it to calculus. That finding was bolstered by evidence showing that Black, Latino and Pell Grant students were overrepresented in community colleges’ remedial courses. 

    Two recent California laws try to address this problem. Assembly Bill 705 allows most students to skip all sorts of remedial classes in favor of full credit courses that can transfer to a four-year college; AB 1705 additionally requires colleges to place more STEM students directly into calculus rather than lower-level courses like precalculus or trigonometry.

    AB 1705 has sparked fervent opposition from some math educators, who worry that less-prepared students who skip traditional prerequisites will fail in calculus and abandon plans to study STEM. They’ve also voiced concern that students who want to take courses like trigonometry and precalculus will no longer be able to do so because the classes will be dropped by colleges. 

    But defenders say AB 1705, which math departments have until fall 2025 to implement, will prevent students from getting detoured or derailed by long course sequences.

    They note that colleges are swapping out the old prerequisite-heavy model of calculus for new calculus courses with extra support for students who need to learn concepts from algebra and trigonometry as they go. Colleges are also investing in tutoring. In addition, colleges have two years to develop revamped precalculus courses. 

    This guide seeks to answer some of the most common questions about what the law means for STEM students and how colleges plan to implement it. 

    What’s the problem AB 1705 is trying to solve?

    Community colleges regularly used to place students deemed to be underprepared in remedial classes that can’t be transferred to a four-year university. That started to change after AB 705 took effect in 2018. The Public Policy Institute of California found that between fall 2018 and 2022, the share of students starting in transfer-level math rose, as did the percentage of first-time math students completing such a course in one term.   

    Still, racial equity gaps persisted, with white students completing courses at higher rates than Black and Latino students. Advocates also worried that some community colleges were not implementing AB 705 correctly.  

    AB 1705 builds on AB 705. As a result of its passage, the state education code now requires U.S. high school graduates to begin community college in courses that meet a requirement of their intended major, though there is an exception if a college can prove a prerequisite course would benefit students. Colleges also have to provide extra help to students who want or need it, such as tutoring or concurrent support courses. 

    “Students should be aware that they have the right to access calculus and, if they want support while they’re in that course, that they’re entitled to get support,” said Jetaun Stevens, a senior staff attorney at the nonprofit law firm Public Advocates.

    What guidance has the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office provided colleges on implementing the law?

    All STEM students must be given the option to take STEM calculus starting on July 1, 2025, according to California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office guidance. 

    Only students who either had a high school GPA of 2.6 or less, or who did not pass high school trigonometry, precalculus or calculus with at least a C have the option to take preparatory courses for calculus. Traditionally, that would include courses like precalculus. 

    To comply with the law, the chancellor’s office says colleges can drop or redesign existing preparatory courses like precalculus. If they want to continue offering an existing preparatory course, they’ll need to get the chancellor’s office approval. Colleges must show a student is deemed “highly unlikely to succeed” in STEM calculus without the prep course and meet additional criteria.

    What’s the evidence in favor of overhauling the traditional STEM math prerequisites?

    Supporters of AB 1705 often point to studies that tracked how much better STEM students performed when they enrolled directly in calculus.

    RP Group, a nonprofit that conducts research on behalf of the California community college system, reported that students who started in STEM calculus completed the course in two years at higher rates than students who entered a preparatory course for calculus instead and then later tackled calculus, regardless of students’ high school math preparation. 

    Controlling for multiple factors, RP Group also reported that the probability of completing a first STEM calculus course was lower for students who started in a prerequisite as opposed to students who went straight into calculus.  

    AB 1705’s proponents also highlight Cuyamaca College as an early adopter. A brief by the California Acceleration Project, one of AB 1705’s backers, reports that 69% of Cuyamaca students who had not studied precalculus and also enrolled in a two-unit support course completed STEM calculus in one term, compared with 30% of students who completed precalculus and then calculus in two terms. Cuyamaca observed improved calculus rates across races; gaps between students of different races were also smaller.

    What are math professors’ concerns about AB 1705?

    Many math educators said they’re worried about STEM majors with the least math experience — such as students whose highest high school math course was algebra — enrolling directly into calculus. They fear that students will fail those courses at high rates, then drop out of their major or college altogether.

