“I am an immigrant, and I didn’t come here to do anything bad,” Mejias said. “They think that anybody who comes here, that is not from the U.S., has bad intentions. People don’t immigrate just because they want to leave their country. They immigrate because they want to change their future. They want to work and have a different life.”
Mejias’ goal is to transfer to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo following the completion of the required computer science transfer courses at Saddleback College. Then Mejias wants to find remote work and return home to Venezuela.
“I really miss my country, my people,” Mejias said. “I will see if I come back,” he added, because the changing social climate and attitude toward immigration in the U.S. has contributed to Mejias’ hesitation about a future visit to the states.
He also feels more comfortable in California. “I’ve been to different states, and there you see people (who are possessive of) their territory. They carry guns and everything. I’m like, ‘Oh, I am going back to California,’” Mejias said. “I think because I am here in California, I feel way way more safe than being in any part of the U.S.”
This interactive map shows kindergartners’ vaccination rates at more than 6,000 public and private schools across California. According to the state health department, at least 95% of students need the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine to maintain herd immunity and prevent outbreaks. Yet in many parts of the state — including areas around Sacramento, Oakland, the Central Valley, and Los Angeles — vaccination rates fall short of that threshold, raising concerns about community vulnerability.
Data source: California Department of Public Health and EdSource Analysis
Sixteen California counties have fallen below the herd immunity marker against measles, one of the world’s most contagious diseases, amid a sprawling outbreak.
A rise in vaccine skepticism stemming from pandemic discord, experts warn, may be driving the decline.
School nurses and doctors are often on the front lines of battle to explain the need to immunize against once-controlled diseases.
Before the pandemic, Lillian Lopez never questioned the safety of vaccines. That’s why all her children are up to date on their immunizations. The Bakersfield mother of three used to be religious about getting her flu shot. She never missed a year.
No more. Lopez, 45, took offense at how Covid-19 vaccine mandates and restrictions were enforced. The experience gave her pause about the integrity of the entire public health apparatus. Now, she questions every shot.
“I do have doubts, I don’t have the trust that I did in the past,” said Lopez, who also feels safer from infectious diseases in Kern County than in a more populous area. “I think it put fear in a lot of people. All this time, we’ve been trusting the CDC, the health organizations, but can we really trust them?”
Against the backdrop of this rise in vaccine skepticism, California reported a drop in the rate of kindergartnersimmunized against measles last year, fueling fears that there may be a resurgence of the once-vanquished disease amid the deadly outbreak in West Texas. One of the world’s most infectious diseases, measles can be spread by breathing in air exhaled by someone else. While there have only been nine cases reported in California thus far, Texas is now the epicenter of a spiraling outbreak with 712 cases,including the first deaths linked to the disease in a decade.
“It’s tragic,” said Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease expert at UCSF. “This is not a disease you want your child or you to get. This can be very dangerous. So, it is terribly important for us to combat vaccine skepticism right now.”
While California’s childhood immunization rates are still high compared with the rest of the nation, 16 counties have fallen below the threshold for herd immunity against measles, according to the California Department of Public Health. Last year, 96.2% of California kindergartners and transitional kindergartners were vaccinated against measles in the 2023-24 school year, down from 96.5% the year before. Only 93.7% of kindergarten students were up to date on all their immunizations, down from 94.1% the year before.
Holding the line on herd immunity is key to preventing the disease from sweeping through a community, experts say. This widespread protection also shields those who may not be able to get vaccinated for health reasons. This is key because while measles is most commonly associated with fever and rash, severe cases have been known to cause pneumonia and encephalitis. The disease can be lethal, killing about one to three people for every 1,000 infected.
Amid that context, nearly two-thirds of counties reported immunization rates for all childhood diseases below 95%, the rule of thumb for herd immunity, according to the California Department of Public Health.
Working with parents who deeply mistrust the safety of routine immunizations has become one of the most challenging parts of running a school vaccination clinic.
“Within this political landscape, there are some people who are hesitant,” said Susan Sivils, lead nurse for the Sacramento City Unified vaccination clinic. “Some worry that the vaccines are not safe. They don’t trust what’s in it, or they don’t trust where it was manufactured.”
Many of the lowest immunization rates can be found in Northern California, largely clustered around the Sacramento area, but Southern California has hot spots as well. Less than 81% of kindergarten and transitional kindergarten (TK) students were inoculated against measles in El Dorado and Glenn counties. Sutter County posted the lowest vaccination rate for measles, at 75.8%.
Another key trend is that charter schools had lower vaccination rates than traditional public schools, 76.41% compared with 92.07%, for measles last year. While they require routine childhood shots, experts say charter schools operate under strict admission and disenrollment laws that can make it hard to enforce the rules.
“These prohibitions make it very difficult for charter school staff to administer the vaccination mandate,” said Eric Premack, founder and CEO of the Charter Schools Development Center in Sacramento.
The bottom line is that consensus about vaccinations can no longer be taken for granted. To calm any fears, Sivils always hears parents out. While most are still comfortable with vaccines, one mother felt terrified that the shots would poison her child.
“I try to meet parents where they are,” said Sivils. “They are fearful, they are worried, they are upset, but, at the heart of it, they are trying to protect their family and do what’s best for their child.”
