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  • LAUSD unanimously affirms support for immigrant and LGBTQ+ students leading up to Trump’s inauguration 

    LAUSD unanimously affirms support for immigrant and LGBTQ+ students leading up to Trump’s inauguration 


    Credit: Julie Leopo/EdSource

    Este artículo está disponible en Español. Léelo en español.

    As anti-immigrant and anti-LGBTQ+ policies and rhetoric spread across the nation in the wake of Donald Trump’s re-election for presendent, the Los Angeles Unified School District board affirmed its commitment to members of these communities by unanimously passing four resolutions on Tuesday.

    “The district will continue to do everything in its power to protect and defend the kids in our care,” one of the resolutions reads. “Doing so is the responsibility of all LAUSD employees.” 

    Here’s an overview of LAUSD’s efforts from Tuesday’s regular board meeting and what to expect in the two months leading up to Trump’s inauguration. 

    LAUSD as a sanctuary district 

    After Trump vowed to declare a national emergency and bring in the U.S. military to facilitate mass deportations, the district passed a resolution reaffirming that it will remain a sanctuary and safe zone for families. 

    “We survived the pandemic because we stood together,” said Mónica García, who authored the original sanctuary resolution in the 2016-17 academic year and previously served as the president of LAUSD’s board. “… It is so important that, as we may see policies that we do not support … that we stand together in response to the times.”

    Tuesday’s action comes about eight years after the original sanctuary resolution passed; it also requires district Superintendent Alberto Carvalho to present a plan to the board within 60 days, in time for implementation by Jan. 20, when Trump returns to the White House. 

    The resolution says Carvalho’s plan should involve training LAUSD educators, administrators and staff on responding to federal agencies and anybody else who seeks information or attempts to enter a campus. 

    Meanwhile, the resolution insists that LAUSD will “aggressively oppose” any laws forcing school districts to work with federal agencies and personnel involved with immigration enforcement. 

    “The good news is that we have seen it before, and we are in a position to act,” García said at Tuesday’s meeting. “The challenge … [is] there are families who are separated and who are traumatized because of the fear of what is to come. And we will continue to ask them to come to school and give us their very best.” 

    She added, “Whether it is two years or it is four years, it is every day that we exercise love and the power of this institution on behalf of children and families.”  

    A safe place for LGBTQ+ and immigrant communities 

    The second resolution would require LAUSD to add gender identity and expression to the list of groups covered by its “To Enforce the Respectful Treatment of All Persons” policy and require the district to update district policy bulletins as needed.  

    It also calls on the district to support legislation backing immigrant and LGBTQ+ communities — and to provide educational and mental health resources. 

    A response to Project 2025 

    A third resolution passed Tuesday promises that LAUSD will remain “inclusive, safe, and welcoming” for all communities in the face of any “immediate, incalculable, and irreparable harm” to public schools caused by Project 2025, a set of detailed policy proposals authored long before the election by hundreds of high-profile conservatives in the hope that Trump would push them if elected.

    It states that LAUSD will defend all students’ right to a public education and protect them from potential harm. 

    Carvalho will have to report back to the board within 60 days — and present an overview of the potential impacts of Project 2025 as well as a district response, the resolution states.  

    “This resolution is a bold and necessary shield against the looming threats to public education — a public good that we must protect fiercely and defend,” board member Rocío Rivas said Tuesday. 

    A new political education course 

    The fourth resolution emphasizes the importance of turning LAUSD students into critical thinkers capable of discerning facts from falsehoods and ready to participate in the American political system.

    “We’re not talking about [being] a Democrat or a Republican,” said board President Jackie Goldberg, who authored all four resolutions, during her last full board meeting Tuesday. “It’s about understanding the actual way the government works — as opposed to what the Constitution says. And there’s a big difference.”

    The resolution asks Carvalho to look into creating a high-level political education course and report back to the board in 160 days. 

    His considerations, according to the resolution, would include whether the course would serve as a requirement, areas that the curriculum would cover, the types of professional development that would be needed and the ideal grade levels to teach it. 

    The resolution also asks Carvalho to consider any other curricular changes in the grade levels leading up to the course to make sure students are prepared. 

    Anely Cortez Lopez, student board member, said at Tuesday’s meeting, “The understanding of the political landscape of the United States is vital in our schools as we continue as the change-makers of tomorrow.”





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  • Educators divided on impact of changes in STEM math placement at California community colleges

    Educators divided on impact of changes in STEM math placement at California community colleges


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xemfay2L1N4

    The California community colleges will soon implement changes to STEM math placement in which more students will be enrolled directly in calculus without first taking a longer sequence of lower-level courses such as precalculus and trigonometry.

    On Tuesday, during an EdSource roundtable, “A new law aims to expand access to STEM. What troubles some educators?” panelists discussed both the potential upsides and their concerns as Assembly Bill 1705 — the 2022 law requiring the changes — is implemented.

    Defenders of the law have argued that its intent is to ensure students can progress more quickly toward transferring to four-year colleges by avoiding long sequences of pre-requisite courses, but some math educators have said they fear more students might fail calculus if they do not first enroll in the preparatory courses.

    Tina Akers-Porter is one such math professor at Modesto Junior College. During Tuesday’s roundtable, she shared concerns she has heard from other math professors statewide. The concerns have centered less on the law as intended and more on the implementation guidance from the Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office, which she said “don’t exactly match up well with the law” and are “very strict.”

    Akers-Porter pointed out that in order for a precalculus course to continue being offered at a community college, at least 50% of students enrolled in such preparatory classes must be successful in the class. By contrast, just 15% of students directly enrolled in calculus without first taking preparatory courses must successfully pass the class.

    Such guidance leads to “one size fits all,” an approach she said “is definitely not in the name of equity.”

    John Hetts, executive vice chancellor for the Office of Innovation, Data, Evidence and Analytics Office at the Chancellor’s Office, discussed some of the research he said the implementation guidance is based on.

    “At heart, what [the guidelines] are is based on a really substantial set of research across not just California, but across the country, that suggests that the way that we place students into our courses in community colleges vastly underestimated their capacity,” Hetts said.

    The implementation guidance includes the offering of support courses, called corequisites, which students will be able to take concurrently with calculus. The additional courses of at most two units are designed to integrate topics from areas like algebra and trigonometry into calculus.