    “I feel like the state might just be giving up on those students, to be honest,” Rena Weiss, a math professor at Moorpark College said. “They’re wanting to be a STEM major, and they’re going to get put right into Calculus 1. I just can’t imagine a situation where that student would be successful.”

    Professors are also concerned about students who have been out of school for a long time. Students older than the age of traditional college-goers make up a large portion of the students at California’s community colleges.

    “To be dropped right into calculus, that’s a pretty significant heavy lift for many of those students,” said Wendy Brill-Wynkoop, president of the Faculty Association of California Community Colleges.

    Some faculty members also question the RP Group’s research. Both the statewide Academic Senate for the community college system and the academic senates of at least two colleges — Modesto Junior College and San Joaquin Delta College — have passed resolutions calling for a “comprehensive audit” of the data. The CSU Math Council, a forum for the chairs of the university system’s math and statistics departments, also passed a resolution calling for a peer review of research used to back AB 1705. 

    Can STEM students still take calculus prerequisite courses before taking calculus?

    Yes, in some cases, at least until 2027. 

    Students at several colleges will have the option to take reshaped, so-called “innovative preparatory courses,” which may include content from college algebra, trigonometry and precalculus.

    Since the chancellor’s office has not specified what those preparatory courses should include, there is likely to be a lot of variation across the system. At Modesto Junior College, faculty are developing a class that will include curriculum from all three traditional prerequisite courses, said Tina Akers-Porter, a math professor at the college.

    Weiss said Moorpark College’s redesigned precalculus course will follow a flipped model, in which students watch lecture videos and complete exercises at home, apply the material to activities in class and then practice the same concepts again after class. Streamlining is another approach; Ohlone College math professor Andy Bloom said colleagues are removing content from an existing precalculus course that students won’t need for their first calculus class.

    Colleges have until July 2027 to test out the newly revamped preparatory courses. Then, the chancellor’s office will assess the courses again to see if they meet student performance benchmarks.

    Weiss said she and her colleagues “decided that it was really important to have a precalculus option for students who need it.” 

    Beyond the new innovative preparatory courses, it’s unclear how many colleges will continue to offer prerequisite calculus classes for STEM majors. 

    Tim Melvin, a math professor at Santa Rosa Junior College, is hoping that students can still enroll in calculus prerequisites to get more prepared, even if they have to sign a form acknowledging that the courses aren’t required. “We want to give students more options,” he said. “No requirements, but options.”

    Brill-Wynkoop said the faculty association is in talks with some legislators and may push for additional legislation that would clarify that colleges can still give STEM majors the option of taking prerequisite classes, without requiring them. The association opposed AB 1705 when it was originally proposed.

    Chancellor’s office officials, however, would likely oppose such an effort. John Hetts, an executive vice chancellor for the office, said in an email that arguments in favor of giving students a choice are often used “to persuade students to take a slower path or to allow students to self-select into a slower path,” despite the potential for negative consequences.

    What are corequisite courses and how are colleges planning to implement them?

    Chancellor’s office guidance now says colleges should offer a corequisite course alongside and linked to the calculus class. The corequisite is an additional course of at most two units designed to integrate topics from areas like algebra and trigonometry into calculus. 

    The idea is that with extra course time, instructors can see where students are struggling and offer extra help. 

    Colleges including Chaffey College and Sierra College, for example, now plan to link together corequisite and calculus courses explicitly. Students would sign up for a corequisite scheduled immediately before or after their calculus course. The two courses would feel to students like a longer, continuous course — one that gives their professors time to review or introduce skills students might have missed. 

    Melvin, at Santa Rosa, said his department is developing a seven-unit calculus class with corequisite support for next fall, which will take up more than half of a given student’s course load. 

    “But for students that maybe need precalculus and a little algebra help, we definitely think it’s going to be effective,” Melvin said.

    How are some early calculus corequisite courses going so far?

    There are mixed opinions at colleges that already allow STEM students who have not taken precalculus to enroll in calculus courses with a corequisite.

    Southwestern College math professors Kimberly Eclar and Karen Cliffe said that in fall 2023, the campus opened a calculus course with a two-unit support course for students who had not taken precalculus, offering students additional tutoring and non-credit refresher material, too. They were troubled by the results: Of the students who had not taken precalculus, less than 5% passed the class in its first semester.

    Some students who do pass calculus without having taken precalculus at college turn out to have learned precalculus while attending high school outside the U.S., Eclar and Cliffe added.