Declining trust in public health institutions has emerged as a watershed issue, experts say, as Covid-era controversies have sown seeds of doubt about the validity of science in general and vaccines in particular.
“The public health establishment during the pandemic said many things that didn’t turn out to be true,” as newly sworn-in National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine at Stanford, has put it. “A much larger set of people who never previously thought twice about vaccinating their children are now in a position where they say, ‘Look, I don’t trust you guys anymore.’”
The cost of that inconsistency may be credibility now, Gandhi says, explaining why the anti-vaccine movement seems to be accelerating just as one of the nation’s most prominent vaccine skeptics, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., takes the helm of the Department of Health and Human Services. Families who learned to distrust guidance around the need for prolonged school closures and shuttered playgrounds, for instance, may now avoid vaccines altogether, often preferring home remedies.
“We had the most political response of any country, and that kind of political decision-making, as opposed to scientific decision-making, was noticed by the public,” said Gandhi, an expert in epidemics. “And then suddenly you don’t trust your public health official when they say the measles vaccine works, which by the way, it does.”
Indeed, some measles patients in Texas have shown signs of vitamin A toxicity. Notably, Kennedy had championed vitamin A to prevent measles, before reversing course to endorse the MMR vaccine, but overuse of the vitamin may have health consequences, such as abnormal liver function, and experts say there is no evidence it can protect against measles.
However, there is a grain of truth to the vitamin A advice, Gandhi notes. In the past, vitamin A deficiency did lead to more severe cases of measles, but today most people get a sufficient dose in their diet.
“You have to address that kernel of truth,” said Gandhi. “You have to say what happened with vitamin A historically, but now there’s no way we’re going to vitamin A our way out of this measles outbreak in West Texas.”
Sarginoor Kaur, 7, gets the COVID-19 vaccine from nurse Chelsea Meyer at Arleta High School in November 2021. Credit: Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times / Polaris
Sivils agrees that hearing people out is key. Citing evidence rarely seems to work at her clinic, but building a sense of trust often does.
“You have to respect people as parents, respect them as individuals,” said Sivils. “I make sure they know that I wouldn’t be doing this job if I didn’t believe I was helping people, but, at the end of the day, I allow parents to make their choice.”
Some families don’t approve of vaccines but get them anyway, so that their children can attend school, she says. Some spread the shots out over extra visits for fear of overloading their child’s immune system. Some research the ingredients in a vaccine before agreeing to it. Others decide to forgo vaccinations entirely and homeschool their children instead.
“You can’t railroad people,” she said. “I don’t try to persuade them. I just lay out all the options and let them make a decision.”
In Kern County, the measles immunization rate among kindergartners was almost 91%, below the herd immunity marker.
Lopez, for one, has no qualms about long-established vaccines such as measles, but she believes that people should always have the right to choose. She feels that right was trampled during the pandemic, and the affront still stings.
“When the vaccines were really being forced and people’s livelihoods were being threatened, I don’t agree with that,” said Lopez. “To me, that’s unethical, it’s an abuse of power.”
Given the ease of transmission with measles, which lingers in the air, some education experts worry what may happen to classrooms, where children often huddle together in tight spaces, should vaccination rates continue to fall. Whooping cough cases are also spiking now. Two infants in Louisiana are among the recent deaths caused by the resurgence of that disease.
“Our top job is to keep children safe,” said Scott Moore, head of Kidango, a nonprofit that runs many Bay Area child care centers. “The disruptions to child care, which would need to close temporarily every time a measles case occurred, would cause chaos for families and their employers.”
Deep partisan divides, experts warn, are leading families to extreme responses that may have extreme consequences.
“Our politics have become so divisive,” said Moore, “that what was once largely accepted as common sense — vaccination against deadly, infectious diseases — is now used to divide and conquer, with little children, once again, being the biggest losers.”
A California Indian Nations College flag inside the college’s classroom at College of the Desert’s Palm Springs campus.
Michael Burke/EdSource
After operating for the last six years as an affiliate of a nearby community college, California Indian Nations College(CINC) appears likelyto become the state’s only standalone, fully accredited tribal college. It’s something education experts say would be a boon for Native American students who now start and complete college at lower rates than other ethnic groups.
But first, money has to be found to ensure the college can survive, let alone expand and build its own campus.
A two-year and mostly online institution based in the Coachella Valley in Riverside County, the college achieved a big step forward toward its goals recently. It got preliminary approval for accreditation, allowing it to independently offer classes and transferable credits and distribute financial aid. The college expects to have full accreditation within the next year.
The college opened its doors in fall 2018 as an extension of UC Riverside for one semester. Since 2019, its degrees have been awarded via a partnership with College of the Desert. Students dually enroll at both campuses, though starting next semester students will be able to enroll solely at CINC and still get an accredited degree.
College of the Desert also provides classroom space for the tribal college at its temporary Palm Springs campus, made up of a set of trailers. Inside the tribal college’s classroom trailer, visitors can find Native crafts such as dream catchers, fliers with information about transferring to four-year colleges and even a makeshift basic needs center — a filing cabinet with dry food.
College of the Desert’s temporary Palm Springs campus, where California Indian Nations College has a classroom.Michael Burke/EdSource
CINC enrolls about 150 students and is planning for many more, but it faces an uncertain future even if it achieves full accreditation.It is running low on money and is asking the state for a $60 million infusion in this year’s budget: $50 million to build its own campus and another $10 million in annual funding for operational costs.
