اینترنت

دسته: 1

  • Amid faculty objections, UC considers limiting what faculty can say on university websites

    Amid faculty objections, UC considers limiting what faculty can say on university websites


    UCLA campus in Westwood on Nov. 18, 2023.

    Credit: Julie Leopo / EdSource

    This story was updated on Friday to include that the UC Academic Senate urged the regents to reject the policy.

    In a move faculty say infringes on their academic freedom, the University of California will soon consider a policy restricting them from using university websites to make opinionated statements. Such statements have come under scrutiny since last fall, when some faculty publicly criticized Israel over its war in Gaza.

    The proposed policy, which goes to the system’s board of regents for a vote next week, would prevent faculty and staff from sharing their “personal or collective opinions” via the “main landing page” or homepages of department websites, according to a new draft of the policy. Faculty would be free to share opinions elsewhere on the university’s websites, so long as there is a disclaimer that their viewpoint doesn’t represent the university or their department.

    The final version of the policy may not be complete until next week. Regents accepted feedback from the university’s Academic Senate through Friday. Following a systemwide review, the Senate’s Academic Council is asking the regents to reject the proposed policy.

    Whatever the final version says, the fact that regents are considering the issue at all is alarming to some UC faculty. They argue that issues of academic freedom are outside the purview of the regents and question how the university would enforce the policy. And although the policy doesn’t explicitly mention a specific issue, faculty see it as an attempt to prevent them from discussing Israel’s war in Gaza.

    “At a moment when across the country, academic freedom is being challenged, we’re worried that the regents have lost their way on this issue,” said James Vernon, a professor of history at UC Berkeley and chair of the Berkeley Faculty Association. “I think it’s out of their purview, and I think they’re doing it for very obvious reasons. It’s about Palestine and the political positions of some regents.” 

    UC officials have said action is needed to ensure that faculty opinions are not interpreted as representing the views of the university as a whole. The regents previously discussed a similar policy in January but delayed a vote until March. At the time, one regent said the board was considering the policy because “some people were making political statements related to Hamas and Palestinians,” seemingly referring to the statements made by some faculty last fall in support of Palestine. 

    By only disallowing statements on “main landing pages,” the latest version is less restrictive than the policy initially proposed in January, which would have banned statements made on any “official channel of communication.”

    To some faculty, the issue was already settled in 2022, when the Academic Senate determined that UC faculty departments have the right to “make statements on University-owned websites,” so long as the statements don’t take positions on elections.

    “The Academic Senate came out with very clear recommendations,” said Christine Hong, a professor of ethnic studies at UC Santa Cruz. “We have a group of regents who are running roughshod over what you would think would be the core commitments of the university to academic freedom and to the principle of shared governance.”

    Some faculty find the revised version of the policy to be an improvement, including Brian Soucek, professor of law at UC Davis and previous chair of the UC Academic Senate’s university committee on academic freedom. While he remains concerned with the regents “micromanaging” what faculty departments can say, Soucek said the revised policy “is not a major threat to academic freedom,” given that it only limits what can be said on the main landing pages of websites.

    UC officials declined to comment on this story, saying only that regents would consider the policy at next week’s meeting. 

    Traced to Oct. 7 attack

    The new push to limit faculty statements can be traced to the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on Israel and Israel’s subsequent bombardment of Gaza. The Hamas attack killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, with about another 240 taken hostage. Since Israel launched its military response, more than 30,000 people have been killed in Gaza, most of them women and children.

    On Oct. 9, UC system leaders issued a statement condemning the Hamas attack as an act of terrorism resulting in violence that was “sickening and incomprehensible.” Several of UC’s campus chancellors also issued their own statements condemning the attack.

    In a letter the following week, the UC Ethnic Studies Council criticized UC’s statements, saying they lacked context by not acknowledging Israeli violence against Palestinians, including “75 years of settler colonialism and globally acknowledged apartheid.” The ethnic studies faculty also said UC’s statements “irresponsibly wield charges of terrorism” and called on UC to revoke those charges. UC later said it stood by those assertions.

    UC ethnic studies faculty then engaged in a back-and-forth with regent Jay Sures. Sures wrote a letter responding to the Ethnic Studies Council letter, saying it was “rife with falsehoods about Israel and seeks to legitimize and defend the horrific savagery of the Hamas massacre.” The ethnic studies faculty subsequently criticized Sures for not condemning Israeli violence and called on him to resign.

    Sures also wrote in his letter that he would do “everything in my power” to protect “everyone in our extended community from your inflammatory and out of touch rhetoric.” Now, Sures is the regent most fervently pushing the proposal to limit what faculty can say on UC websites.

    Since last fall, some faculty departments have displayed statements on their websites condemning Israel. The website for UC Santa Cruz’s critical race and ethnic studies department, for example, includes a statement calling on “scholars, researchers, organizers, and administrators worldwide” to take action “to end Israel’s genocidal attack on Gaza.” 

    Involving faculty

    UC isn’t the only university to move to restrict faculty from making political statements on department websites. 

    At Barnard College, a private women’s liberal arts college in New York, the department of women’s, gender and sexuality studies published a statement last fall expressing solidarity with the people of Palestine. The college removed the statement and then rewrote its policy on political activity to prohibit faculty departments from posting political statements on college-owned websites. The quick response prompted an outcry from some free speech advocates who criticized the college for making the policy change without consulting faculty.

    The American Association of University Professors, an organization that advocates for academic freedom, doesn’t have guidance regarding whether departments should take political positions, a spokesperson said. However, if universities are to create such policies, they should “be formulated through shared governance channels, with substantial faculty input,” said the spokesperson, Kelly Benjamin.

    In that regard, UC officials have made progress since January, Soucek said. 

    Prior to the January meeting, Soucek co-authored a letter to the regents urging them to reject the policy being considered at that time. Among other criticisms, Soucek wrote that the development of the policy was “sudden, opaque, and seemingly devoid of any collaboration at all” with the staff and faculty it would impact.

    Following the January meeting, regents shared a revised version of the policy with Academic Senate leaders, requesting their thoughts and giving them until this Friday to share that feedback.

    In an interview, Soucek commended the regents for “taking a breath” and accepting feedback on the revised policy. “That’s a great thing, and that’s what they should have done from the beginning,” he said.

    Even with the changes to the policy, some faculty still see it as a major threat. Hong, the UC Santa Cruz professor, is concerned with the intention behind the policy, even if the latest version is less restrictive than the original.

    Hong pointed out that UC’s general counsel, Charles Robinson, said during the January meeting that the intent of the policy was to “make sure that landing pages wouldn’t be associated with types of speech that the university would feel uncomfortable with.”

    Hong called that a “really striking disclosure,” saying that it violates the principle of academic freedom. 

    “Whatever revisions they make, we have to address what the intention behind this policy is,” Hong said. “This is a joke of an exercise. Why are we being forced to go through this?”

    Faculty also say it’s unclear how UC would enforce the policy. The revised version doesn’t define what constitutes an opinionated statement and states that the “administrator responsible for maintaining the website” will be responsible for “assuring compliance with this policy.”

    To Soucek, that suggests that the policy will be managed by UC’s IT staff. 

    “That’s how it sounds,” he said. “Our IT staff has enormous expertise. For most of them, it doesn’t extend to issues of academic freedom.”

    Whoever is ultimately in charge of scanning the many departmental websites across UC’s 10 campuses will have a “gigantic task,” said Vernon, the UC Berkeley professor. 

    “And then the next question is, who’s going to enforce it once they’ve actually found someone who’s violated this policy? That is really important to have clarified,” he said.





    Source link

  • Q&A: How the 50-year-old case that transformed English learner education began

    Q&A: How the 50-year-old case that transformed English learner education began


    Children pose on the steps of Immigrants Development Center of San Francisco in the 1970s.

    Credit: San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library

    Fifty years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court decided a case that would forever change education for English learners in this country.

    In the 1974 case Lau v. Nichols, the court decided that students learning English had a right to fully understand what was being taught in their classrooms, and that schools must take steps to make sure that they could, whether through additional instruction in English as a second language or bilingual education.

    Prior to the Supreme Court’s decision, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had said that San Francisco Unified was not discriminating against students by giving them the same materials and instruction as other students.

    Rather, it said the alleged discrimination was “the result of deficiencies created by the children themselves in failing to learn the English language.”