    Ohlone College is also allowing students who haven’t taken precalculus to enroll directly in calculus with corequisite courses. 

    “I’m not seeing this huge underperformance of my students this semester compared to last semester,” said Bloom, who has presented about STEM calculus support at an RP Group conference.

    Bloom said that though some students have dropped the course, there are also positive indicators, including that the average score on the first test of the semester exceeded last year’s average. 

    What other changes are math departments planning alongside AB 1705?  

    Professors said their campuses are experimenting with technology (like guiding students on how to use AI or using homework software that gauges students’ math skills as they answer questions) and different approaches to testing (like allowing students to retake tests or to choose which questions to answer). Others said they’re aiming to create smaller class sizes, use embedded tutors and tailor calculus courses to meet the needs of life sciences students. 





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  • Lead levels in California schools’ drinking water

    Lead levels in California schools’ drinking water


    This map draws on data collected from the California State Water Resources Control Board (from Jan. 1, 2017 to Sept. 24, 2020) and several districts that conducted their own water testing after 2020, including San Bruno Park Elementary in San Mateo (from Oct. 28, 2022 to July 21, 2023), La Mesa-Spring Valley in San Diego (from Sept. 12, 2023 to Oct. 17, 2023)，Castro Valley Unified in Alameda (from Nov. 13-17, 2023), Encinitas Union Elementary in San Diego (from April 12-26, 2023)，Oakland Unified in Alameda (from March 2022 to September 2024), San Francisco Unified (from May 7, 2022 to Nov. 11, 2023).
    Compared to the map EdSource published in 2018, this map has added active lead levels at school sites as well as the number of fixtures that have been tested. California law requires schools to take action if lead levels in their drinking water exceed 15 parts per billion (ppb). Data is updated as of June 27, 2024.

    Note: Some of the data records may not be updated regularly on school district websites. To confirm results of lead testing, please contact your local school directly. 





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  • John Thompson: Oklahoma Has Its Own DOGE, Just as Destructive as Elon’s

    John Thompson: Oklahoma Has Its Own DOGE, Just as Destructive as Elon’s


    After Trump introduced Elon Musk and his so-called “Department of Government Efficiency,” several Republican-controlled states created their own DOGE operations. Like the one Musk launched, these were non-governmental, unelected, unaccountable cost-cutters, set loose to apply a chainsaw to state government.

    John Thompson reports on what happened in Oklahoma.

    CBS’s Sixty Minutes recently reported on the danger of H5N1 bird flu spinning out of control. It cited Dr. Kamran Khan who explained why “We are really at risk of this virus evolving into one that has pandemic potential.” Another expert agreed that “this flu could make Covid look like a walk in the park.”

    This frightening reporting comes as the DOGE–OK seeks to cut nearly $150 million for programs that provide immunization services, pathogens surveillance, and emerging infectious diseases prevention, and provide Epidemiology and Laboratory Capacity for Prevention of Control of Emerging Infectious Diseases.

    And this is only one reason for looking into the DOGE–OK process.

    Anyone paying attention to Elon Musk’s leadership of the Trump administration’s DOGE campaign to cut federal programs has reason the fear the DOGE campaigns launched in 26 states. After all, as the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) explains, when Governor Kevin Stitt opened Oklahoma’s DOGE-OK, he called for a reduction in our personal income and corporate tax rates, thus making the state’s tax code even more regressive.

    The EPI further explained that Stitt selected Marc Nuttle, “who was the ‘chief strategist’ behind Oklahoma’s 2001 so-called right-to-work referendum—a policy designed to disempower workers and lower wages (and contrary to proponents’ claims, it did not bolster job growth in the state).” The executive order empowered Nuttle to lead efforts of a newly formed agency to study the state budget.

    Moreover, the EPI explains:

    DOGE-OK is itself duplicative since the Office of the State Auditor and Inspector is constitutionally mandated to “examine the state and all county treasurers’ books, accounts, and cash on hand, stipulating that [the office] shall perform other duties as may be prescribed by law.” Similar to DOGE-OK, the auditor reviews staffing levels, assesses state spending, and issues public reports to promote transparency.

    The DOGE-OK report now explains:

    Once DOGE-OK ideas are received, they are analyzed and vetted with the appropriate group. If validated, ideas are added to the DOGE-OK website. 