Officials say the money is necessary for the college to growlong term and offer a culturally relevant education to Native students who often distrust the U.S. education system. That distrust dates back to the 19th century, when the government began to forcibly send Native children to boarding schools intended to assimilate them, a practice that didn’t end until the late 1960s.
“There’s so many of us here who feel a void and think, ‘Who are we?’ So having an institution that’s empowering and teaching us the truth about who we are is really important,” said Mayra Grajeda Nelson, who graduated last year from CINC with an associate degree in sociology and another in social and behavioral sciences. Originally from Banning, Grajeda Nelson now works as a health educator for the Indian Health Council in northern San Diego County.
The college is not a typical community college governed by the state’s board of governors; instead, even with state funding, it would remain chartered by the Twenty-Nine Palms Band of Mission Indians, a federally recognized tribe in Southern California.
It would be the only accredited tribal college in the state but not the first. D-Q University operated in Davis from the early 1970s until closing in 2005 after losing accreditation and eligibility for $1 million in federal funding. Across the country, there are more than 30 accredited tribal colleges and universities, spread out across the Southwest, Midwest and other regions. The first tribally controlled college, Diné College in Arizona, was established in 1968 and still operates.
California has the largest Native population of any state, with a concentration of tribes in the desert regions of Riverside County. Yet, American Indian or Alaska Native individuals have the lowest college-going rate of any racial or ethnic group in the state, according to a report published in December by the California Indian Culture and Sovereignty Center at Cal State San Marcos.
“But if you look at American Indian students who go to tribal colleges or universities, they’re four times more likely to earn their bachelor’s degree,” said Shawn Ragan, CINC’s chief operations officer.
In a recent report following a campus visit, the accrediting commission praised the tribal college for providing “culturally sensitive, academically rigorous” courses and degrees that incorporate Native American culture and for “fostering an environment where both Indigenous and non-Native students can thrive.”The report found that CINC has “solid financial planning in place for the short-range” and noted that the college is still figuring out its long-term funding planning. Otherwise, the commission found only minor problems that college leaders say will be easy to address, such as requiring the college’s board of trustees to undergo a self-evaluation.
California lawmakers, though, have not committed to providing funding this year for CINC, and no funding was included in Gov. Gavin Newsom’s January budget proposal.
Assemblymember David Alvarez, chair of the state Assembly’s budget subcommittee on education, said in an interview that he’s supportive of the tribal college and that there is “room for conversation” about funding. But he acknowledged that the timing is not ideal: California’s public universities are facing budget cuts, and it could be difficult to find money for new spending.
To date, the state has given CINC $5 million — a one-time funding allocation in 2022 to help the college apply for accreditation.
Now that the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges has awarded the college candidacy status, CINC can also apply for federal funding, but that too is an uncertainty under the Trump administration. President Donald Trump recently rescinded a White House initiative aimed at strengthening tribal colleges. His proposed federal funding freeze, currently blocked by the courts, would also prevent the colleges from getting federal grants and contracts.The Trump administration’s hostility to any programs promoting racial diversity could also have a chilling effect and make it harder for those colleges to secure funding.
CINC previously received $9 million in seed money from the Twenty-Nine Palms Band of Mission Indians. Most of that has been spent, and the college is now surviving off its reserves, which should last for at least the next year.
Open to both Native and non-Native students, the college mostly uses part-time faculty and offers associate degrees in sociology and liberal arts. Students in the liberal arts program can pick one of three concentrations: arts and humanities, business and technology or social and behavioral sciences.
Students at California Indian Nations College’s 2024 graduation ceremonyCourtesy of California Indian Nations College
In addition to courses specific to their major, students are required to take general education classes as well as six units for a Native American breadth requirement. For that requirement, they choose between courses such as Native American literature, Native performing arts and Native languages.
Most classes are online, but the college often holds in-person events, including cultural workshops like basket weaving. There are also talking circles, an Indigenous practice similar to group therapy. Many of the events are led by Kim Marcus, the college’s Elder in Residence and an enrolled Tribal Elder with the Santa Rosa Band of Cahuilla Indians.
Grajeda Nelson, the recent graduate, enrolled at CINC in 2023, more than a decade after first enrolling in college atCrafton Hills College in Yucaipa. She also attended Mount San Jacinto College, but didn’t receive a degree from either institution.
With some credits carrying over from her previous stops, she was able to finish two associate degrees within one year at CINC. During that time, she found the talking circles especially helpful to share her past challenges and get support from people with similar experiences.
“That’s how the Native community is. There’s that closeness and support because we’re all kind of dealing with very similar challenges, especially with intergenerational trauma, substance usage, depression, poverty,” she said. “So having that space gives us time to process those emotions so we don’t have to walk away and feel that grief.”
Kristina Glass, whose family is part of the Cherokee Nation, did make it to and through a non-tribal college, having graduated from Cal State Long Beach in 2014 with a bachelor’s degree in psychology.
In debt and laid off from her job as a graphic designer, Glass last year decided to return to college. She’s pursuing an associate degree in Spanish language from College of the Desert and has been taking general education classes at CINC, including Native American literature.