    Lucinda Lee Katz
    Credit: Courtesy of Lucinda Lee Katz

    The Supreme Court disagreed. “There is no equality of treatment merely by providing students with the same facilities, textbooks, teachers, and curriculum; for students who do not understand English are effectively foreclosed from any meaningful education,” wrote Justice William O. Douglas in the majority opinion.

    The Lau v. Nichols case is named for one of the plaintiffs, a little boy named Kinney Lau, who had recently emigrated from Hong Kong. Kinney Lau’s first grade teacher at Jean Parker Elementary School in San Francisco was Lucinda Lee Katz. 

    In an interview, Katz shared how this case marked her life, how it changed education for English learners and what remains to be done to give English learners full access to the same instruction as their peers.

    This interview was edited for clarity and brevity.

    How and why did you get involved with the Lau v. Nichols case?

    When I became a teacher, I had Kinney Lau in my first grade classroom. And Mrs. Lau said to me, “Miss Lee, I come from Hong Kong where all the students are exposed to two languages. We can read, write, speak and learn in English and Cantonese. I don’t understand why we can’t do that in San Francisco. Can you help us? Because Kinney is losing his experience with math learning, and I want him to keep up.” 

    English was the first language of instruction. Sometimes I could interpret or translate, but I knew I was stepping out of my lane when I did that.

    Mrs. Lau wanted formal instruction. She said, “I get it if you have to teach English and writing in English, but he’s losing valuable time not understanding math. So could you just teach math in Chinese?

    So that was the first conversation. I went home and told my roommates. They were all in law school. And I said, “Can we do something about it?” They took it to (the San Francisco) Neighborhood Legal Assistance (Foundation), and the person who took it on was Ed Steinman. And he took it all the way to the Supreme Court.

    What was your own experience in school like as a child, and how did it influence you?

    I went through Washington Irving Elementary School, Francisco Middle School and Lowell High School. I had not one Chinese teacher.

    My kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Thompson, kept saying, “No Chinese! No Chinese here! No Chinese!” All the kids in the classroom were Chinese and Chinese-speaking. As a kindergartner, I noted that, and I said to myself, “What is she talking about? She’s the only one that can’t speak Chinese, and I don’t get this.” So it stayed in my mind for a very long time.

    My father and his father were from China. And in 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act was the first significant law that was passed by Congress restricting Chinese immigrants. It’s actually one of the most discriminatory laws in the books. Interestingly, the 1906 earthquake fire destroyed all the records in San Francisco. And as a result of that, and because of the discrimination, the Chinese found a way to come over through the “paper sons and daughters” system. So a Mr. Wong who lived in San Francisco and was a citizen could sell his name to somebody in China, and they would pay a lot of money. My father and grandfather came over as “paper sons,” and each of them were named Mr. Wong when their real family name was Lee. And I was Lucinda Wong from birth through eighth grade. Because in the late 1950s, Eisenhower changed the “paper sons and daughters,” so they could apply for naturalization with their real names. So when I was in eighth grade, my principal called me in, and she said, “Lucinda Wong, tomorrow you are going to be Lucinda Lee.”

    So I really feel that it was unusual circumstances that brought us all together — that I had Kinney Lau, that Mrs. Lau was this kind of representative, that I understood Mrs. Thompson’s shaking finger at us, “No Chinese here,” the Chinese Exclusion Act, my father’s experience coming over to this country as a “paper son.” (All of this) made me think something has to be done. 

    How did you and other teachers push for bilingual education, outside of the courts?

    I became very active, marching and speaking with parent groups and doing sort of the heavy work between 1969 and 1972. I have a photograph of me speaking before the board, speaking to parents to get them educated and riled up. 

    I think I basically said we are harming ourselves when children enter our systems and don’t have access to two languages so that they can keep moving forward. That we’re actually handicapping them by making them try to learn English only, when for two or three years, there could be a gradual transition. Secondly, I want teachers trained to understand that the brain can do two cultures, multi-languages, multicultural, and they should be trained. Three, if you have kids that have any kind of learning difference, we should know how to address that and not assume that they’re lacking in English.

    The other thing I did was, I brought Chinese culture into Jean Parker School because they didn’t celebrate Chinese New Year, Lunar New Year, nothing. And I said, “You can’t do that. Ninety percent of the kids in the school are from Chinese backgrounds, and you have to understand why they’re dressed the way they are during Lunar New Year, and that it’s a big deal. That’s our main holiday.” And the principal allowed me to have an assembly. But I didn’t tell her that I was bringing in lion dancers and drums, and it got the Chinese kids all riled up and excited.

    Do you remember where you were when you heard that the decision finally came down from the Supreme Court?

    I was at (the University of Illinois) Urbana-Champaign getting my doctorate. I was in the middle of classes and doing my dissertation. I read it in the paper. My husband said, “Look, there was a Supreme Court decision. They passed that Lau versus Nichols thing.” I said, “Yes!” Everything that was meant to be actually happened. And you know, they were celebrating like crazy here (in San Francisco.)

    But you know, there are still problems because it didn’t say how you should do it or that they would give it money. They just said, “Yeah, let’s do it.” So it’s up to every school district to do it in their own way.

    Before Lau v. Nichols, San Francisco had some bilingual education, right?

    When I went to Commodore Stockton Elementary School, I was hired as a bilingual, bicultural teacher, because San Francisco was trying something new. I applied for the job, and I was snapped up. There were three classrooms. Each of us had classroom assistants who could speak either Cantonese or English. I happened to have gone to Chinese school for 12 years. So I was Cantonese-speaking. It was also the period of school busing. So, in my first year, I had almost all Chinese kids in this bilingual, bicultural classroom. In my second year, I had kids from Noe Valley and the Mission and Hunter’s Point, who would bravely get on the bus ride for half an hour, 45 minutes to come to Commodore Stockton to be in my classroom. They were exposed to both English and Chinese.

    How did Lau v. Nichols change bilingual education in California?

    Well, what changed in San Francisco specifically was that Gordon Lew, who was the editor of a newspaper in Chinatown, started volunteering to write curriculum for the San Francisco School District in Chinese and in English. That was very amazing.

    When I went back to look at the Chinatown Community Children’s Center (a bilingual preschool where Katz had been the first director), the kids were so happy. Some were still speaking Chinese only, and many of them were speaking clearly in English and so forth, at age 3, 4 and 5. I haven’t had the chance to go into elementary schools, but both my sisters were school principals and they told me stories about how a lot of their kids could transition back and forth between English and Chinese, but likewise, Spanish, Tagalog (and other languages).

    How do you think California is doing with teaching English learners and with bilingual education?

    It’s really a little tough. There’s more curriculum and there are more people who can do it. So that’s a plus. But California really has to codify the approach as a viable program. I know you’re mostly focused on California, and the states that have the most bilingual students, or English language learners (ELL), are California, Texas, Illinois, Florida, New York. But it turns out Wyoming, Nebraska, Indiana, Kentucky and Alabama have growing populations. 

    What they don’t have is the following: They don’t have a clear identification system for who is ELL and what kind of services they need, and how that’s differentiated from a student who has learning disabilities. They can mistake an English language learner as though they are a learning-disabled student. So they need to clean that up.

    They need to provide families with what I call wraparound services so that when they come to school, they can request a translator or request somebody to help guide them through the system. They need to have an English language development program for those that are designated. I think every employee, not just English language learner teachers, should be trained in what the highlights and challenges are for an English language learner and the family that they come from. Second, you can offer bilingual (education). And then I just think that there should be a way to monitor how these programs are doing and how these kids are doing. And we don’t have a monitoring system.

    What do you think that parents and teachers and everyone can learn from the story of Lau v. Nichols?

    They should understand and know that you can be a fully high-functioning person in two languages, three languages. No more Mrs. Thompson, “No Chinese here.” That is so old school. We need to open our minds to the fact that the brain can handle many languages and many cultural shifts. 

    Two, every teacher should be trained to understand, what is ELL? Three, there would be a much better approach if the kids at age 4 or 5 actually had some kind of screening, so that you might have a kid that’s 60% fluent in English, but just needs a little more targeted (instruction), another year, maybe two years of a focused program. So assessing the kids early on would be very important.