    But, when I studied the report, I found no sign of hard evidence to back its claims. For instance, they didn’t explain their methodology, and offered no cost/benefit analyses. DOGE didn’t explain what “groups” it considered to be “appropriate,” and what data was used to analyze and vet, and validate their ideas.  

    Since the first DOGE headlines focused on $157 million in supposedly “wasteful health grants” by the federal government, I focused on Medicaid and Department of Health cuts.

    These proposed cuts are especially disturbing because, as Shiloh Kantz, the executive director of the nonpartisan Oklahoma Policy Institute, explained, “Oklahoma already ranks among the worst in health outcomes.”

    First, DOGE-OK claimed that $60 million per year would be saved if the state, not the federal government, performed eligibility checks on children. And, they cited two drugs that received accelerated approval without working, costing $42 million. But, they did not mention the number and the benefits of the other drugs, like the Covid vaccine, that received accelerated approval.

    Also, DOGE-OK inexplicably said that easing the prescription drug cost cap would improve prices. And they recommended repeal of staffing requirements for Long-Term Care facilities in order to save $76 million annually, without mentioning harm to elderly patients due to under-staffing.

    DOGE-OK also said that three Oklahoma State Department of Health programs should be cut by almost $150 million because their funding exceeded the amount necessary.  As already mentioned, in the wake of Covid pandemic, and as measles and bird flu spread, these programs provide immunization services, pathogens surveillance, and emerging infectious diseases prevention, etc. So, how did DOGE reach the conclusion that the full funding of those programs is no longer necessary?  

    Then, DOGE-OK said that 7 programs should have cuts because of “duplication,” with partners doing the same or similar work. They said $2.2 million would be saved by getting rid of the team efforts necessary to improve health.

    And Sex Education should be cut by $236,000 because of its low Return on Investment.

    Again, I saw no evidence behind their recommendations for $157,606,300 in overall health care reductions. Neither did they address financial costs of implementing their ideas. And, there is no evidence that DOGE seriously considered the costs in terms of the lives that would be damaged or lost.

    Given the history of the Trump/Musk DOGE, none of the DOGE–OK should be a surprise. When Gov. Stitt selected Nuttle, a true-believer in Milton Friedman, to run the project, Stitt said, “With his help, we’ll leave state government leaner than we found it.”

    Is that the proper way to launch a supposedly balanced and evidence-driven investigation of such complex and crucial policy approaches?

    Stitt’s news release previewed Nuttle’s methodology: “use his knowledge of the inner workings of government to comb through agency budgets, legislative appropriations, and contracts.”

    So, to paraphrase the DOGE-OK report’s description of its methodology, its proposals would be “analyzed and vetted” by what they see as the “appropriate group.”

    In other words, Oklahomans were never promised an open, balanced, evidence-based DOGE process for making our state better. But the same is also true for Musk’s federal DOGE chainsaw.



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  • Oakland Unified wrestles with lead in water. Most California schools are in the dark

    Oakland Unified wrestles with lead in water. Most California schools are in the dark


    Oakland students rally for lead-free drinking water in their schools in front of city hall Monday, Sept. 30, 2024.

    Monica Velez

    Este artículo está disponible en Español. Léelo en español.

    Oakland student Hannah Lau said she only discovered there were elevated lead levels in her school’s drinking water this year through her teacher. There wasn’t an announcement from the principal, nor was there an assembly to notify students.

    “I was really shocked and scared,” the 13-year-old said. “How long have we been drinking this water? Is it really bad? Is it in my body? How poisoned am I?”

    The Oakland Unified School District is one of the few districts in California that has continued to test lead levels in drinking water years after it was no longer required by state law. In 2017, an extension to the existing law (AB-746), also known as the California Safe Drinking Water Act, required districts to sample water from at least five faucets in every school and report the findings to the state by July 1, 2019.  State funding for lead testing ended after the deadline.

    The law resulted in school districts getting a snapshot of lead contamination in their drinking water at that time. But because of the one-time requirement that districts test only a small sample of faucets, and exemptions for charter and private schools, there are no statewide records that offer an accurate representation of lead presence in California schools currently.

    Seven years after the law went into effect, school districts and communities, including Oakland, are still grappling with how to keep lead out of drinking water.