As a student at Cal State Long Beach, Glass said she felt isolated because she didn’t meet any other Native students. Her experience at CINC has been much better. Just hearing Native American blessings, performed before events on campus, regularly brings her to tears. “It’s special, because you feel that connection to this land and these people,” she said.
Faculty try to incorporate elements of Native culture into the curriculum, even in courses that aren’t part of the Native breadth requirement. Roseanne Rosenthal, an anthropology professor, instructs students to learn about the history of their tribes from elders in their communities.
“Having students going back and bringing that knowledge into the classroom, I think is great,” said Rosenthal, the college’s only full-time faculty member.
If the college can secure more funding, officials plan to add additional full-time faculty and new associate degrees including in business, engineering and food sovereignty.
At the top of their wish list, though, is their own campus, which would take a few years to build. In the meantime, the college will continue to use the College of the Desert facility and UC Riverside’s Palm Desert campus, where CINC’s administration is housed.
Ragan said the college is still looking at potential sites for a permanent campus but expects to stay in Riverside County. He said having a campus would “enable students to come together and build community” by having more in-person events and classes and would allow the college to offer more vocational training.
He added that the college is looking into additional funding possibilities, such as from other tribes, but said the state “is the best option right now.”
“What we’re asking for, it’s not a large amount. So ideally we’ll have some wiggle room and can get us added to the budget,” he said. “California has a tremendous need for tribal colleges. What we’re doing is historic and is going to change lives.”
An elementary student reads a book to himself during class.
Credit: Allison Shelley for American Education
California’s recent NAEP report card showing our fourth- and eighth-grade students performing below pre-pandemic levels in reading is an urgent wake-up call.
As California considers how best to support literacy improvement, one area we need to get right is approving curriculum materials based on evidence, not convenience.
Unfortunately, one of the main resources states rely on for this is EdReports, an independent nonprofit whose evaluations many states and districts turn to when choosing a commercial curriculum.
On the surface, this may seem like an efficient and convenient solution.
However, EdReports, which was launched in 2015 to help districts identify instructional materials aligned to the then-newly adopted Common Core State Standards (CCSS), has long been out of sync with the body of scientific research about effective reading instruction, particularly in the earliest grades. Instead, it has used as its framework the Common Core Standards, which do not robustly address the importance of early foundational reading skills.
In 2024, journalist Linda Jacobson of The 74 Million published the article “Critics Call ‘Consumer Reports’ of School Curriculum Slow to Adapt to the Science of Reading,” and Natalie Wexler highlighted flawed rubrics, lack of rater reliability and overstuffed textbooks that contain “a lot of time-wasting fluff” in her Forbes article “Literacy Experts Say Some EdReports Ratings Are Misleading.” These articles illuminate the underlying problems with EdReports’ methodologies. To date, EdReports has evaluated curricula against a subset of the Common Core State Standards and its own internally developed criteria — not against scientific research and not including any focus on English learners.
Concerns about this misalignment are not new. More than four years ago, Louisa Moats, a nationally recognized expert on reading instruction, warned about flaws in the Common Core standards for young students:
“There is so much in the Common Core State Standards that just doesn’t square with how the majority of children learn to read. For instance, there are incorrect assumptions made about pacing, some of which are simply wrong and others that reflect the needs of only a fraction of students in any given classroom.
“Unfortunately, some of the people who led the development of the CCSS were more well-versed in research pertaining to middle and high school and didn’t have a strong grasp of beginning reading instruction. They didn’t understand the complexities of teaching young children to read. They didn’t know all the data about the pace of learning, the individual differences kids bring, and the sheer volume of practice that most children need to consolidate reading skills.”
As a result, reviews on EdReports frequently promote curricula that experts have widely criticized for not being effective at teaching reading, while giving lower ratings to some that have been shown to improve literacy.
Despite these underlying flaws in its methodology, many state education agencies continue to rely heavily on the convenience of EdReports reviews to create “approved lists” of curricula. EdReports’ sphere of influence has grown to include other websites, such as the California Curriculum Collaborative (CalCurriculum), which provides guidance to California school districts on adopting and implementing instructional materials based on EdReports and using the same problematic and outdated evaluation criteria.
Notably, many of the states that have shown the most improvement in reading — including Louisiana and Tennessee — did not rely on EdReports and instead used their own process for selecting curricula.
On Jan. 28, EdReports announced an update to its English language arts (ELA) evaluation criteria, claiming a shift toward alignment with the science of reading. However, given EdReports’ influence, this change is too little too late. For years, EdReports did not prioritize this research, meaning all its previous reviews — still available on its website — are based on criteria not centered on evidence-based research.
This raises a crucial concern for California as we may be on the precipice of recommending new English language arts/English language development materials along with a new comprehensive state literacy plan and literacy road map. If we rely on EdReports’ past recommendations, we risk adopting materials that do not align with the best available research on how children learn to read and how to ensure their learning sticks.
Fortunately, there is a strong, evidence-based alternative: The Curriculum Navigation Reports created by The Reading League, a national nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing the awareness, understanding and use of evidence-aligned reading instruction.