    I think the next thing is getting the parents to understand how important these programs are. And they need to support it with their time, their volunteer time, their money, their talent, whatever they do, we need to give it complete focus.

    And the school districts need to understand that there are many gradations of bilingual-bicultural. It’s not just like one or the other. It’s very complicated. So I just think if the state and each school district could do it, we would be way better off. And California is way further ahead than most of these other places.





    Source link

  • Don Shalvey, ‘fearless’ charter school pioneer and mentor, dies at 79

    Don Shalvey, ‘fearless’ charter school pioneer and mentor, dies at 79


    Don Shalvey

    Credit: San Joaquin A+

    Don Shalvey, who created California’s first charter school in 1994 and, as an organizer, strategist and mentor, had an outsize influence on the charter movement’s growth over a quarter-century, has died.

    Shalvey succumbed Saturday to glioblastoma, a form of brain cancer that was diagnosed a year ago. He was 79 and living on the family ranch in Linden, a small town near Stockton, where for the last seven years he was CEO of San Joaquin A+, a nonprofit that underwrites charter and district early college pathways for career opportunities. He was also a longtime member of EdSource’s board of directors, returning to the board for a second time in 2021.

    “Don was a towering figure in public education with a direct influence on the opportunity of people in under-resourced communities to get a first-class education. He did it regardless of criticism or compliments because it was the right thing,” said John Deasy, former Los Angeles Unified superintendent and close friend for four decades. 

    In 1999, Shalvey founded the first multischool charter organization in California, and was its CEO for a decade: Oakland-based Aspire Public Schools is now the state’s largest charter operator, with 36 schools serving 15,000 students, the equivalent of a midsize school district.

    “He was fearless,” said Steve Barr, a political activist who started Green Dot Public Schools, the first charter school network in Los Angeles, after Shalvey emboldened and then tutored him in starting a school.  

    Don Shalvey
    Courtesy of the Gates Foundation

    Shalvey was instrumental in passing two state laws that enabled charter schools to expand. The first, in 1998, lifted the statewide cap of 100 charter schools. Two years later, Proposition 39 entitled charter schools, as tax-supported public schools, to equivalent space in district school facilities.

    In a shrewd compromise that led to the support of the California Teachers Association, Proposition 39 also lowered the supermajority needed to pass a local school facilities bond from 66% to 55%.

    Shalvey set high expectations and inspired a shared vision of what charter schools could become in high-poverty neighborhoods. Known for his variety of saddle shoes — a throwback to growing up in the ‘50s in his beloved Philadelphia — he had an encyclopedic memory of popular music and used karaoke and name-that-tune to build camaraderie at staff meetings or break the ice at conferences. Those who knew him say he was affable, persistently cheerful and unpretentious. 

    Knowing he was ill, colleagues and admirers shared remembrances over the past year through LinkedIn, chat groups and videos; others conveyed their thanks in person.  

    “Everybody wanted to make sure that he really understood how deeply grateful we are for his impact on our lives and the lives of students,” said Caprice Young, a former Los Angeles Unified board member whom Shalvey persuaded in 2003 to lead the newly formed California Charter Schools Association. She visited him earlier this month.

    Deasy said that less celebrated was Shalvey’s mentoring of thousands of people: “It was his true legacy, and Don took it seriously.” 

    Lucky charter school leaders got his cell number, knowing that from 4 to 6 p.m., he was captive to the commute from Aspire offices in Oakland to Linden. “We always knew we could ask him for advice. If you had a question about something you couldn’t figure out, he’d be there,” Young said.

    Heather Kirkpatrick, a former teacher whom Shalvey hired in 2001 to plan Aspire’s first high school, said, “Just as he has for so many people, he changed my life trajectory. There was a big feeling early at Aspire that you were along for the ride of your life,” she said. 

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZ428tzrON8

    When she suggested that teacher residencies might help retain teachers versed in Aspire’s teaching practices and culture, Shalvey encouraged her to start a five-year pilot program. It became a model for the state.

    Mala Batra, the current CEO at Aspire, said conversations with Shalvey profoundly affected her, too. “There isn’t a day that goes by that you are not present in our work at Aspire,” she wrote on a tribute page for him. “A ritual you created, wisdom you shared, a practice you ingrained, a mark you left, a question you posed, a song you liked, a ‘Why can’t we do it like Don?’”  

    Carrie Douglass, an early Aspire employee, recalled that Shalvey called all Aspire employees on their birthday — sometimes four and five calls a day as Aspire added school sites. “Many employees said that annual phone call got them through another year,” she wrote on a LinkedIn post.  

    Shalvey was equally committed to offering guidance and support in his volunteer efforts, including as a longtime member of EdSource’s board of directors. 

    “Don made an indelible mark on how I go about my work and how to prioritize kindness while also being passionately determined,” said Anne Vasquez, CEO of EdSource, who credits Shalvey for highlighting the need for trustworthy journalism in the rapidly growing Central Valley. “Three years ago, EdSource had zero staff based in the Central Valley. Today, we have three, including our K-12 editor.”

    ‘Purposeful test kitchens’

    Shalvey grew up an only child in Philadelphia and attended a 5,000, all-boy Catholic high school in Philadelphia and summers in the Poconos at Camp Wyomissing, first as a camper then as a counselor. It was there, he recalled, where he learned to lead. “Dad wanted me to be an engineer, and I chose not to go to MIT,” he said. “I wanted to be a teacher.”

    After graduating from La Salle College in Philadelphia, he got a job offer as a middle school math teacher in Merced in 1967. His cousins, who lived in San Francisco, said, “Sure, come stay with us, we’re right near Merced.” They were confusing Lake Merced in San Francisco for the Central Valley city 165 miles away. But Shalvey grew enamored of the Central Valley, and it became his home base for the next six decades.

    After teaching for a dozen years and serving as a principal, then an assistant superintendent in Lodi Unified, he became the superintendent of the San Carlos Elementary School District, south of San Francisco. Convinced that the state education code and inertia discouraged innovation, he established the San Carlos Charter Learning Center. He had the support of his school board and teachers, who shared his view that the charter school would serve as “purposeful test kitchens” for innovative practices in technology and multi-age instruction. It’s now the nation’s oldest operating charter school.

    “Our work was about innovating and committing to learning and sharing what we learned with teachers,” Shalvey wrote in an EdSource commentary in 2017.

    The Legislature capped the number of charter schools when it passed the state’s charter school law in 1992. The ceiling might have remained intact, even though the maximum number was reached, had Shalvey not met Reed Hastings and Barr on Sept. 17, 1997.  

    In the area to take daughter Chelsea to Stanford University, President Bill Clinton chose the San Carlos charter school to sign a bill creating a new grant program for charter schools. Barr was doing work for the event, and Hastings, in between selling a high-tech startup and starting Netflix, had extra time and was interested in charter school expansion. The two had lunch soon thereafter. They agreed on a plan for a statewide initiative to raise the charter school cap to 100 per year and gathered enough signatures to put it on the ballot. Rather than spend money fighting it, CTA  agreed to legislation that included requiring credentialing requirements for charter school teachers. It also contained a provision that Hastings conceived permitting a nonprofit board of directors to oversee multiple charter schools.

    Putting his job on the line

    That authority would reshape charter schools. Aspire became California’s first charter management organization. After the first schools opened in Stockton in 1999 and then Modesto, Aspire quickly expanded to Oakland and the Bay Area, and Los Angeles; within a decade it had 21 schools.

    In an interview last year, Hastings said Shalvey risked his reputation in leading the effort to expand the number of charter schools, knowing it would be very hard to get another job as a superintendent.

    Other not-for-profit charter management organizations, known as CMOs, followed, among them San Francisco-based KIPP, Green Dot and Alliance for College Ready Public Schools in Los Angeles, Summit high schools and Rocketship elementary schools. All targeted underperforming children of low-income Black and Latino families in urban areas.

    “Don was the right leader at the right moment when leaders in Silicon Valley were looking for an alternative, and charters became the idea that you could do something differently with public education, especially for the highest-need kids,” said James Willcox, who succeeded Shalvey as Aspire’s CEO in 2009 after the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation recruited Shalvey to become deputy director of K-12 education.