    “We know there’s lead in the plumbing, and even if it is a low value (of lead concentration), we know it’s persistent,” said Elin Betanzo, a national drinking water expert and founder of Safe Water Engineering. “If a kid is drinking water every day at school, that lead is always there. That lead can get into any glass. The studies show that the low-level exposures have a disproportionately high impact on the brain.”

    An EdSource analysis of school district data of lead concentrations in Oakland Unified water in 2019 and 2024 shows many inconsistencies. In some cases, the same water fixtures that were tested both years yielded completely different results, with lead concentrations below the state’s threshold of 15 parts per billion (ppb) in 2019, and in 2024, some fixtures reached triple digits. 

    “We know that this happens,” Betanzo said. “We have extensive records of data that if you sample the same tap at a school you can get a low value that would appear safe one day and could get an extremely high, concerning level the next day.”

    Lincoln Elementary School, between downtown Oakland and Lake Merritt, had some of the highest levels of lead in Oakland Unified after the district tested there earlier this year. 

    A drinking fountain at Lincoln with the highest lead concentration tested at 930 ppb in June. That same fountain was tested in 2019 at 2.1 ppb, which is under the state and district threshold for safe water. The Safe Drinking Water Act only required faucets that tested above 15 ppb to be fixed. However, Oakland Unified adopted a stricter policy in 2018 that says if levels are higher than 5 ppb, the issue requires remediation.

    California’s lead action level was set at 15 ppb following the recommendation of the Environmental Protection Agency’s lead and copper rule. On Oct. 8, less than a month before the Nov. 5 election, that limit was lowered to 10 ppb by the Biden administration to ensure that drinking water is safe throughout the country. Some states, but not California, had already adopted lower limits prior to the change.

    Without the district’s follow-up testing in 2024, Oakland Unified officials wouldn’t have discovered the faucet that was once deemed safe is dangerous. It’s not an isolated incident. Another drinking fountain at Lincoln tested 3.3 ppb in 2019 and in June tested at 410 ppb. 

    “This happened in my children’s elementary school,” Betanzo said. “So it does happen. It is normal. We know all about it. And yet the requirements that states have put together for school drinking water don’t acknowledge the science of this.”

    The release of lead in water is sporadic, and testing results from the same fixtures are often inconsistent, Betanzo said. 

    “Schools have been doing these one-time samples, and if they get a low sample (value), they say, ‘Hey, the water is safe,’” Betanzo said. “And that’s not true. We have lead throughout our plumbing,” referring to school districts in general.

    In schools, water doesn’t run for long periods on weekends and during breaks, Betanzo said, and it doesn’t allow the corrosion control that is more common in houses. There needs to be a constant turnover of water for corrosion control to work, she said. 

    Faucets with elevated lead levels have been taken out of service, according to Oakland Unified spokesperson John Sasaki. Often, the faucets are fixed by replacing filters and are retested before they are back in service. 

    “With regard to inconsistencies between lead levels found in 2019 … and now, our estimation is that because most of our schools are relatively old, and the features including the plumbing are old, there has been degradation of some aspects of the systems since 2018, which has led to the elevated levels we have recently found,” Sasaki said in an emailed statement.

    The inconsistencies in lead samplings aren’t unique to Lincoln. Similar examples occurred in Edna Brewer Middle School, Cleveland Elementary, Crocker Highlands Elementary, Horace Mann Elementary, Bella Vista Elementary, and Fruitvale Elementary. The lead levels recorded in 2019 were all either under 5 ppb or 15 ppb at all of these schools and higher in 2024.

    “It’s terrifying at a personal level,” Oakland parent Nate Landry said. “It’s terrifying at a collective level.”

    Failures of the Safe Drinking Water Act

    The state’s drinking water law didn’t require districts to do follow-up testing, which is part of the reason schools that haven’t tested lead levels since 2019 have no way of knowing if students and staff are still being exposed to elevated lead levels in drinking water. 

    The law exempted thousands of private and charter schools on private property from testing for lead levels. Not every faucet or drinking fountain was required to be tested. And schools that were built after 2010 were also not required to test lead levels.

    California has more than 10,000 public schools, including about 1,300 charters, and it’s possible thousands of fixtures have yet to be tested for lead. 