These reports, using criteria reviewed by experts for reliability and validity (the consistency and accuracy of a measure), evaluate curricula through the lens of scientifically based research, not the Common Core standards. These reports serve as informational educational resources for curriculum decision-makers to identify aligned practices within their curricula as well as opportunities to strengthen reading instruction. The Reading League also provides Curriculum Evaluation Guidelines and a Review Workbook that schools and districts can use if they wish to review materials on their own. Finally, literacy leaders can seek guidance and support from their state chapters of The Reading League (of which California has one), which are composed of researchers, educators, parents, and other stakeholders committed to using research to guide literacy instruction.
Curriculum providers are invited and encouraged to submit their programs for evaluation in a Curriculum Navigation Report; it is noteworthy that several companies that fared well on their EdReports reviews declined to submit their programs to The Reading League.
Good policy is only as effective as the tools used to implement it. As California determines its next steps in literacy policy, we should follow the example of those states that have developed comprehensive plans and vetted curriculum lists based on rigorous, evidence-based criteria. We must also heed the cautionary tale from other states’ experiences and avoid making decisions driven by convenience or influenced by outdated, inaccurate standards. The quick adoption of materials reviewed by EdReports or its derivatives, such as CalCurriculum, may seem like an attractive shortcut, but the result would shortchange California students.
We urge California’s education leaders to do the necessary work: Vet curriculum materials based on the established scientific research on reading instruction. The future of our students’ literacy — and their lifelong learning — depends on it.
•••
Linda Diamond is author of the Teaching Reading Sourcebookand executive director of the Evidence Advocacy Center, a clearinghouse to connect states, districts, schools, higher education institutions, and parent advocates to trustworthy resources that are proven to have an impact.
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.
Travon Reed is currently a housing navigator in South Los Angeles who helps those who live on the street to find housing through the Homeless Outreach Program Integrated Care System (HOPICS). He credits the classes he took at East Los Angeles College for preparing him for his career in social work.
He described his classes at East L.A. as “the gifts that keep on giving.”
But when he was job hunting after graduating in 2022, employers didn’t seem to value what he had learned in his college courses. He settled for an entry-level social work position, repeating most of the training he had already received in college.
“I had to get here, and then kind of prove that I wasn’t brand-spanking new to the concept of social work,” Reed said. “I could have been given a little more recognition.”
Career education is something that happens in school, college, in an apprenticeship, on the job, through the military or even volunteering. But this valuable experience isn’t always reflected in the records of prospective employees like Reed.
That’s why California is embarking on a years-long effort to build infrastructure for a new virtual platform called the Career Passport. Its goal is to bring all these experiences into a digital portfolio — somewhat like a resume — called a “learning employment record.” This record, available to every Californian, would automatically update as a person gains skills and credentials with information validated by schools and employers.
Gov. Gavin Newsom described his vision for the Career Passport in a news conference in December.
“They take all your life experiences, take all of those skills you developed and create a passport where those skills can be utilized in the private sector and advance your opportunities as it relates to your career and your future,” Newsom said.
The concept of a learning employment record can sound deceptively simple, even obvious, but advocates for these records say that actually making this work isn’t easy.
“If this was easy to do, people would’ve done it a long time ago,” said Wilson Finch, vice president of initiatives at the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL), a national nonprofit that supports the creation of education-to-career pathways.
The idea of learning and employment records has been embraced by employers, colleges, workforce boards and political leaders around the country to resolve deep frustration among both job seekers and employers. The idea could have powerful ramifications for local and state economies, its backers contend, as long as potential issues such as fraud and fair representation of skills are solved.
“Any employer will tell you they’re not happy with the candidates they’re getting. They’re getting too many people, many of whom are not anywhere aligned to what they need,” Finch said. “And then you talk to the job seekers, and they’re applying for jobs all over the place and not hearing anything back.”
California won’t have to ‘figure out the potholes’
California’s Career Passport embodies many of the goals of the state’s Master Plan for Career Education, which aims to ease Californians’ sometimes fraught transitions between school, college, vocational training and, ultimately, a career.
Newsom’s proposed 2025-26 budget earmarks $100 million in one-time funding to begin building the infrastructure for the Career Passport and to expand Credit for Prior Learning, which allows students to receive college credit for training they get in the workplace, military service, a hobby or even volunteering.
The California Community Colleges system is leading the effort to build out the Career Passport. It will be a multiyear process, according to Chris Ferguson, executive vice chancellor of finance and strategic initiatives.
He said the effort is “focused on colleges to start, but designed in a way that allows for other entities to ultimately use it and participate as well.”
Finch said he’s excited to see that the Career Passport’s scope is the entire state, not just one group, like unemployed Californians.
“I’ve been working in this space long enough to know that when you only target a specific area, the impact is very limited,” Finch said.
There is a big push for learning and employment records all around the country. Some are happening in metro areas, like Pittsburgh or Dallas-Fort Worth. In Colorado, community colleges have taken the lead. Alabama piloted its version, called Talent Triad, in specific industries, such as health and advanced manufacturing, where the need was particularly great. California could learn from other states’ efforts.
“California shouldn’t have to figure out the potholes, so to speak,” said Mike Simmons, the associate executive director of business development and strategic partnerships for the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers.
What could be tricky is the sheer size and diversity of the state, whose workforce in Fresno looks really different from Silicon Valley, Simmons said.