    Hetts referred to research that showed corequisites being more effective than prerequisites and that having students repeat courses previously taken does not help them “and, in many cases, makes them less likely to complete the subsequent course.”

    Some students, such as panelist Alicia Szutowicz-Fitzpatrick, expressed concerns about the amount of additional time that corequisites might require. As student senate president and a disabled student programs and services peer mentor, Szutowicz-Fitzpatrick said she is worried about how the changes made to STEM math placement will impact financial aid, students’ time and unit loads.

    “We’re also worried about the education itself; a lot of support classes are not as supportive as they could be, and it’s just more work,” she said, highlighting a particular concern about how the changes would impact students with disabilities and nontraditional students.

    Prior to 2018, community colleges regularly placed students in remedial classes if they were deemed underprepared. Evidence showed an overrepresentation of Black, Latino and Pell Grant students in such courses, most of which could not be transferred to a four-year university.

    Assembly Bill 705 was signed into law in 2017 — with a confusingly similar number as the 2022 AB 1705 legislation — with the intention of reducing inequities by placing more students in transfer-level courses.

    But racial inequities persisted, leading to the passage of Assembly Bill 1705. This bill, intended to build on AB 705, in part requires colleges to place more STEM students directly into calculus rather than lower-level courses like precalculus or trigonometry.

    Tammi Marshall, dean of math, science and engineering at Cuyamaca College, highlighted that since the fall of 2023, her campus has offered calculus plus support for students who have not taken preparatory classes such as precalculus.

    “We have seen extreme success,” Marshall said, noting that the previous model of enrolling students in preparatory courses resulted in less than 30% of their students passing calculus in one year.

    “The intention was always thinking about students and their success, but we were not supporting students,” said Marshall. “The number of students that would have started in pre-algebra class and ever completed calculus was single digits.”

    Since enrolling them directly in calculus, she said, 70% of their students pass calculus in one year.

    Panelist Doug Yegge has similarly worked to implement the guidance on AB 1705 at Chaffey College, where he is a math professor.

    “I’m not saying that there aren’t drawbacks to the way that the law is being implemented. But my view, and the view of Chaffey, is, until the law is modified, here we are,” said Yegge. “How are we going to implement this at our own schools to try to give our students the best chance at success?”

    Yegge’s approach to the changes on STEM math placement has been to build a cohort model among students so that educators are “not only encouraging, but requiring collaboration and active learning.”

    At Chaffey, all math professors assigned to teach calculus-support courses are also required to meet every other Friday for two to three hours to collectively develop content and activities.

    Panelist Rena Weiss has also worked to implement support courses at Moorpark College but found that the classes didn’t quickly fill when they were not mandated for students. In response, her department removed the support courses and opted instead to focus on tutoring​, a decision that seems to be proving successful for their students.

    They also opted to develop an “innovative pre-calculus course replacement​” which is allowed by AB 1705 and will be implemented by the Fall of 2025. They intend for the replacement ​classes to be smaller in size, allow sufficient time for active learning, provide videos that students can watch at home, and to continue working in small groups alongside their peers. ​The course will be evaluated after an experimental two years.

    “We are​ really worried that​ if the same methodology for validating a prerequisite to calculus 1 is applied to this experimental course, that all of this great work that we’re doing​ might be for nothing because we are only given two years to produce results and then that will be evaluated​,” Weiss said.

    Although she noted that many of the resources used in the experimental course will be applied toward a calculus corequisite course, she echoed the concern expressed by most of the panelists about the strict AB 1705 implementation guidance set by the Chancellor’s Office.

    This story was updated to note that Moorpark’s future replacement course, not their current structure, will be up for evaluation two years after it is implemented in Fall of 2025.





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  • Maybe we should get rid of the U.S. Department of Education

    Maybe we should get rid of the U.S. Department of Education


    Credit: Carlos Kosienski/Sipa via AP Images

    In 1994, I was the press secretary for the U.S. Department of Education when Republicans took over Congress and threatened to shut us down. My then boss, Secretary Dick Riley, would joke in almost every speech he gave that each morning his wife would open the newspaper and say, “Hey! looks like they’re trying to fire you again!” He regularly talked about it because it quickly became clear to us that people deeply believed in the Education Department’s mission and that the threats against us were bad politics.

    I was thinking of this when I watched Donald Trump’s 10-point plan for education.  I was struck by its contradictory nature of wanting to dismantle federal involvement in schools, while simultaneously trying to dictate curriculum and impose ideological policies. The department was established in 1979 to ensure resources were being spent on our nation’s poorest children.

    Now, three decades after my time at the department, the same battle is resurfacing with a new twist. At its heart, what Trump’s really proposing is a hollowing out of the department’s founding mission — not a true decentralization of power to states, but a reimagining of federal oversight as a tool for ideological control instead of a protection for our nation’s most vulnerable.  

    But here’s the paradox: Without a Department of Education and federal resources, there’s less leverage to enforce his ideological agenda. As a result, we may be in a bizarre quandary of having to choose between these two opposite visions. Given the choice between a Department of Education that no longer champions equity and no department at all, perhaps it’s time to consider the latter.

    The plan, as I understand it, is to move higher ed funding (Pell Grants and student loans) and education research to other agencies while providing equity-driven K-12 federal funds as block grants to be spent however states want.

    In California, the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) ensures that schools serving students with the greatest needs — low-income students, English learners and foster youth — receive additional resources. With LCFF, we’ve built a system that both works and meets this moment (though we may also need to codify our clear commitment to special education). As someone who has spent decades in education policy, I don’t say this lightly — in fact, it breaks my heart. But this moment calls for different thinking.  The U.S. Department of Education has been a force for good in countless lives. But it should not stand if it’s dictated by ideological agendas. Quality education for all children must remain our North Star in California, because when we center our most vulnerable students, we all succeed.

    •••

    Rick Miller is the CEO of CORE Districts, a collaboration of nine large California urban districts. He previously served as press secretary for the U.S. Department of Education and as deputy state superintendent at the California Department of Education.

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





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  • University of Texas Chancellor James Milliken chosen as next University of California president

    University of Texas Chancellor James Milliken chosen as next University of California president


    James Milliken, the next UC president, has deep experience running higher education systems in Texas and New York.