    State law required faucets — not valves — to be changed in fountains with lead levels exceeding 15 ppb, said Kurt Souza, an enforcement coordinator for the division of drinking water at the State Water Resources Control Board, which could be why lead levels were inconsistent between 2019 and 2024. Valves are used to control the water flow and are usually placed under the sink.

    “Never change out an old faucet without changing the valves,” Souza advised.

    Critics of the state drinking water act have said the 15 ppb limit for lead in drinking water was too lenient. Some school districts, including Oakland, have set lower limits. 

    According to the EPA’s website, “There is no safe level of lead exposure. In drinking water, the primary source of lead is from pipes, which can present a risk to the health of children and adults.”

    The EPA has also said the 15 ppb level is not a measure of public health protection, Betanzo said. 

    “15 ppb was selected as an engineering metric,” said Betanzo, who formerly worked at the EPA. “It is an indicator of corrosion control effectiveness. So, if a water system looks at the 90th percentile of its sampling results, and it’s greater than 15 parts per billion, it tells them they have an out-of-control corrosion situation that needs to be addressed.”

    Other districts that have tested for lead levels after 2019 include San Francisco Unified, San Diego Unified, Laguna Beach Unified, Castro Valley Unified, Encinitas Union Elementary, La Mesa Spring-Valley, and San Bruno Park Elementary.

    “Did you find every spot that has a high lead? Probably not,” said Souza. “Some schools probably had a hundred faucets and then we only sampled five of them. I thought it was a really good start, and it showed some schools had problems, which then did more samples and, and did more things to it.”

    There’s currently no directive under the state or the federal Environmental Protection Agency to test lead levels in school drinking water, said Wes Stieringer-Sisneros, a senior environmental scientist for the drinking water division at the State Water Resource Control Board. 

    Since the state requirements for lead testing ended, there have been efforts to pass state legislation that would have required follow-up testing, AB-249, but Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed the bill in 2023. The following year, another bill, AB 1851, which would have created a pilot testing program, was introduced but held in the Senate Appropriations Committee.

    “It was another blow,” said Colleen Corrigan, health policy associate for Children Now, a statewide research and advocacy organization that co-sponsored both bills. “We hope that Proposition 2 will pass, and we really want to make sure that that distribution of money is equitable and accessible.”

    Voters passed Proposition 2 on Nov. 5, and that will provide, among other things school-related, up to $115 million to remove lead from drinking water in schools.

    How Oakland is getting the lead out

    Although Oakland district officials have made progress in repairing faucets since the most recent testing results in the spring, some people have lost trust and confidence in the district. 

    Shock waves burst through the Oakland community at the start of the school year when educators, parents, and students discovered the district was withholding testing results that showed elevated levels of lead in water in dozens of schools. Some lead testing results were available in April and families didn’t start to receive notices until August.

    “The scope of their (Oakland Unified) failure to communicate pretty crucial public health information was shocking,” parent Landry said. 

    District officials did acknowledge they did not properly communicate with families about elevated lead levels. 

    During a rally in front of Oakland City Hall last month, parents, students, educators and community organizers urged the school board and City Council to do more to get the lead out of school drinking water, even though the district is already doing more than most.

    The Get the Lead Out of OUSD coalition, which includes the Oakland teachers union and other community partners, has a list of demands, the first being instating a new, highly ambitious threshold of lead levels of zero parts per billion. Other demands include testing all water sources at Oakland schools immediately and annually, testing all playgrounds, gardens and outdoor areas, facilitating free blood testing for students, teachers and community members, and completing infrastructure repairs.

    District officials also said they will continue to do more lead testing through the end of the year and promise more transparency.

    “We have instituted improved protocols to ensure we are more transparent and more consistent in our communication with our families and staff,” a statement said. “We will inform you before any testing begins at your school.”

    A priority has been to install more FloWater machines, which are filtered refillable water stations, the statement said. Most schools have at least two, and 60 additional machines were installed this school year. The district plans to install 88 more.

    Lau said she and her classmates were given reusable water bottles and told to only drink from purification water stations or bottled water. If a student forgets to bring a water bottle to school, there are extras, but not always, she said. The last resort is asking a friend for a drink from their water bottle or purchasing bottled water.

    “Please fix this issue,” Lau said. “I don’t want to be drinking lead. I don’t want lead anywhere near me. I want to be safe; I want to grow up safe.”





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