    Wealthy donors like Hastings, Eli Broad in Los Angeles, the Gates Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation fueled the expansion of Aspire and other charter organizations by funding startup and scaling-up expenses until the schools could operate independently on state funding. Charter school growth paralleled the boom in public school enrollment in California in the early 2000s before peaking at 6.3 million in 2004-05; many district schools were already overcrowded. Then, as state enrollment declined gradually over the next 15 years, charter school enrollment increased steadily. 

    Challenging low expectations

    Shalvey would tell colleagues at Aspire that their mission was to “make a dent in the universe, one scholar at a time.”

    With the motto “College for Certain,” Aspire challenged the mindset of low expectations and replaced it with the belief that everyone would go to college. 

    “We decided that underserved kids really had to be part of a full, focused play that college was for certain for you. That’s visual, that’s cultural, that’s a series of activities,” Shalvey said. “We said everything we did had to ensure that kids were getting in, staying in and getting supported.” 

    Shalvey built a college-going culture — a novel idea in immigrant neighborhoods where most students would be the first to go to college. Each classroom had a different college banner, an idea he drew from cabins at Camp Wyomissing. Students would learn about the college, and current students or graduates would write to them about their experiences. All students had to be admitted to at least one college; in an onstage ritual, all students would exchange a letter of acceptance for an Aspire diploma at graduation. 

    In 2010, the international consulting firm McKinsey & Co. named Aspire to its list of 20 of the world’s most improved school systems. Only three U.S. systems, including Long Beach Unified, received that honor.

    A 2023 analysis by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford University found that Aspire was one of 22  charter organizations that significantly outperformed demographically similar students in traditional public schools in state reading and math tests.

    “We never thought we had it all figured out; we were always growing and learning,” Aspire CEO Willcox said. 

    Aspire has said that a larger percentage of its students goes on to graduate from college with either an associate or bachelor’s degree than students with similar demographics. But the figure from all graduating classes, through 2019, was only 30.5% within four years and 35.5% in six years, according to data from Aspire. 

    Last year, after surveying parents, teachers and students, Aspire changed its motto to better reflect its broader mission to prepare students to “pursue and persist in college or any post-secondary pathway”  of their choice. Instead of “College for Certain,” it is now “Empowering Minds. Transforming Futures.”

    Shalvey’s thinking evolved, too. With 70% of Central Valley high school graduates staying in the area, San Joaquin A+ focuses on developing an Early College High School model, which enables students to receive college credit while in high school and “earn as they learn” so that by age 26, “they are doing what they love and earning what they need,” Shalvey said.

    Continuing tensions with school districts

    With 1 out of 9 students in California now attending a charter school, districts often have tense relations with the charter schools that they authorize or approve over their objections. Antagonisms, especially with charter management organizations, have become more cutthroat in an era of declining student enrollments, as both districts and charter schools battle to fill classrooms.

    Shalvey acknowledged in an interview last year that the conflicts date back to the revised charter school law that lifted the charter cap; it included collaboration and competition among charter schools’ purposes. 

    “That’s the dilemma,” he said. “In the beginning, you had to do the common thing uncommonly well. So that set it up that we were competing because my school’s scores are better than your school’s scores. And that was just wrong.”

    During his 11 years at the Gates Foundation, where he was involved in initiatives to adopt the Common Core standards and incentivize reform in teacher evaluations, which met resistance in California, Shalvey also seeded collaborations between districts and charter schools. There were partnerships in Denver, Hartford, Connecticut., and a three-way collaboration between the Spring Branch district, KIPP-Houston, and YES Prep in Texas to share course offerings and post-graduate strategies.

    It wasn’t easy to bridge the mistrust in California. He cited Summit Learning, which opened its learning platform to all districts nationwide, and KIPP, which trained hundreds of school counselors and its own team in a college-completion initiative.

    “When you get together with other charters and other school systems, you learn from one another. And it grows,” Shalvey said last year. “We weren’t trying to be the only ones trying to figure this out. There are no secrets in public education. You want everyone to get it.”





    Source link

  • Colleges and universities must step up to counteract financial aid form delays

    Colleges and universities must step up to counteract financial aid form delays


    California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo

    Credit: Ashley Bolter / EdSource

    In any given year, planning for higher education and applying for financial aid is a complicated, overwhelming and time-consuming process for families.

    This year, amid an extensive list of changes to the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, application and processing delays, and the growing list of glitches and issues with the application, submitting the FAFSA by the deadline for priority admission to California state universities may seem like an impossible task.

    Parents and families that our organization has worked with and surveyed in this application cycle are frustrated. And, with so much at stake for their students, they want to know: “Given all the delays with the FAFSA, will students have a longer time to decide which school to go to next year?”

    We think they should.

    The experiences of the families we connected with are consistent with what we are seeing nationwide. A National College Attainment Network analysis found that FAFSA submissions for the class of 2024 lag behind last year’s senior class by 42%. Even if families are able to submit an application, institutions won’t be able to create financial aid packages until early April, six weeks later than previously announced, and four months later than is typical.

    These delays are more than an inconvenience.

    Delays and technical issues with the application will have the most significant impact on the students who need financial aid the most. Students of color, students from mixed-status families, first-generation college students, students experiencing homelessness, and students in the foster care system are more likely to experience difficulty accessing financial aid, or completing their applications at all. Last week, the U.S. Department of Education announced a resolution to a problem that was halting the application process for students with parents without a social security number, giving those students less than three weeks to submit their applications.

    Policymakers and advocates across the country have offered various proposals to ensure that students and families have ample time to make an informed decision about higher education. Over 100 members of Congress urged Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona to provide clarity and “minimize the potential impact” of the issues with the FAFSA.

    California state legislators are currently debating a one-month extension for state financial aid. The State Higher Education Executive Officers Association released recommendations for states given the delay in Institutional Student Information Records. The National College Attainment Network and nine other organizations have called for the extension of university commitment and scholarship deadlines.

    The U.S. Department of Education recently announced it would relax requirements for colleges and universities in order to allow more time for getting financial aid packages to families. However, this alone is not enough to ensure that students across the country have access to the money they need to attend college.

    Institutions of higher education must be proactive and support students and families to access the financial aid they deserve. Colleges and universities should delay commitment and scholarship deadlines to June 1 to allow families enough time to compare financial aid packages and decide which university is right for them.

    The FAFSA Simplification Act was designed to make financial aid more accessible to students across the country. Let’s not penalize the students and families who are essentially beta testers this year. We must do all we can to remove as many obstacles as possible for students and keep our promise of simplifying the financial aid process for this class and every class to follow.

    •••

    Darcel Sanders is CEO of GO Public Schools, a nonprofit organization working with families to advocate for the equitable public education of underserved students in California. She previously served as legislative director for state Sen. Carol Liu and earlier worked as a middle school teacher in Oakland.

    The opinions in this commentary are those of the author. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.





    Source link

  • Marching band can change your college experience

    Marching band can change your college experience


    A part of the Cal Poly Mustang Band trumpet section in San Francisco for the Lunar New Year Parade in 2023.

    Credit: Ashley Bolter / EdSource

    Two hundred people took a deep breath.

    The marching band had just run onto the football field and it was time for us to play. We played the first note and everything seemed to melt away except for that moment. For the next 10 minutes, all I could think about was our performance.

    When the game was over — after hours of practice, performing and cheering on our team — we ran onto the field once more and played all our favorite songs to emptying stands. Then we marched out of the stadium with just as much energy as we had coming in.

    While game days are exhausting, I wouldn’t want to spend my Saturdays any other way. Joining the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo marching band was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made, and it has enhanced my college experience in so many ways.

    upcoming roundtable | march 21
    Can arts education help transform California schools?

    In an era of chronic absenteeism and dismal test scores, can the arts help bring the joy of learning back to a generation bruised by the pandemic?

    Join EdSource on March 21 at 3 p.m. for a behind-the-scenes look at how arts education transforms learning in California classrooms as schools begin to implement Prop. 28.

    Save your spot

    Among the most important, it provided a community in which I could fully be myself.

    For many, including Lindsay Gonor, a fourth-year liberal studies major and fellow trumpet player at Cal Poly, the community is the best part of being in band.

    “I feel like a lot of people stay in band, not because they love marching, but because they love playing their instruments and because they love the people involved. And that’s definitely true for me,” Gonor said.

    This community is welcoming and inclusive, bringing people from different backgrounds together. “It’s just a bunch of people with a common interest and like, similar weirdness,” Gonor said.