    Credit: University of California

    James B. Milliken, the chancellor of the University of Texas system and a veteran administrator with a history of leading public college systems, was selected Friday as the next president of the University of California.

    Milliken will take over the 10-campus UC system at a tumultuous time as it faces Trump administration threats to pull funding that could diminish the university’s research capacity, medical care and student services. UC is also likely to receive a significant cut to its state funding this year, providing further complications. 

    Milliken, familiarly called JB, also previously headed the University of Nebraska and the City University of New York, an urban system that includes seven community colleges, 11 four-year campuses and seven professional, graduate or honors schools. 

    Janet Reilly, chair of the UC board of regents, said Milliken is someone “who understands the transformative power of a public university system and who can build on UC’s legacy as a global leader in research and academics and public service.”

    “These times call for a president who is an effective advocate, a clear communicator and a collaborative partner to our many constituents, someone who can lead with vision and humility,” Reilly said, “and after an extensive national search. I am proud to say I think we have found that leader in JB Milliken.”

    Milliken, who is 68, will start his new job on Aug. 1 after Michael V. Drake, the system’s current president, steps down. Drake has been UC’s president since 2020 and has had stints as president of Ohio State University and chancellor of UC Irvine. 

    Milliken, who attended the regents meeting in San Francisco on Friday in person, acknowledged this is a difficult time but struck an optimistic note. We know that higher education faces challenges and changes. What will not change is the University of California’s historic mission, teaching, research, health care and public service,” he said.

    Milliken, whose initial contract is for five years, will make a base salary of $1.475 million, up from Drake’s $1.3 million.  

    During past stints as a president and chancellor, Milliken is credited with expanding STEM programs, prioritizing affordability and supporting undocumented students. Under his leadership at UT, the system cut a number of jobs and programs after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a law banning many diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs.

    Milliken said Friday that U.S. colleges are “the greatest engines of social and economic mobility the world has ever seen,” but noted that confidence in the sector is at historic lows.

    “Yet I remain firmly convinced that higher education is more important than at any point in our history, at a time when knowledge is increasing at a faster rate than ever,” he said. “New technologies are providing previously unimagined capabilities, and our graduates are enjoying opportunities in fields that didn’t even exist a few years ago. It’s abundantly clear that we must continue to invest in the most successful higher education model in the world.”

    Prior to his career in academia, which also included a period as senior vice president at the University of North Carolina, Milliken worked at a Wall Street law firm. He has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Nebraska and a law degree from New York University.

    Milliken is the second UC president in recent history to enter the job after a stint as chancellor of the University of Texas system. Mark Yudof, UC’s president from 2008 to 2013, was UT’s system chancellor from 2002 to 2008. He will be the 22nd UC president since the university was founded in 1868.

    Milliken will be required as UC’s president to oversee 10 varied campuses, $8 billion a year of research money and six medical centers. His experience leading UT may make him well-positioned to do that. The UT system includes nine academic universities and five health institutions. The system enrolls about 256,000 students; UC has nearly 300,000.

    UT has annual research expenditures of $4.3 billion, and the system ranks second in annual federal research spending among public universities — trailing only UC.

    UC gets about $6 billion annually in federal funds for research and other program supports, not including additional large sums its hospitals receive through Medicare and Medicaid. Cuts to that funding would be felt across the immense system, which comprises nine undergraduate campuses and one graduate-only campus, UC San Francisco. All 10 campuses have R1 status from the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, the highest tier for research universities. 

    UC officials defended Milliken’s new salary, on top of which he will receive free housing. A memo to the regents outlining his compensation package said UC faces “a highly competitive national market” for presidents and chancellors to lead top-tier research universities. Market data shows “increasingly higher compensation levels” among suitable candidates, according to the memo.

    In a statement, Gov. Gavin Newsom, a UC regent by virtue of his office, said Milliken “brings years of experience and the steady, strategic leadership needed to expand UC’s impact across the state.”

    Constance Penley, president of the Council of University of California Faculty Associations, said she was “cautiously optimistic” about the new UC president. “I liked very much what I’ve been able to discover about his commitment to access and equity in public higher education that he’s shown across four different universities and four different states.”

    Currently, the Trump administration is investigating several UC campuses on a variety of allegations, including discriminatory admissions practices and complaints of antisemitism. Most recently, the Department of Education opened a probe into UC Berkeley, accusing the campus of “incomplete or inaccurate” disclosures of foreign funding sources.

    The Trump administration has also zeroed in on race-based programs. Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Education said colleges that use race in “admissions, hiring, promotion, compensation, financial aid, scholarships, prizes, administrative support, discipline, housing, graduation ceremonies, and all other aspects of student, academic, and campus life” violate federal law. 

    UC officials have since said that the order would not immediately impact its campuses and that maintaining their racially themed programs, such as graduation ceremonies and dormitory floors, is not illegal.

    In Texas, lawmakers in 2023 passed Senate Bill 17, which prohibits colleges from having a DEI office, hiring employees to perform the duties of a DEI office or requiring anyone to provide a DEI statement or undergo DEI training, according to The Texas Tribune.

    In response, UT cut 300 staff positions and eliminated more than 600 programs related to DEI training, according to The Associated Press. 

    “You may not like the law, but it is the law,” Milliken said at the time.

    UC in March announced it would no longer require diversity statements as part of its faculty hiring process, but has otherwise made no major changes to its DEI programming or policies. 

    On top of the federal uncertainties, UC also faces the likelihood of a substantial cut to its state funding this year, even as it is expected to continue increasing California resident enrollment and improve graduation rates. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s January budget proposal included an 8% cut, or $400 million, for UC. Milliken has previously had to contend with state funding cuts — or at least the threat of them. In 2016, then-New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo planned to slash $485 million from CUNY’s budget, though that funding was ultimately restored. 





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  • Cal Maritime’s merger with Cal Poly San Luis Obispo approved

    Cal Maritime’s merger with Cal Poly San Luis Obispo approved


    The California State University board of trustees discusses a proposal to merge Cal Maritime and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo on Nov. 20, 2024.

    Credit: Amy DiPierro / EdSource

    This story was updated on Nov. 21 following a Cal State board of trustees vote approving the merger.