Over the last year, the state’s Office of Cradle to Career Data hosted wide-ranging conversations about what its Career Passport will look like through a specialtask force. That group included employers, the California Department of Education, teachers, all three state higher education systems and many state agencies, including the Labor & Workforce Development, Rehabilitation and California Volunteers.
Reed represented the student perspective on the task force.
“I was so stoked to hear that there would be some linkage between schools and employers, and that everything would be cohesive,” he said.
Credit: California Cradle2Career Data System
The problem goes beyond technology
To apply for a job, an applicant may need to request school transcripts, submit copies of professional licenses and put together a resume that distills their work experience and training. This requires time, fees and energy to ensure that a lot of different organizations are swiftly communicating with each other.
“We heard from students that it’s really hard to request transcripts from different institutions,” said Mary Ann Bates, executive director for the Office of Cradle to Career Data.
That’s why the task force is focused on a related effort to improve and expand the state’s eTranscript system, making sharing student transcripts seamless and free.
But the problem goes beyond technology. Those promoting learning and employment records — or career education, in general — say that K-12 schools, colleges, state agencies, community organizations and employers aren’t working together the way they should.
It can feel like educators and employers are speaking different languages. There’s an emphasis on grades and credit for college transcripts, while employers are more interested in whether a prospective employee has certain skills, Finch said.
One problem is that employers don’t always accept that the training and experience are authentic, because anyone can exaggerate or outright lie on their resume. Reed believes that if his colleges had vouched for classes that provided specific skills, such as trauma-informed care and motivational interviewing, it might have saved him from unnecessary training.
The current employment system favors those who have a college degree. Some human resources departments will simply filter out applicants without a bachelor’s degree. A student who is only a few credits short of a degree looks the same on paper as someone with no college experience.
“It’s an all-or-nothing system,” Finch said.
Those who attended college but never received a degree — which describes roughly 1 out of 5 Californians over 25 years old — would benefit from a new system. A learning and employment record could demonstrate that an applicant has the skills needed for a job through specific college courses, job training and maybe a boot camp, Finch said.
Ultimately, the success of the Career Passport depends on buy-in. Employers will go wherever they can find potential employees, and job seekers will go wherever they can find jobs. Making it work requires a critical mass of both.
Reed said his biggest worry about the Career Passport is: “In the land of the free, will we get everyone to uniformly accept it?”
Freestyle Academy in Mountain View, California uses energy-efficient lighting, water-saving fixtures, solar panels, and eco-friendly materials. Native plants are also incorporated into the outdoor environments.
Credit: Tim Maloney, Technical Imagery Studios and Quattrocchi Kwok Architects
Top Takeaways
Climate disasters already impacting schools will continue to worsen.
LAUSD is investing in fire-resistant building materials, schoolyard greening projects, and modern heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems.
California needs a state master plan for climate-resilient schools.
When Los Angeles teachers welcomed students back to school in January, they couldn’t have imagined what lay ahead. Within days, climate-fueled wildfires would tear through Altadena, Pasadena and the Palisades, destroying or damaging twelve schools and disrupting education for more than 600,000 students across the region.
Unfortunately, in the years to come, the climate disasters that are already impacting our schools will worsen. In California, our leaders have the power to chart our own path to healthier, more climate-resilient school buildings — with or without federal support.
The LA fires provide a stark reminder of how unprepared many of California’s schools are for climate change. Beyond lacking fire-resistant building materials that could have mitigated damage, schools also lack necessities: cooling systems for heat waves and air filtration systems for smoke. Lack of cooling is a statewide challenge — between 15% and 20% of California’s K-12 public schools have no functioning air conditioning at all, and another 10% need major repairs to or replacement of their heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems.
But out of this crisis, solutions are emerging. Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), our nation’s second-biggest school district, is turning crisis into opportunity. Instead of simply rebuilding damaged schools, the district is creating a blueprint for climate resilience that should inspire educational leaders across California.
The district is investing in fire-resistant building materials, schoolyard greening projects, and modern HVAC systems to combat increasingly frequent heat waves and filter wildfire smoke and pollutants. While some initiatives were already underway prior to the fires, new investments will be supported by the district’s $9 billion bond that Los Angeles voters approved in November and Proposition 2, the state school infrastructure bond also approved by voters last year. For the first time, the Legislature explicitly allowed districts to use this funding to create safer outdoor learning environments, strengthen vulnerable infrastructure, and advance state energy goals.
LAUSD’s progress is encouraging, but California can’t afford to wait for a district-by-district approach to climate resilience. California needs immediate statewide action to protect all students. Two key steps are essential:
First, we need better state planning and coordination. California currently spends billions annually on school infrastructure, but much of this funding isn’t aligned with climate resilience, indoor air quality, or emissions reduction goals. By allocating $10 million to the California Department of Education to build local capacity and provide regional support through county offices of education, we will build necessary support systems to assist school districts in planning for climate-resilient campuses.
California has already wasted precious time. For two years, we’ve worked with the Legislature on a proposal for a state master plan for climate-resilient schools, only to face Gov. Gavin Newsom’s veto twice over cost concerns, despite strong bipartisan support and a moderate cost of $10 million. This delay puts our children’s safety at risk. This year, we must finally get it done.