    I love being part of this community and all the fun traditions we have like praising the sun when we stretch, waving to the mountain that appears to have a face that we’ve named “Big Lip Barbara” and singing our fight song super fast when we get dismissed.

    Marching band is one of the most diverse groups on campus, at least at Cal Poly, and through this you learn to work as a team with people who are different from you to achieve a common goal. Leadership, accountability, time management, confidence and patience are all skills that members of a marching band gain, which can be applied to their academics and into their careers.

    Nicholas Waldron, the associate director of bands at Cal Poly, describes these skills as the “intangibles.”

    “What I mean by that is organization skills, communication ability, being able to collaborate, being understanding and empathetic,” Waldron said.

    While studies have shown that participating in any extracurricular activity can be beneficial and help a person develop some of these skills, marching band is so uniquely positioned at the junction between a physical activity, a performing art and a social group that members reap all of these benefits.

    Beyond the skills people attain and the relationships they build along the way, marching band provides a creative outlet to students that helps them de-stress.

    “Not everybody realizes how important it is to have designated [time] not thinking about school,” Gonor said. “One of the most important things in college is to continue to have something that you enjoy doing outside of your major.”

    Yuke Billbe, a third-year biomedical engineering major and alto saxophone player at Cal Poly said marching band saved her college experience in this way.

    “In my academic career, (there’s) a lot of stuff going on, but I always am able to look forward to (marching band),” she said.

    Marching bands also have benefits for the universities.

    In his research, Adam Gumble, the director of athletic bands at West Chester University in Pennsylvania, found that marching bands can be powerful recruiting tools for universities.

    I know this is true for me. When I was applying to colleges, one of my main requirements was that it had a marching band. Billbe also said she decided to go to Cal Poly after meeting a couple of members of the band.

    Even my roommate, who is not in marching band, said seeing the marching band and how much spirit we bring was part of the reason she decided to go to Cal Poly.

    Gumble’s research also found that participation in an activity such as marching band increases retention rates and feelings of connection to the institution.

    While marching band is a big time commitment, it’s worth the investment.

    If I could go back and do it all over again, there’s not a thing I would do differently. Giving up almost every Saturday during the fall for the past seven years has helped shape me into the person I am today, and I wouldn’t trade my time in marching band for the world.

    •••

    Ashley Bolter is a fourth-year journalism major and French and ethnic studies minor at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, and a member of EdSource’s California Student Journalism Corps.

    The opinions in this commentary are those of the author. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.





    Source link

  • Few low-income Californians claiming kids’ free money in college savings accounts

    Few low-income Californians claiming kids’ free money in college savings accounts


    Credit: Ekrulila/Pexels

    Despite the fanfare surrounding its launch in August 2022, the California Kids Investment and Development Savings program (CalKIDS), a state initiative to help children from low income families save money for college or a career, has been underutilized as eligible families lack awareness about its existence. 

    According to a March 6 announcement from CalKIDS, 300,000 students and families — a fraction of the 3.6 million eligible across the state — have accessed the state-funded account.

    That translates to about 8.3% of eligible students statewide with similar low percentages locally, which Devon Gray, president of the advocacy organization End Poverty in California (EPIC), said illustrates the gap between a program run by the state and local implementation. 

    CalKIDS is meant to help families save for college or career training after high school by creating a savings account and depositing between $500 and $1,500 for eligible low-income students in the public school system. The program was created to help students, especially those from underserved communities, gain access to higher education. 

    Click here to find out if your child is eligible.

    While pleased with the state’s investment of nearly $2 billion for the program, Gray said successful implementation of CalKIDS is key.

    Though supported by the governor, the program doesn’t have enough staff to consistently spread awareness across the large, diverse state, said Joe DeAnda, communications director with the California State Treasurer’s Office, which oversees the CalKIDS program and its outreach efforts. He cites a lack of resources, also an explanation for school districts that are having trouble informing families about the program. 

    Consequently, families across the state are confused, uninformed or unaware of CalKIDS and face challenges in even claiming the accounts once aware, EPIC leaders say. 

    The state’s low percentage of claimed accounts may seem indicative of poor program adoption, DeAnda said, but CalKIDS credits its ongoing outreach and collaboration to raise awareness of the program among schools, community-based organizations and government agencies as the reason for the “major milestone” of hundreds of thousands claiming their accounts so far.

    Fresno Unified, one of the state’s largest school districts, hopes to reach a milestone of its own.

    The school board voted on March 6 to create a districtwide campaign to raise awareness about the CalKIDS accounts that are available to most of its students — a move that districts statewide can emulate, advocates say.

    In Fresno Unified, only 6.64% of eligible students have claimed their accounts — partly because the district has not publicized the program as it can and should, Andy Levine, a member of the district’s board of trustees, said during the board meeting. 

    Levine proposed a resolution requiring the district to make a systemwide commitment to increase student awareness and access to the accounts. 

    He cited studies indicating that having as little as $500 in a college savings account makes a student three times more likely to enroll in college and four times more likely to graduate than a student without savings. 

    “I believe (it) is critically important to our city overall, with tens of millions of dollars collectively waiting for our students to utilize,” Levine told EdSource. 

    Program gives $500 to eligible low-income students 

    In this file photo, Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks at Ruby Bridges Elementary School in Alameda in March 2021. At the time, Newsom was still proposing the college savings accounts for all low-income students in California.
    In this file photo, Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks at Ruby Bridges Elementary School in Alameda in March 2021. At the time, Newsom was still proposing the college savings accounts for all low-income students in California.
    Credit: Andrew Reed/EdSource

    Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2022 invested about $1.9 billion in the accounts; Fresno Unified students are eligible for about $30 million. 

    According to program details, low-income public school students are awarded $500 in a CalKIDS account if they were in grades 1-12 during the 2021-22 school year, were enrolled in first grade during the 2022-23 school year or will be in first grade in subsequent school years. 

    An additional $500 is deposited for students identified as foster youth and another $500 for students classified as homeless. 

    Children born in California after June 2023, regardless of their parents’ income, are granted $100. Those born in the state between July 1, 2022, and June 30, 2023, were awarded $25 before the seed deposit increased to $100. Parents who link the CalKIDS account to a ScholarShare 529 college savings account are eligible for an additional $50 deposit for their newborns. 

    The California Department of Education determines eligibility based on students identified as low income under the state’s Local Control Funding Formula, and the California Department of Public Health provides information on newborns. 

    State outreach does not address all the challenges 

    During the program’s initial rollout, Newsom described the initiative as California “telling our students that we believe they’re college material.” 

    “Not only do we believe it,” Newsom said at the time, “we’ll invest in them directly.”

    Since then, Newsom and his office have regularly highlighted the program, spokesperson Izzy Gardon said. The governor’s backing garnered a lot of attention for the program in its first year, DeAnda said. Most Fresno County students who have claimed the accounts did so in the first year. Across the 33 school districts in Fresno County, 6,058 students claimed the account in the 2021-22 school year when the program launched; last school year, 404 registered the account, based on state data provided to EPIC. 

    Millions of dollars have been allocated to ensure families take advantage of the program. 

    According to the 2022-23 state budget, enacted in June 2022, the state increased its one-time general funding by $5 million for local program outreach and coordination with CalKIDS as well as another $5 million in ongoing funding for financial literacy outreach to educate families about the long-term benefits of a savings account with CalKIDS. 

    Besides outreach and collaboration with schools and organizations, the multimillion-dollar outreach efforts include marketing the program through partnerships, mailers, webinars, advertisements, social media and outdoor signage. With the state’s budget allocation, the program is also in the process of launching a $7.5 million media campaign to supplement current outreach.

    Informing newborn parents looks slightly different

    The mailers are one-time notification letters to inform students about the CalKIDS account and how to access it, according to the state treasurer’s office. Between November 2022 and June 2023, the program sent letters to over 3.3 million students. In January, the program sent notification letters for nearly 270,000 first graders who became eligible after last school year.

    Every month, the program sends notification letters to newborn parents. Nearly 4% of more than 536,000 newborns eligible for CalKIDS had claimed the accounts, as of Dec. 31, according to CalKIDS data. As of March 1, the program had sent more than 634,000 letters to newborn parents since the program began, according to the treasurer’s office.