    California State University approved a merger uniting the financially troubled Cal Maritime in Vallejo, its smallest campus, with the university system’s most selective institution, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

    The full board of trustees greenlighted the merger proposal Thursday, a decision designed to keep the maritime academy in operation following enrollment declines that threatened its financial viability as an independent institution. The decision followed Wednesday’s unanimous vote for the merger by the trustees’ Joint Committee on Finance and Educational Policy.

    System officials argue that combining the two Cal State locations will ultimately benefit both universities. Cal Poly will gain access to maritime academy facilities including a $360 million training vessel and pier; Cal Maritime hopes to boost the number of students seeking merchant marine licenses. 

    “Please do not think of this as a contraction of the system,” said Chancellor Mildred García in remarks following the committee vote. “This is indeed an expansion — an expansion of opportunity for current and future students, of authentic and equitable access,” she said, as well as a benefit to the maritime industry.

    The system will face a tight timeline to unite the two institutions under the same administration by July 1, 2025. After that deadline, the combined university plans to continue under the Cal Poly name, and Cal Maritime will be rechristened Cal Poly, Solano Campus. The intent is for all students at the newly merged university to be enrolled as Cal Poly students starting in fall 2026.

    The Solano campus will be led by a vice president and CEO reporting to Cal Poly’s president. A superintendent with the rank of rear admiral in the U.S. Maritime Service will lead the maritime academy, which will remain in Vallejo. 

    Cal State envisions a blitz of activity as 2025 and 2026 deadlines approach, including navigating accreditation processes and updating the curriculum. Perhaps the biggest challenge is to revive the number of students earning their merchant mariner licenses, programs which will be housed at a renamed entity called the Cal Poly Maritime Academy pending approval from the U.S. Maritime Administration and other agencies. Merchant marines are the civilian workforce responsible for operating commercial shipping vessels; they also supply U.S. military ships and bases. 

    The maritime academy is due to receive a new, 700-student training vessel in 2026, but the school’s interim president, Michael J. Dumont, has warned that without a merger, Cal Maritime “is not going to be able to operate that ship because it won’t have the people to do it. It won’t have the budget to support it.”

    Cal Maritime has 804 students enrolled this fall. To boost that number, Cal State officials have said “substantial investments in recruitment and marketing” at high schools must begin now. 

    Officials have said cratering enrollment — headcount tumbled 31% between the 2016-17 and 2023-24 school years – and rising operating expenses are to blame for Cal Maritime’s difficult financial position.

    Dumont said in an email to the campus in August that the campus expected to notch a $3.1 million budget deficit in the 2024-25 school year, counting deficits in both its general operating and housing funds. This fall, the campus laid off 10 employees as the school year started.

    Steve Relyea, Cal State’s chief financial officer, and Nathan Evans, the system’s chief academic officer, framed the merger choice as one between combining the two institutions quickly or preparing to close the maritime academy. Presentations to the board co-led by Dumont and Cal Poly President Jeffrey D. Armstrong also note that Cal Maritime’s situation has been worsened by a flurry of departures among important campus leaders, among them its chief financial officer. Cal Maritime has tried to cover for those positions by striking agreements with Cal Poly, Cal State officials said in September, creating “the problematic misperception that leadership is moving ahead with the integration before board action in November.”

    Cal State formed 23 workgroups to study issues relevant to the merger, which it has since reorganized around a handful of themes like academics and enrollment. 

    Both faculty senate and student government representatives are already contemplating what it will take to knit the two institutions together, including questions about how to blend existing governance structures and distribute fees that support student government, according to a memo summarizing the process. Faculty additionally have been tasked to identify “overlapping, adjacencies and duplication in academic programming and curricula,” the memo said.

    Dustin Stegner, chair of the English department at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo and a statewide senator in the Academic Senate of the CSU system, said he was amazed by the committee members’ enthusiasm for the proposal.

    “This was born out of a financial crisis of Cal Maritime not being sustainable, and it is being described as a great opportunity for the whole system,” he said. “It certainly seems like making a lot of lemonade out of a lot of lemons.”

    Stegner, who has served on one of the workgroups assembled to provide feedback on the integration proposal, said he is still waiting for the board of trustees to address questions about whether faculty members’ job security could be impacted by the merger. He said there are also open questions about whether the combined university will offer more online courses in order to reach students on both campuses and whether students who switch majors may also be permitted to switch campuses. 

    Cal State representatives have not yet decided which metrics the system should use to gauge the merger’s progress. Financially, Cal State will be eying anticipated cost savings and also checking to make sure absorbing the maritime academy “does not become a financial burden to Cal Poly,” according to a memo to the board. Updates on areas like how many students are enrolling in programs that yield a merchant mariner license and the student body’s diversity are also expected. CSU officials anticipate a report updating the board on the merger’s progress next May.

    The university system has hired consulting firm Baker Tilly as an adviser to guide the merger effort and monitor its success based on the to-be-determined accountability metrics. System records show the chancellor’s office inked a $500,000 contract with the firm in September. 





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  • Sacramento State’s Black Honors College aims to be ‘HBCU of the West’

    Sacramento State’s Black Honors College aims to be ‘HBCU of the West’


    Commencement 2024 at Sacramento State.

    Credit: Bibiana Ortiz / Sacramento State

    It’s not every day that California State University students get a specific greeting from a U.S. president. But this year at CSU Sacramento, former President Barack Obama sent a message to the students of the new Black Honors College.

    “As members of the inaugural class of this college, you have a special responsibility to lead by example,” Obama said in the video message, where he encouraged the first cohort of the country’s first Black Honors College to “make life better for folks no matter what they look like, or where they come from.”

    Launched in August, Sac State’s new Black Honors College, which is uniquely and specifically designed for all students interested in Black history, life, and culture —and it has ambitions of becoming one of the nation’s most respected historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs).

    As the college aims to create a community of productivity and excellence, students in the Black Honors College are required to attend weekly study hours and have active participation in 80% of college events and programs. Among these programs are seminars on economic empowerment, self-determination and courageous leadership.

    Academically, all general education courses will be taken within the college, and every major offered at Sac State is represented in the Black Honors College. 