Second, districts need comprehensive facilities master plans that address indoor air quality, climate resilience, and cost-effective electrification. Students need a California where every school district is armed with a detailed blueprint for creating climate-resilient facilities, and has the support and funding they need to implement these plans. Implementation guidelines for Proposition 2 are being developed now and should include guidance for school districts to develop these plans with climate readiness at the core. State leaders could also prioritize and leverage Greenhouse Gas Reduction Funds administered by the California Air Resources Board, a program that collects money from the state’s cap-and-trade initiative to invest in projects aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, to support much-needed HVAC upgrades and nudge districts to choose modern electric technologies.
A previous generation of state leaders made sure schools could keep our children safe in an earthquake — it’s time to do the same for the threats posed by extreme heat and weather. No school district should be investing state or local dollars in their facilities without considering current and long-term local climate impacts.
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Jonathan Klein is the CEO and co-founder of UndauntedK12, a national nonprofit working to ensure that every student has the opportunity to attend a safe, healthy and resilient school. Andra Yeghoian is the chief innovation officer of Ten Strands, a San Francisco-based nonprofit whose mission is to build and strengthen the partnerships and strategies that bring environmental literacy to all California’s students.
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Ending several months of uncertainty, the California State Board of Education on Wednesday chose new labels to describe how students perform on the four levels of achievement on its standardized tests.
The decision was difficult. The 90 minutes of presentations and discussions offered lessons in the subtleties of language and the inferences of words.
Board members said they were aware of the need to send the right messages to many parents, who had criticized the California Department of Education’s previous choices for labeling low test scores as vague euphemisms for bad news.
“Labels matter,” said board member Francisco Escobedo, executive director of the National Center for Urban Transformation at San Diego State. “Knowledge is a continuum, and how we describe students in different levels has a powerful impact.”’
Researchers have warned that parents are getting confusing messages, with inflated grades on courses and declining scores on standardized tests of how well their children are doing in recovering from Covid setbacks in learning. The new labels will apply to scoring levels for the state science assessments and for the Smarter Balanced English language arts and math tests.
Board members quickly agreed on “Advanced” for Level 4 and “Proficient” for Level 3 labels, the top two levels of scores. But their selection of “Developing” for Level 2 and “Minimal” for Level 1 differed from the consensus of parents, students and teachers who had been offered various options during focus groups in December and January.
They had preferred “Basic” for Level 2 and “Below Basic” for Level 1. The terms are clear, simple and familiar, a summary of the discussions said. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) classifies Basic as the lowest of its three levels, and California’s old state tests, which the state abandoned a decade ago to switch to Smarter Balanced, used Basic and Below Basic for scoring criteria as well.
But for some veteran educators on the board, familiarity has bred contempt, or at least bad memories, of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the federal law under the administrations of Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush. Schools were under heavy pressure to increase their math and English language arts scores, or potentially face sanctions.
“I had a visceral reaction to the word Basic,” said board member and veteran teacher Haydee Rodriguez. “I remember NCLB and how finite that felt for students.” The feedback should be encouraging, not a label that discourages growth, as Basic did under NCLB, she said.
She and Kim Patillo Brownson, a parent of two teenagers who served as a policy director at the Advancement Project, a civil rights organization, also pointed out that “basic” has a different connotation for students in 2025. It’s slang for a boring and uninteresting person.
“Calling a student Basic is an absolute insult in 2025,” said Rodriguez. “It could shut a child down.”
Board President Linda Darling-Hammond agreed. “If Basic is being used derogatorily, one can only imagine how Below Basic will be used. It is a real consideration; the meaning is different for adults.”
Board members turned to other words that had been presented to the focus groups. They agreed the choices should be frank, not Pollyannaish or dispiriting.
With Level 2, the purpose should be “trying to light a fire under parents to realize there is work to do,” said Patillo Brownson.
Stating that “Below Basic” says a student is failing, Escobedo preferred “Developing” for Level 1 and “Emerging” for Level 2. These terms are consistent with labels used for scoring the progress of English learners.
Patillo Brownson called Emerging “vague” and supported “Basic.”
Board Vice President Cynthia Glover Woods, who was chief academic officer of the Riverside County Office of Education before her retirement, favored “Minimum” for Level 1 because “it is important we are clear for students and parents that students scoring at the level have a minimal understanding of grade-level knowledge.”
Sharing the perspective of her peers, the student board member on the board, Julia Clauson, a senior at Bella Vista High School in Sacramento, recommended substituting “Approaching” for “Basic,” so as not to deter students from trying challenging courses. “Older students make academic decisions (based on what signals they get), so language matters,” she said.
The County Superintendents association also endorsed “Approaching” for Level 2 and “Developing” or “Emerging” for Level 1.
The board initiated what turned into a multi-month decision because of growing dissatisfaction with the labels that had been used since the first Smarter Balanced testing in 2015. They were Standard Not Met for Level 1, Standard Nearly Met for Level 2, Standard Met for Level 3 and Standard Exceeded for Level 4. Focus groups by the California Department of Education found that parents were confused about what “standard” meant. They found Standard Not Met as discouraging and Standard Nearly Met as unclear.