    In addition to the mailers, the program has sent emails to over 316,000 parents to notify them of their newborn’s CalKIDS account. The California Department of Public Health, which provides information on newborns, sends the program email addresses of parents who provide the contact information during the birth registration process.

    CalKIDS does not have access to student or parent email addresses from the education department. 

    Gray, the president of EPIC, said many in low income communities ignore the mailers because they don’t trust the communication or question its credibility, even if it has an official letterhead. 

    Advocates told EdSource that the success of other state outreach, such as webinars, depends on families being aware, and awareness — or a lack, thereof — is the No. 1 challenge related to CalKIDS account access. Other issues include the state’s large population as well as the workload of state officials who are tasked with promoting and offering various programs, not just CalKIDS. 

    DeAnda said it’s challenging for the small CalKIDS team, a group of about four people, to reach millions of families spread across the different rural and urban communities in California. 

    And even though CalKIDS has asked districts to promote the program as well, especially for students who will soon graduate, some districts also struggle with having enough resources to do their own outreach beyond what the state has done, Gray said.  The program, according to the state treasurer’s office, offers an online toolkit for schools and districts to download and use fliers or posters, content for emails or social media and videos for CalKIDS outreach.

    If families are not exposed to or participating in state or local outreach, they won’t know or learn about the program. 

    According to Gray, during EPIC’s listening tours across the state, he often asked families and community leaders about CalKIDS.

    “And, usually, it’s blank stares,” he said. 

    Widespread confusion

    In places such as San Francisco and Oakland, there is confusion about CalKIDS because the communities have local college savings account programs of their own. 

    Of over 33,000 eligible students in San Francisco County, just over 1,600 students, or 5%, have claimed the CalKIDS accounts. In Alameda County, where Oakland is located, more than 100,000 students are eligible, but just over 8,000, or 8%, have claimed their accounts. 

    Even when families are aware, claiming the account has proven difficult, said Jasmine Dellafosse, the director of organizing and community engagement with EPIC. 

    The seed deposits into the savings accounts are automatic, but families must claim the accounts by registering online — a step that less than 4,200 eligible Fresno Unified students had taken as of last school year.  

    To check student eligibility and register the account, families must enter students’ Statewide Student Identifier (SSID), a 10-digit number that appears on student transcripts, the CalKIDS website said.

    Dellafosse said many Fresno Unified families don’t know where to find the ID numbers, and there’s often no straightforward answer on how to obtain them. The CalKIDS website instructs families to contact their child’s school or school district if they’re unsure of how to locate the number.

    Board member Elizabeth Jonasson Rosas, at the March 6 board meeting, noted the difficulty she had in finding the SSID number for her child. She contacted the CalKIDS program, which referred her to the state mailer she said she never received.  

    For a board member who works in the district and has access to resources to struggle to identify the number, Dellafosse said, shows the barrier families have and will experience. 

    “We’re not just seeing that happening in Fresno,” she said, “we’re seeing that happening everywhere.” 

    With the school board’s resolution, Rosas said the district has an opportunity to help its families participate in the program and a chance to work with the state to make the process easier.

    Fresno Unified leads state in effort to raise awareness

    More than 60,000 of the district’s 70,000 plus students could qualify for $500, while more than 1,000 students experiencing homelessness or living in foster care qualify for up to $1,000 more, according to the board resolution proposed by Levine. 

    Going Deeper

    EPIC leaders want other districts to make systemwide commitments for increased awareness of and access to the CalKIDS accounts.

    “We can’t just stop at Fresno,” Dellafosse said.

    As California is a large, diverse state, the outreach strategies that work in one region may not work in another. Still, advocates say there are ways to address the barriers impacting CalKIDS account access, such as: 

    • Providing CalKIDS welcome kits with the SSID numbers.
    • Rewriting informational materials to a third-grade reading level so more families understand the content.
    • Having local leaders educate families.
    • Advocating for multilingual outreach at the state level.
    • And bolstering communication between districts and the state.

    “You have to know the money is waiting for you,” he said. 

    According to the resolution, which includes the goal of increasing student account access from less than 7% to at least 25%, there is a “clear need for intentional district outreach, education and support.”

    By June, Fresno Unified will create a CalKIDS engagement plan to outline strategies for account registration and data collection for all eligible students and set goals to ensure graduating students use their funds for post-secondary plans. 

    Levine said that the district’s plan can be a model for how school districts across the state can engage and educate families about the CalKIDS program. 

    Based on the resolution, the district’s commitment to making families aware of the program can increase access to funding, improve students’ chances of attending and graduating from college, and improve current statistics showing that less than 25% of Fresno County residents over 25 have a bachelor’s degree.

    “As someone who comes from a very disadvantaged family, I know the difference that some dollars in a savings account can really make,” board member Veva Islas said. 

    “No matter what the amount is, as long as there is some thought about sending children to college and some planning, (there) seems to (be) a very high correlation with that being the end result.” 





    Source link

  • Homeless youth advocates call for dedicated state funding, local flexibility

    Homeless youth advocates call for dedicated state funding, local flexibility


    Credit: Alison Yin / EdSource

    Advocates are calling for $13 million in dedicated state funding and for the adoption of a bill that would support homeless students and youth exiting foster care as schools face the expiration of significant pandemic-era federal funding this year.

    The call comes from the Oakland-based National Center for Youth Law, which is also co-sponsoring Assembly Bill 2137.

    The bill, introduced by Assemblymember Sharon Quirk-Silva, proposes making it easier for local organizations that serve foster youth to provide direct services. It also mandates those same programs be informed when foster students opt out of applying for federal financial aid, and it requires districts to detail how they plan to increase identification of students experiencing homelessness.

    Youth exiting the foster care system face a disproportionate risk of homelessness, and some state programs dedicated to offering them housing support would be eliminated if the state’s proposed budget is approved as it currently stands.

    “If we do not have the basic infrastructure in the state to identify them and do any preventative work, we are going to continue to fail this population and then see chronic adult homelessness grow, which is the issue everyone says they care about,” said Margaret Olmos, director of the National Center for Youth Law’s compassionate education systems team in California.

    The proposed funding allocation would partially replace the federal money — which must be obligated before October and spent by January next year — while the bill seeks to implement three provisions, directing existing resources toward supporting foster and homeless youth while working to increase their high school graduation and college enrollment rates.

    The bill “really highlights the need that we have to do all we can … to be very intentional about our foster youth and outcomes of them maybe having a pathway straight into homelessness unless we intervene,” said Quirk-Silva. “This is a way to work with them through the education system.”

    The call for state funding specific to homeless youth, which school staff and advocates have long campaigned for, and for the adoption of the bill, come in a year that California faces a budget deficit in the billions and as rates of student homelessness in many counties have surpassed pre-pandemic rates.

    “We’re not deaf to the environment. … What we know is when there is a budget deficit that the number of families and children experiencing homelessness is just going to go up,” Olmos said.

    Advocates see both the call for $13 million in dedicated state funding and the adoption of Assembly Bill 2137 as necessary steps in preventing the rise of youth homelessness.

    State data and recent studies show that students experiencing homelessness and those in the foster care system are significantly more likely to be chronically absent from school, be suspended, have lower grades, experience higher school instability, or drop out of school.

    Dedicated state funding

    In 2021, California received nearly $100 million to aid in the identification, enrollment and school engagement of youth experiencing homelessness. This was one-time federal pandemic-era funding under the American Rescue Plan.

    Since then, school staff have hailed the funding as critical in their efforts to stay current on which of their students were homeless and how to best support them, whether by offering their families short-term stays in motels after an eviction, hiring staff to contact families they believe might be experiencing homelessness, distributing debit cards for gas, and more.

    Students identified as homeless in California are eligible to receive some resources, but the state does not dedicate funding that is specific to this population of students. Some states, such as Washington, have allocated state dollars toward replacing the American Rescue Plan funds before they sunset.

    While the state’s funding formula for education gives some funds for high-needs students, including those identified as homeless, it’s not proportionate to the number of homeless students living across the state. In practice, homeless students account for less than 1% of planned spending in the funding formula, according to a report published last year by the Public Policy Institute of California.

    Additionally, this state funding is tied to first identifying students who are homeless — an effort that school staff say in and of itself needs to first be funded.

    “This is the one subgroup that has to self-identify,” said Olmos. “None of this works if you do not have somebody who is there to count and care about that population.”