    According to Sac State President Luke Wood, who founded the Black Honors College, his inspiration stemmed from the fact that while Sac State has the largest population of Black students in the CSU system, the campus’ graduation rate for Black students is only 17.4%, below the 23.4% average across Cal State campuses.

    “No one serves more Black students than we do, and we’re in the bottom third in terms of success rates,” Wood said. “I don’t believe that it’s a function of students, their families and their communities, but of institutions and educators who have not been adequately prepared and designed to serve them. And so the whole goal was to create an institution within an institution that’s specifically designed to serve students who are interested in Black history, life and culture.” 

    Wood explained that the college is doing this by using research-focused initiatives with past success rates, such as structuring the student body as a “cohort” of individuals connected by a “shared learning experience.”

    According to Wood, this shared learning experience includes faculty members with a demonstrated record of success in teaching and serving Black students, adequate resources and space  — including a 6,000-square-foot space on campus made up of lecture rooms, office spaces and a study center — to properly serve these students’ needs, and a curriculum that’s “reflective of their lives and experiences.”

    “This is why everyone in the honors college has a (general education) pathway where they’re taking classes only in the honors college with those faculty members,” Wood said. 

    Transfer students, who won’t have those same foundational courses, are required to take a specialized minor oriented in fields like real estate and development or health services — all in order to ensure upward socioeconomic mobility.

    According to Wood, another “critical” aspect of this is that their curriculum will be “Afro-centric.” Regardless of students’ majors, the first two years in the college require students to take classes with a specialized focus on Black life, culture and community. This enrichment is supplemented by the “entire ecosystem” of faculty, counselors, academic advisers, staff directors and outreach coordinators, via their “commitment to serving the Black community.” 

    Wood noted that the college’s recent commemorative recognition by the Legislative Assembly emphasizes this commitment by acknowledging that it is a “Black-serving institution.”

    “Sac State has always had a very strong community of Black faculty and staff who have essentially created an informal ‘underground railroad’ through the institution,” Wood said. “Part of what the Black Honors College did was (take) that railroad, and instead of it being underground, it became public.” 

    One of the handpicked Sac State professors who is teaching at the Black Honors College this fall is Ayanna Yonemura, a professor of ethnic and African American studies. She plans to use the concentrated environment of vested interest and smaller class sizes to her advantage.

    “Every single week, we are immersed in so much wealth and positivity of Blackness,” Yonemura said. “With every single reading, video, lecture, discussion, podcast, students will learn about the diversity and resilience of Black people, and that is so powerful because … it’s contrary to the dominant messages, images and narratives that have become hegemonic and dominant in our society.” 

    As she teaches introduction to Pan-African studies this fall — one of the general education requirements for the college — Yonemura will also be helping to develop a curriculum unique to the Black Honors College, as it is currently borrowing relevant courses from other departments across campus. 

    “For me, I have a long background of implementing the curriculum around Black history and culture,” Yonemura said. “But what I think is really exciting is how faculty members from disciplines like STEM, which don’t usually center underrepresented groups, are going to be able to develop a curriculum that really centers Black life, history and culture.” 

    One of these STEM professors selected for the Black Honors College is James Reede, a part-time professor of environmental science who has had a long history of involvement in policy work for African American students as the Northern California chairman for the United Negro College Fund. 

    “I’m starting my 22nd year teaching environmental sciences, and I’ve never had more than four or five Black students in my class,” Reede said. “I expect there’s going to be more students that look like me in my classes now that will learn about what we’re doing to our Mother Earth, and be willing to do something about it.”

    Continued Reede, “I want to encourage and inspire them to take a stand by also focusing on environmental injustices to the POC community, like how they suffer the ill effects of pollution sources by their homes.” 

    In the week before the start of the fall semester, the college hosted various community events to welcome students and professors to their first semester at the Black Honors College, according to Wood. These events featured a three-day orientation including guest speakers and community-building for the incoming students, and a pop-up event called “Black on Campus: Pop Up,” with live music and networking with fellow students, staff, faculty and alumni. 

    “The most beautiful thing that I’ve heard from students, and I’ve heard it at least 20 times over the past few days, is ‘I got accepted by six HBCU’s’ and I chose to come to Sacramento State because of what’s happening here,” Wood said. “I even had a student who was a transfer from Howard University because they wanted to be here. … We’re becoming a first-choice institution, the ‘HBCU of the West’, or I like to say ‘the North Star of the West.’”

    According to Wood, this “skyrocketing” spirit of the Black campus community is evident in how applications from Black freshmen are up 20% this year, while Black transfer student rates are up 43%. He expects enrollment numbers to increase by the spring. 

    Additionally, Wood noted that fundraising efforts are just getting started. The college received a quarter-million dollar grant from the CSU system as an “institutional investment,” as well as various donations from private corporations and donors. 

    Wood said that the only growing pain the college has experienced thus far has been the significant number of students it’s had to turn away due to the need for equitable resource distribution. While the original goal was to grow the college to 500 students, the administration has now changed that goal to about 1,000-2,000 students to meet the tidal wave of applications.

    “That has implications for the number of faculty, the space that we’re allocated, the fundraising that we’re going to need to do for scholarships,” Wood said. “But we’re committed. It’s uphill, we’re building a plane (while) flying it, but we’re building it with great people.”

    Wood also noted that other institutions have reached out to Sac State to build their own “Sacramento State-certified Black Honors College” by utilizing the same academic model as the original.

    “My hope is that 10 years from now, you’ll see 30 Black Honors Colleges spread throughout the West and Midwest, so that there’s safe havens for students who identify as Black throughout those spaces,” Wood said. “It allows them to have an experience that provides them with hope and dignity.”

    Emily Hamill is a third-year student at UC Berkeley double-majoring in comparative literature and media studies and minoring in journalism.





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  • First forecast for 2025-26 school funding: More money with a twist

    First forecast for 2025-26 school funding: More money with a twist


    After years of preparation inside and outside the state Capitol (shown), California has launched a website that gathers all sorts of education and career data in a single, searchable place.

    Credit: Kirby Lee / AP

    Higher revenues than Gov. Gavin Newsom and legislators predicted will likely produce a modest increase in funding in 2025-26 for TK-12 schools and community colleges, the Legislative Analyst’s Office projected on Wednesday. 