But a coalition of student advocacy groups, including Teach Plus, Children Now and Innovate Public Schools, along with the County Superintendents association and the Association of California School Administrators, criticized the labels for Levels 1 and 2 that the California Department of Education recommended as their replacements as soft-pedaling euphemisms for poor scorers. The department had proposed Inconsistent for Level 1 and Foundational for Level 2.
At its December meeting, the board told the department to try again with more focus groups.
Changing the labels to Advanced, Proficient, Developing and Minimal won’t change how scores are determined; the individual scores within each achievement band have remained the same in all the 18 member states that take all or some of the Smarter Balanced tests, which are given to students in grades three through eight and once in high school, usually in 11th grade.
However, additional work is needed to communicate the changes to parents and students. The department and its testing contractor, ETS, will spell out the differences between performing at the various levels in each subject and grade and the level of improvement needed to raise scores.
Tony Alpert, executive director of Smarter Balanced, pointed out that performance differences are a continuum with students showing gaps in some grade-level skills but not others. A student scoring at Level 1 may have answered some questions showing knowledge at grade level. As scores progress from Levels 2 to 4, students demonstrate increasing accuracy and complexity in their knowledge and skills.
Students who reach Level 3 have the knowledge to succeed in future coursework. Research has determined that for California high school students, Level 3 correlates with preparation for first-year courses at California State University.
The state board hoped that the label changes and new explanations would be ready for this spring’s testing results. Instead, they will take effect in 2026.
Local and state officials in mid-March piled 50,000 sandbags along the low-lying banks of the San Joaquin River when rising levels threatened to overtake Firebaugh.
Emma Gallegos/EdSource
Earlier this year, students across the country watched as wildfires devastated large parts of southern California. Yet even as they watched — and, in some cases, lived through — a very real example of what climate change can look like, many students don’t have a good understanding of why events like these are happening more frequently and with greater intensity. Without that foundational knowledge, they are ill-equipped to help mitigate the problem that is impacting their generation so significantly. Lack of climate literacy is a crisis — one that higher education has a responsibility to address.
Acknowledging the problem is no longer enough. Although 72% of U.S. adults recognize that our climate is changing, only 58% acknowledge that it is human-caused and even fewer understand the scientific consensus — that over 97% of climate scientists affirm our role in the ever-warming planet. We need a climate-literate electorate if we want to drive effective climate action because the solutions we choose to support are based on our individual understanding of the problem. To do this, we need to make climate education part of general education. And we must move quickly.
Many students know what is coming. Rising climate anxiety among 16–25 year-olds is telling but disempowering if they aren’t prepared to meet the moment because they hold misconceptions about the root causes. In a 2021 survey, students 14-18 years old overwhelmingly reported that climate change was real and human-caused, but follow-up questions showed large gaps between their conceptualization of Earth’s interrelated systems and reality. They also vastly underestimated the scientific consensus.
These gaps in knowledge make sense: when climate change is taught in middle and high school classrooms, nearly one-third of science teachers are sending mixed messages about the cause, often because they themselves were never introduced to the subject during their higher education experience. Prioritizing climate literacy as part of general education at colleges and universities would reduce the perpetuation of these false narratives.
Ideally, institutions would offer multi-dimensional climate education for all students; realistically, the pace of climate change far outstrips the pace of change in higher education. However, a general education requirement for climate literacy is possible — and necessary. These central concepts do not rely on additional college-level coursework, making a first- or second-year course on the topic accessible to students in any major.
Additionally, we need students to understand that policy, psychology, and art are just as important at shifting our trajectory as atmospheric science and clean energy technology. In this way, we make room for every student in the climate movement, no matter their professional aspirations. At Harvey Mudd College, we have developed a course to help students think critically about the impact of their work on society through an interdisciplinary look at the climate-fueled challenge of fire in the North American west. Our teaching team is intentionally broad, so we can cover California’s legacy of fire suppression, the depictions of nature in media, and the religious roots of environmental attitudes, as well as fire ecology and the greenhouse effect. While we do lay the groundwork for understanding the problem, fully 50% of the course is dedicated to analyzing proposed or current interventions.
In addition to a solutions-focused curriculum, basic climate education also needs to prepare students emotionally and mentally to keep engaging in the work. Nearly 60% of respondents in a recent global survey of youth indicated “extreme worry” about climate change. Considering students’ emotions doesn’t mean we shy away from hard truths — that would not serve our students well and undermine their trust in faculty. In fact, those hard truths can tap into students’ deeper motivations for learning, so long as we also help them build emotional resilience through reflection. Programs like the All We Can Save Project can offer resources and even course materials. And efforts to wrap this “affective approach” into climate education are already underway, as with the Faculty Learning Community in Teaching Climate Change and Resilience at California State University in Chico.
The world is currently on track for nearly twice the rise in global average temperature that leading climate experts warn is safe. The kind of climate education we need is appearing, but not at the scale or speed required. Higher education leaders must prioritize climate literacy by integrating climate education into the general curriculum. Institutions must ensure students are prepared academically, socially, and emotionally to address climate change. We need empowered graduates who have both climate knowledge and a solutions-focused mindset in uncertain times. Their world literally depends on it.
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Lelia Hawkins is a professor of chemistry and the Hixon Professor of Climate Studies at Harvey Mudd College. She is currently serving as the Director of the Hixon Center for Climate and the Environment, a new program expanding climate education for Mudd’s scientists and engineers.
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