    There is some dedicated funding at the federal level, such as the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, but those grants are distributed in California as part of a competitive grant process, making them extremely limited. During the 2018-19 school year, for example, just 73 of California’s nearly 2,300 local education agencies were awarded McKinney-Vento funding; only 103 applied for the grants, according to a state audit.

    McKinney-Vento grants to California totaled about $13 million annually prior to the pandemic, and the call for $13 million in state funding would match that amount.

    That amount would not have the same statewide impact that schools felt with the American Rescue Plan funds, but Olmos said that “it’s at least, for the first time, a commitment” from the state.

    Proposal to refine current resources

    Quirk-Silva, the legislator who introduced Assembly Bill 2137, hopes the bill will help prevent youth homelessness by supporting current foster youth in schools. She was an elementary school teacher for 30 years before being elected to represent District 67, which includes cities from Cerritos in Los Angeles County to Fullerton in Orange County.

    “We know they’re part of the population (of homeless youth), and we have to do everything we can before they leave their placements,” said Quirk-Silva. “Some do go to college, and that does help them, but many of them aren’t on that track, and that’s where they become even more vulnerable.”

    In refining existing resources, the bill seeks to implement three provisions with the goal of keeping foster youth engaged in school by addressing their individual needs.

    The first of the bill’s provisions would increase flexibility for county Foster Youth Services Coordinating Programs, which coordinate with local educational agencies to provide resources such as tutoring and FAFSA support for foster youth students, when offering direct support services to students.

    Currently, the county programs, known as FYSCPs, can only offer such services after receiving written certification from the local educational agency confirming they are “unable, using any other state, federal, local, or private funds, to provide the direct services.”

    This requirement, according to the bill co-sponsors, which also includes advocacy organization John Burton Advocates for Youth, is a barrier because many local educational agencies, or LEAs, “are reluctant to provide written certification that they cannot address the needs of foster youth resulting in FYSCPs having to forgo providing these services, even when clearly indicated and when funding is available to do so.”

    The second provision would request that the coordinating programs be informed if students fill out a form opting out of applying for federal financial aid, so they may intervene and advise foster youth about their options post-high school.

    The third and final provision in the bill would require districts to detail in their three-year strategic plans how they plan to increase identification of students experiencing homelessness.

    Assemblymember Quirk-Silva said she expects her colleagues to support the bill. There are currently no estimates for how much the bill would cost, if adopted.

    “What I’ve seen as a classroom teacher is this is a very vulnerable population,” she said. “Often they need the most support and many times they get the least amount of support.”





    Source link

  • Our students need more recess

    Our students need more recess


    Students at Copper Island Academy in Michigan engage in unstructured play during frequent outdoor breaks.

    Credit: Courtesy of Timothy Walker / Copper Island Academy

    A flush of anger had spread across my fifth-grader’s forehead. I had never seen a student more upset in my classroom, and it was all my fault. During my first week of teaching in Finland, I had withheld recess — not just from this one fifth-grader, but from all my students.

    Elementary school teachers in Finland typically incorporate a 15-minute break into every hour-long lesson. Many times each day, their students head to the playground and engage in free play after 45 minutes of classroom instruction. Coming from the United States, I questioned this model.

    I firmly believed my fifth-graders would thrive on longer stretches in the classroom. Instead of teaching in 45-minute chunks, I taught 90-minute double lessons followed by 30-minute breaks as often as possible. (Finnish law allows for this kind of scheduling, but it is far from the norm.)

    On the third day of school, just an hour into a 90-minute lesson, I saw that my go-to strategy of delaying breaks had failed. Miserably.

    “I think I’m going to explode!” my fifth-grader had said to me. “I’m not used to this schedule.”

    This awkward confrontation became a turning point in my teaching career. Until then, I had paid little attention to the importance of unstructured breaks. Research, however, has demonstrated many benefits of school recess.

    Over the last decade, a growing list of U.S. states — including Missouri, Florida and New Jersey — have mandated daily recess. California joined the trend in late 2023.

    Starting with the 2024-2025 school year, all K-8 students in Golden State public schools will receive at least 30 minutes of daily outdoor recess (air quality and weather permitting). Not only that, but the recess law also bans the harmful practice of withholding recess for disciplinary reasons.

    California’s new law is a welcome change that expands access to daily recess, but there’s a critical omission. The law does not mandate public schools to offer multiple breaks during the school day. Most U.S. elementary schools (83%) provide daily recess, but only a relative few (21%) offer two periods of daily recess. (Arizona requires its schools to give two periods of daily recess to K-5 students, but unlike California, it fails to specify the duration).

    “Increasing recess frequency offers a cost-effective, accessible and sustainable opportunity to improve children’s health on a population level,” U.S. researchers wrote in an article published this year.

    Under its new recess law, California schools can easily perpetuate the status quo, offering just a single 30-minute daily break. One recess is better than nothing, but I learned firsthand in Finland that keeping kids cooped up in the classroom for hours is a mistake.

    After my fifth-grader confronted me, I quickly embraced the Finnish approach to breaks. And it paid off. Following a 15-minute recess, my fifth-graders would return to the classroom looking refreshed. They seemed much more engaged and focused during lessons, too.

    At my former U.S. school, many of my students — after spending hours inside our classroom — used to struggle with behavior and attention issues. Especially in the afternoon. Back then, I often turned to energizers (i.e., brief songs, poems and games) in an effort to reinvigorate my students. These teacher-directed breaks could make hours in the classroom feel more tolerable, but they were only minimally effective. More than anything else, my American students needed more opportunities for unstructured play breaks (ideally outdoors).

    Decades ago, educational researcher Anthony Pellegrini conducted experiments at a U.S. elementary school and witnessed what I observed at my Finnish school: Students were more focused after a break than before one. When Pellegrini described his research to his 10-year-old daughter, she responded, “Well, duh.”

    Delaying recess — what I did initially at my Finnish school — flies in the face of neuroscience. “People who take regular breaks, and naps even, end up being more productive and more creative in their work,” Daniel Levitin, an American-Canadian neuroscientist, said in a public radio interview. “You need to give your brain time to consolidate all the information that’s come in, to toss it and turn it.”

    Implementing a Finnish-inspired schedule may seem like a far-fetched idea for American schools, but it’s already happening in the United States. I now work with a Michigan school that borrows best practices from Finland’s educational model, including its approach to scheduling.

    Copper Island Academy, a K-8 charter school, provides students with multiple outdoor breaks each day. Teachers supervise the students on the playground while giving them significant autonomy. Students can freely run up the slide, build forts in the woods and climb trees.

    It’s a bold strategy, especially in the Wolverine State. Like most states, Michigan does not require recess, and approximately 1 in 5 elementary school students receive less than 20 minutes of it daily (despite a state Board of Education recommendation to incorporate this amount).    

    When I visited Copper Island, a few teachers told me they were initially skeptical of the unstructured breaks. “I wondered what fifth-graders would do out on the playground,” fifth-grade teacher Leslie Fischer told me, “but I’ve been really amazed and impressed that it’s been so healthy for them.”

    Kevin Boyd — the middle school social studies teacher — has observed an increase in student engagement. “Boredom is not an issue at [Copper Island],” he said in an email, “and I attribute this to the Brain Breaks.”

    The nationwide movement to mandate recess makes sense, but it’s just the first step. U.S. elementary school students need more than just one play break each day.

    It is time for all American schools to align recess frequency with the science of learning. California can help lead the way.

    •••

    Timothy Walker is an American teacher and author living in Espoo, Finland. He is the author of “Teach Like Finland: 33 Simple Strategies for Joyful Classrooms,” and a consultant with Copper Island Academy, a Finnish-inspired charter school in Calumet, Michigan.

    The opinions in this commentary are those of the author. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.





    Source link

  • LAUSD launches Ed, the nation’s first AI ‘personal assistant’ for students

    LAUSD launches Ed, the nation’s first AI ‘personal assistant’ for students


    An LAUSD student tries out Ed, the district’s new AI assistant for students.

    Credit: Los Angeles Unified / X

    Los Angeles Unified School District students will soon have their own individualized AI tool, a “personal assistant,” to help them with everyday tasks and remind them about school work when they forget.

    The tool, named Ed, is the first of its kind in the nation and will be able to accommodate students verbally and on screen in 100 languages. 