    The growth in revenues will also pay down a big portion of the state’s debt to education, with enough to sock away money into a rainy day fund for education that was depleted by the Legislature last year. But at the same time, a rarely invoked constitutional provision would deny schools and community colleges billions in funding that they would otherwise get, the LAO said. 

    The LAO’s annual state budget forecast is the first hint of how much funding schools and community colleges can expect when Newsom releases his budget in early January. How to spend the new funding amid pressure from competing interest groups — always a challenge — will be up to Newsom and the Legislature.

    The LAO is projecting only a $1.5 billion increase (1.3%) for 2025-26 above the $115.3 billion approved in June for 2024-25 for Proposition 98, the quarter-century-old voter-approved formula that determines the minimum amount that must go to schools and community colleges. It comprises 40% of the state’s annual general fund.

    But combined with an additional $3.7 billion freed up from expiring one-time costs and Proposition 98 adjustments, schools and community colleges can anticipate a 2.46% cost-of-living-adjustment for programs like the Local Control Funding Formula, the primary source of spending for TK-12. That will leave $2.8 billion in new, uncommitted spending. (The LAO suggests using a piece of that to wipe off $400 million in “deferrals,” late payments to schools that will be carried over from year to year unless paid off.)

    Even though California’s economy has been slowing and the unemployment rate is higher, the 2024-25 Proposition 98 level is projected to be $118.3 billion, $3 billion more than the Legislature set in June; however, none of the increase will go to the pockets of school districts and community colleges. All of it, by statute, will be deposited into the Proposition 98 reserve account unless the Legislature overrides the law.

    “I think that’s the element of our forecast that will surprise school groups the most,” said Ken Kapphahn, principal fiscal and policy analyst for the LAO. “I think many people do understand revenue is up in 2024-25. What isn’t as well understood is that the increase is going into the reserve and not available for them.”

    “Building reserves is a good use of one-time funding,” he said. “We just saw how valuable those reserves can be when we went through $9.5 billion from the reserve. That was a big reason why the state didn’t have to cut ongoing school programs last year. In some ways, making a deposit makes sense right now; it’s an opportunity to rebuild that reserve.”

    A big increase in tax receipts from capital gains income, which governs when and how much is deposited into the rainy-day fund, is the source of the money, the LAO said. Much of it is from stock options and reflects the wealth gap between well-compensated high-tech employees and other workers.  

    There’s also expected to be enough money by the end of 2024-25 to pay off nearly two-thirds of the $8 billion debt to schools and community colleges in 2022-23, caused by a revenue shortfall resulting from a short Covid-19 recession.

    The Proposition 98 debt to schools is called a “maintenance factor.” Repaying it becomes the top state priority once more revenue becomes available — to the extent of capturing 95 cents of every new dollar in the general fund.  The LAO projects that the maintenance factor will be lowered $4.8 billion this year, leaving $3.3 billion unpaid.

    Proposition 98 is a stunningly complex formula, and the higher 2024-25 funding level will add a new twist. Usually, the Proposition 98 level from one year becomes the base funding level for the next year. But the increase in 2024-25 is expected to be big enough to trigger a rarely used “spike” protection, limiting the increase in 2025-26; without that restriction, Proposition 98 would be $4.1 billion higher than LAO’s forecast. 

    The rationale behind its adoption is to create stability in the non-Proposition 98 side of the general fund. Education advocates view it differently, as a way to fund schools at the minimum constitutionally required level — and no more.

    “The maintenance factor payment increases Prop. 98 on an ongoing basis. On the other hand, the state is making the spike protection adjustment to slow the growth in Prop. 98,” said Kapphahn. “Both of those different formulas are part of the constitution, and they happen to be working in opposite ways.”

    The “spike” clause has been triggered several times before during years of unusual growth in Proposition 98. What would be different this time is that 2025-26 funding of $116.8 billion would be $1.5 billion less than LAO’s projection for 2024-25.

    TK-12 revenue is tied to student attendance, which has been declining in most districts. Attendance statewide fell by nearly 550,000 (9.3%) from 2019-20 to 2021-22 during the height of the Covid pandemic, and has recovered gradually. The LAO expects overall attendance to increase slightly by 12,000 students (0.2%) in 2024-25 and 26,000 (0.5%) in 2025-26 due to the expansion of transitional kindergarten for 4-year-olds. The LAO projects attendance will drop each of the three years after that by about 60,000 students primarily because of a smaller school-age population due to lower births.





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  • AmeriCorps cuts slash support services, programs for vulnerable communities

    AmeriCorps cuts slash support services, programs for vulnerable communities


    During small group reading instruction, AmeriCorps member Valerie Caballero reminds third graders in Porterville Unified to use their fingers to follow along as they read a passage.

    Lasherica Thornton/ EdSource

    Twenty-three-year-old Valerie Caballero worked with seven third-graders, guiding numerous activities on decoding words, on Thursday at Roche Elementary in Portersville. In another small group of three students, teacher Shelly Noble focused on building reading comprehension. The rest of the class, also in small groups, read independently or completed literacy assignments online, until it was time for the groups to change stations – to go to Caballero or Noble.

    Caballero is one of 85 community members trained as AmeriCorps volunteers to tutor and support over 2,000 students at 10 elementary schools in Porterville Unified. 

    The AmeriCorps program deployed her and others to third to fifth grade classrooms to provide students with additional time for reading and math intervention that they wouldn’t get elsewhere. 

    “Families rely on programs like AmeriCorps to give their child one-on-one support and attention that they need,” Caballero said. 

    Fifth grader Jizelle Alvarado, who has benefited from the AmeriCorps program since her third grade year, said volunteer Stephanie Rector has helped her read at a better pace and to multiply three-digit numbers. Without hesitation, the fifth grader said she and other students would still be struggling with reading and math if not for Rector’s daily support. 

    Last Friday, the program was one of many whose survival became uncertain because of the reduction of federal AmeriCorps grants by the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, under the Trump administration. 

    Nearly $400 million in AmeriCorps funding was cut, jeopardizing more than 1,000 programs and the jobs of tens of thousands of employees, tutors, mentors and volunteers, the national volunteer service organization reported. 

    Attorney General Rob Bonta announced in a statement earlier this week that California has “taken action to hold the Trump Administration and DOGE accountable to the law.” Two dozen states, including California, filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the Trump administration for “dismantling AmeriCorps.” 

    Unless the lawsuit prevails, the AmeriCorps funding cuts – estimated at $60 million for educational, economic, environmental, health and disaster response services in the state – will impact 87 programs and over 5,600 positions, according to Cassandra González-Kester, communications manager for California Volunteers, the state service organization that receives most AmeriCorps grant funding and disperses it to schools, nonprofit organizations and other entities to address critical community needs. 

    “These cuts affect service members who responded to the LA Fires, the tutors and mentors for our young students, as well as those who care for seniors,” she said. “School districts and non-profit organizations throughout the state are already feeling these severe impacts.” 

    But the nearly 14,000-student Porterville Unified has decided to use its own funds to continue the program until May 30, the last day of school — something not all schools and organizations will be able to do, so many communities will be left without critical services. 

    Thousands of students receiving support through AmeriCorps may have those services upended or interrupted – if they haven’t already – by the sudden cancellation of grants by the Trump administration.

    The cuts are hurting the most vulnerable: kids in need of reading and math intervention; students struggling with chronic absenteeism; families experiencing housing instability; and communities recovering from natural disasters. The end of services could exacerbate existing inequalities and worsen future prospects.

    “If we aren’t able to continue this work (beyond this school year),” Warren said, “it’s going to leave a huge void, and our students are definitely going to feel the effects of that.” 

    People supporting their community 

    AmeriCorps, an independent agency of the U.S. government, supports volunteer and service efforts in California and across the country by providing opportunities for community members to meet local needs and address pressing issues, including academic support and intervention for students, youth mentoring as well as homelessness, food insecurity, health and other key areas in communities.

    Due to the range of programs that AmeriCorps supports, thousands of families in California alone will lose services, if they haven’t already. 

    “We recognize the impact this has across all programs and staff, not just in our state but nationwide,” said Monica Ramirez, the executive director of First 5 Madera, which operates the Madera Family Resource Center in the Central San Joaquin Valley.  

    The Madera Family Resource Center, a comprehensive hub for families with children aged 0 to 5, is partially funded by federal AmeriCorps money. The center provides weekly playgroups, preschool readiness programs, developmental screenings and resource referrals to support early childhood development. After getting notice about the AmeriCorps funding cuts, which had, in part, made services possible, the resource center, which extends services to Chowchilla, Eastern Madera County, and the Madera Ranchos, closed its doors this week. 

    Porterville Unified’s ‘Building Communities, Changing Lives’ is largely funded by AmeriCorps. AmeriCorps awarded the district more than $1.6 million in federal funds and the district matched those funds with about $1.2 million this school year. 

    Most of that funding goes toward living stipends for AmeriCorps members, community members and college students who may be tutors, mentors or in other roles. 

    Covering the operating costs for 85 AmeriCorps members who provide 35 hours of weekly student intervention and support is approximately $210,000 for May, an expense the district likely won’t be able to foot without the AmeriCorps funds. 

    “I don’t see another way to move forward without the AmeriCorps funding,” Warren said. 

    State agencies, such as California Volunteers, are trying to fill the void for impacted groups, Fresno State College Corps director Mellissa Jessen-Hiser said. The state, she said, will fund the college corps members’ continued work at places such as the food bank, Poverello House, a homeless shelter in Fresno, and Fresno Unified schools for the rest of the semester. 

    The federal government has provided more than half of the funding for some of California’s AmeriCorps programming, with the agency’s members supporting 17,000 foster youth with education and employment, and tutoring or mentoring 73,833 students in 2023-24, according to California Volunteers. 

    Volunteers play a ‘vital role’ in student progress

    Of the more than 2,000 students that Porterville Unified AmeriCorps members provide one-on-one and small-group instruction, tutoring and intervention to, 1,657 are in need of academic support, based on this year’s district assessments. 

    Members work with at least 25 students each day over 10 months of the school year; they focus on reading and literacy, helping struggling students get to grade level. 

    “It’s going to create a larger learning gap if they’re not receiving this extra support,” said Caballero, the tutor. 

    Based on mid-year data from this school year, 44% of students served by AmeriCorps members have improved by at least one proficiency level on their reading assessment, demonstrating meaningful academic progress, Warren, the program director, reported. 

    Lasherica Thornton/ EdSource
    Lasherica Thornton/ EdSource
    Lasherica Thornton/ EdSource
    Roche Elementary third grade teacher Shelly Noble said students receive at least three rounds of daily reading intervention from their time with her, with AmeriCorps volunteer Valerie Caballero and from the school’s intervention specialist. Through Valerie Porterville Unified’s ‘Building Communities, Changing Lives’ AmeriCorps program, Cabellero not only provides small group instruction but also supports students individually.

    And with an extra person in the classroom working alongside them, teachers gain the ability to focus on the academic struggles of students who need it most.

    Without AmeriCorps, “we will not see the growth in reading and writing that we see because the majority (of the work) will be put on myself,” said Noble, the third grade teacher. 

    The AmeriCorps members also build meaningful connections with students, extending their support beyond academics and making students feel valued, thereby creating an engaging and supportive learning environment. 

    “We’re able to really see the effects of having those members work with those students and the impacts that they’re making,” Warren said. 

    Federal funding cuts trickle down to schools

    The California Reading Corps and Math Corps, or Ampact Educational Programs, across Fresno, San Mateo, San Joaquin, Merced, Tulare, Santa Barbara and Riverside counties have supported thousands of students with academic intervention, including over 6,000 students last school year. AmeriCorps members prepare students for kindergarten, get elementary students on track to grade-level proficiency by third grade and have seventh graders algebra-ready by eighth grade, according to program information for this school year. Its more than $3.1 million in federal funding is one of California’s 87 impacted programs. 

    Thomas Elementary in Fresno Unified, which has used the AmeriCorps reading support program, doesn’t plan to use the Reading Corps next school year due to the possible federal cuts, the district confirmed. 

    Under the 30-year-old Kern Community Mentoring program, three dozen AmeriCorps members have mentored over 700 high-needs students in the urban and rural communities of Kern County each year, according to Robert Meszaros, communications director with the Kern County Superintendent of Schools that administers the program. 