    “What we are announcing here today is a vision that was built over years of thinking about it, but only one year in actually bringing the necessary partners together — to give a voice, to give a simple life, to give a color, to give an experience,” said Superintendent Alberto Carvalho during Wednesday’s inaugural event at the Edward R. Roybal Learning Center. “And what has emerged is Ed.” 

    Ed includes a number of features. It will, for example, be able to remind students of upcoming tests, inform them of the cafeteria menu, provide updates on school buses and even wake them up in the morning, Carvalho said. 

    “Ed will tell Maria ‘You’re falling a little behind in reading, but we got you – click here,’” Carvalho said. “Maria will click, and, without the need for an additional sign on … (it will) open the doors to all of the resources to elevate each student’s needs.”

    Carvalho said this tool will not replace the many people in LAUSD who teach and support students on a daily basis. 

    During the pilot period, Ed will be available immediately to 55,000 students in 101 elementary, middle and senior high schools. Once an initial pilot period is over and the program proves successful, Carvalho said it would expand to the whole district. 

    “Just like humans are not perfect — although sometimes, in certain political circles, some say they are — the technology produced by humans isn’t perfect either,” Carvalho said. 

    “With all of the protections against the vulnerabilities, there is always a concern. That’s why we are over vigilant.” 

    Carvalho also tried to dispel potential cybersecurity concerns — emphasizing that the district has had support from local, state and national agencies in monitoring the program’s evolution. 

    He also said Ed is currently operating at 93% accuracy, several percentage points above the gold standard of 85% to 87% for ChatGPT.

    A strong set of filters will also ensure the program is free from any kind of offensive language, Carvalho added. 

    More than 100 people, including LAUSD school board members, partners from various universities and businesses as well as representatives of local and state government officials, including Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, attended Ed’s inauguration. 

    The event space was decorated with balloon archways and various photo backdrops — along with Lego building tables, face painting, juice stations and food trucks to celebrate the occasion. Students also sat at tables testing out various features provided by Ed, while the parent interface was displayed on iPads.

    “It is the power of artificial intelligence that will allow us for real-time understanding of where students are and where they need to go,” Carvalho said. 

    “It is the power of this technology to ensure that we will meet every one of our students where they are and accelerate them academically and in terms of enrichment towards their full potential.”





    Source link

  • UC delays vote on much-debated proposal to restrict some faculty speech

    UC delays vote on much-debated proposal to restrict some faculty speech


    Public speakers address UC leaders during a March UC regents meeting at UCLA.

    Credit: Julie Leopo / EdSource

    The University of California’s board of regents has delayed voting until May on a controversial policy proposal that would restrict faculty from using some university websites to make opinionated and political statements, such as opposition to Israel’s war in Gaza.

    The proposal would ban faculty departments and other academic units from using the homepages of their department websites to make “discretionary statements,” which the proposal defines as comments on “local, regional, global or national” events or issues and not related to daily departmental operations.

    In the days leading up to the meeting, the UC system’s Academic Senate had asked the regents to reject or at least delay a vote and expressed concerns that the proposal would limit freedom of speech.

    The policy was scheduled for a vote Wednesday during a joint meeting of the regents’ academic affairs and compliance and audit committees. But regents voted to delay a final decision until their next meeting in May. Before that meeting, they plan to collect additional comments from the Academic Senate and other regents.

    “People will submit their issues that they have. The Academic Senate will do their thing. We’ll hear everyone’s point of view. We’ll modify if we need to modify. And maybe we could just personally commit that we’ll vote in the next meeting,” said regent Jay Sures, one of the regents responsible for bringing the proposal forward. Sures is vice-chairman of United Talent Agency, a powerful entertainment and sports-related firm.

    Regent Jay Sures, seen during Wednesday’s board meeting, backs a proposal to curb opinionated comments on academic department homepages.
    Credit: Julie Leopo / EdSource

    UC systemwide President Michael Drake also supported delaying the vote, saying he doesn’t think the policy is finished and that the university “needs to get it right” before moving forward.

    The policy doesn’t mention a specific issue, but many faculty see it as an attempt to limit what they can say about Israel’s war in Gaza. The consideration of the policy, which has been in the works for months, comes after UC’s Ethnic Studies Faculty Council and several faculty departments have criticized Israel over the war. In addition, when the policy was first discussed at January’s regents meeting, regent Hadi Makarechian said the board was considering the policy because “some people were making political statements related to Hamas and Palestinians.”

    UC leaders who support the policy have said it is needed to ensure that the opinions of faculty departments aren’t misinterpreted as representing the university as a whole. 

    It’s unclear whether the policy will get enough support among the board when it does go to a vote. Some regents voiced concern Wednesday about the proposal’s possible impacts.

    Merhawi Tesfai, a graduate student at UCLA and a student regent, said during the meeting that he doesn’t think the regents should be setting a systemwide policy.

    “I think each campus should be free to decide on what policies they’re going to be doing, what guidelines they’re going to set around this issue,” he added.

    Another regent, Keith Ellis, said he was concerned that the policy could be used “as a weapon” against faculty.

    If faculty departments or other academic units, such as research centers, do want to make opinionated statements, the proposal still would allow them to publish those elsewhere on UC web pages, just not on the homepages. Those statements would also need to include a disclaimer explaining that the opinions don’t represent the university as a whole. The policy also allows faculty and groups of faculty to publish their opinions on private websites. 

    Last week, the Academic Senate formally requested that the regents reject the proposal or at least delay a vote. The Senate’s Academic Council voted unanimously, 19-0, in making that request to the regents. In a letter to the regents, Academic Senate leaders said the policy has the potential to “limit free speech and impinge on academic freedom,” among other concerns. 

    An overflow crowd waits outside of Wednesday’s meeting of the UC board of regents at UCLA.
    Credit: Julie Leopo / EdSource

    The policy was updated after the Senate submitted its comments, and did include some changes addressing the concerns raised. The latest draft of the policy, for example, includes a definition of the types of statements that would be banned, whereas the previous version did not.

    In remarks to the regents, Academic Senate Chair James Steintrager said the latest version was a step in the right direction but lamented that the Senate had only two days to review the latest version before the meeting. He urged the regents to delay a vote and send the draft policy out for further review by the Senate.

    Trevor Griffey, a lecturer at UCLA and a vice president for the union representing UC’s non-tenure track faculty, wrote on social media on Wednesday that the union is worried about how the policy would be enforced. The union “believes that enforcement of this vague standard cannot be done consistently, and is likely to increase interest group pressure” on faculty departments, Griffey wrote.

    Griffey also said the regents were trying to bypass the Senate on this issue. Rather than approving a new policy, Senate leaders have asked the regents to adopt recommendations made by the Senate in 2022. 

    The Senate determined at that time that UC faculty departments have the right to “make statements on University-owned websites” as long as the statements don’t take positions on elections. The Senate, like the regents, also recommended that those statements include disclaimers that the departments don’t speak for the university as a whole. But the Senate didn’t discourage statements from appearing on departmental homepages. 

    “These recommendations were based on comprehensive consultation with faculty on the ten campuses, as well as with UC Legal consultants. They are intended to guide departments whose members opt to post statements to do so in ways that minimize downsides and that do not infringe on academic freedom,” the Senate leaders wrote in their letter to the regents last week.

    Since last fall, some faculty departments have included statements on their websites criticizing Israel. The homepage for UC Santa Cruz’s critical race and ethnic studies department website has a statement calling on “scholars, researchers, organizers, and administrators worldwide” to take action “to end Israel’s genocidal attack on Gaza.” 

    In a letter last fall, the systemwide UC Ethnic Studies Faculty Council also criticized UC leaders for their public statements following the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on Israel. The council said UC’s statements lacked context because they didn’t acknowledge Israeli violence against Palestine, including “75 years of settler colonialism and globally acknowledged apartheid.” The faculty also said UC’s statements “irresponsibly wield charges of terrorism.” 

    Sures, the regent who supports the proposal, responded with a letter of his own, saying the council’s letter was “rife with falsehoods about Israel and seeks to legitimize and defend the horrific savagery of the Hamas massacre.” He also pledged to do “everything in my power” to protect “everyone in our extended community from your inflammatory and out of touch rhetoric.” The faculty responded by criticizing Sures for not condemning Israeli violence and calling on him to resign. 





    Source link