    By providing encouragement, guidance and support, they address the “whole child”, a philosophy that is evident in several AmeriCorps programs, specifically those focused on mentorship. 

    Each year, mentors help at least 20 students improve their academics, attendance, behavior and engagement, and based on data from the program, more than half of the mentees improve their attendance and reduce suspensions. 

    With the cuts to AmeriCorps, Meszaros said, it may mean the loss of the program. 

    Alternative funding, other options

    Programs impacted by the federal funding cuts are exploring options to continue serving the community. Some are seeking support from their state representatives, who can advocate on their behalf at the state and possibly national level. 

    “Not sure what the next steps are,” Warren said. Porterville Unified is looking for alternative funding sources, such as state grants. 

    So is the Kern County education office for the AmeriCorps mentoring program it runs. 

    “Ultimately if that funding can’t be sourced from other resources,” Warren said, ”then it goes away and we’re left with a big void.”

    While it’s unclear at the moment whether the multimillion-dollar cuts will stand, the people working in AmeriCorps programs urged decision-makers to realize the people affected. 

    In the words of Caballero, the Porterville Unified tutor: “think about students’ needs.” 





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  • Search and compare data from the California School Dashboard, 2024

    Search and compare data from the California School Dashboard, 2024


    On Nov. 21, 2024, the California Department of Education updated the official California School Dashboard with the latest data for schools and districts. You can also view results for 2023, 2019, 2018, and 2017.* The dashboard shows achievement and progress, or lack of it, on multiple measures in color codes tied to performance metrics by the state. Enter a search term in the box to search by school, city, district or county. If a school or district does not appear, it means that no data is available. Detailed test scores are available on cells with an “i” (click to see more). For a full explanation, see the notes below the chart.

    * Missing or incomplete years of data from the California School Dashboard are due to the disruptions caused by the pandemic. 




    School Name, City and County Chronic Absenteeism Rate Suspension Rates English Lang. Arts Performance Math Performance High School Graduation Rate English Learners Link
    School Name, City and County Chronic Absenteeism Rate Suspension Rates English Lang. Arts Performance Math Performance High School Graduation Rate English Learners Link

    Notes to Database

    Color Codes and Ratings: The dashboard includes five color-coded performance levels, based on a combination of current performance level and change over the previous year. The color spectrum ranges from red to orange to yellow to green to blue, with red signifying the lowest performance level and blue the highest.

    More information about how the performance levels were calculated is available at the California Department of Education’s website here.

    Column Headings:

    Chronic Absenteeism: Proportion of students who miss 10 percent or more expected days of attendance in a school year. (For a student enrolled for 180 days, this would be 18 or more days.) Note: This indicator is not reported for high schools.

    Suspension Rates: Based on a combination of current suspension rates and changes in those rates over time.

    English Language Arts Performance: Student performance in Grades 3-8 and 11 on the English Language Arts Smarter Balanced tests administered in the current year, combined with whether scores improved, declined or stayed the same compared to the previous year.

    Math Performance: Student performance in Grades 3-8 and 11 on the math Smarter Balanced tests in the current year combined with whether scores improved, declined or stayed the same compared to the previous year.

    High School Graduation Rate: Combined four-year and five-year graduation rates, including current graduation rate along with whether rates have changed over the previous year.

    For more information about how the performance levels were calculated, go to the California Department of Education’s website here.

    For the full dashboard for each school or district, go here.





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  • California schools recovering from pandemic, dashboard shows

    California schools recovering from pandemic, dashboard shows


    Credit: Allison Shelley for American Education

    Este artículo está disponible en Español. Léelo en español.

    California’s K-12 schools made progress in several areas last school year, including increasing graduation rates slightly, and reducing suspensions and the number of students who were chronically absent from school, according to the School Dashboard released Thursday. 

    The state also had an overall increase in scores on state standardized tests in both English language arts and math, prepared more students for college and careers, and had more students earn a seal of biliteracy.

    The improvements, although incremental in some areas, are an indicator that California schools have made progress in reducing the learning loss and chronic absenteeism that resulted from school closures at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020.

    “Today’s dashboard results show California continuing to make important strides in post-pandemic recovery,” said California State Board of Education President Linda Darling-Hammond. “We’re getting students back to school, getting more of them prepared for college and careers, and graduating them in greater numbers.” 

    The dashboard, a key part of the state’s accountability system, uses an array of colors to show whether a school or district showed growth or decline in several areas, including chronic absenteeism, suspension and graduation rates; preparation for college and career; progress of English language learners; and on state standardized test scores in math and English language arts.

    Students are considered chronically absent if they miss 10 percent or more of instructional days during the school year.

    Blue identifies schools and districts with the best performance, followed by green, yellow, orange and red. Schools and districts are scored based on their performance that school year, as well as on whether there were increases or decreases since the previous school year. Anything below a green rating indicates a need for improvement, according to state officials.

    This year, the state added science scores from state standardized tests to the mix, but only as an informational item. Next year the scores will be an official indicator, used to help determine whether schools need support from the county or state.

    Fewer school districts require support

    Districts that have a red rating in one or more priority areas are required to receive assistance from their county office of education as part of the California Statewide System of Support. Poor-performing county offices, which also operate schools, receive support directly from the state. 

    Priority areas include school climate (suspension rates); pupil engagement (graduation rate and chronic absences) and pupil achievement (English learner progress and math, science and English language arts tests).

    Because of the progress made by California schools last school year, the number of districts with performance low enough to require support from their county offices of education declined for the second year in a row. This year, 436 districts were qualified for help, compared with 466 last year.

    In 2022, 617 school districts were referred for assistance, largely because of high chronic absenteeism rates, according to the California Department of Education. But over the last two school years, chronic absenteeism rates have declined 5.7 percentage points each year. In 2021-22, almost a third of students were chronically absent.

    Chronic absenteeism continues to decline

    Despite the decline in chronic absentee rates, the state still has to make improvements to reach the 12.1% rate it had in 2019, before the Covid pandemic. The current chronic absentee rate is 18.6%.

    High school students were the most likely to be chronically absent last school year, missing on average 15.6 days of school. Transitional kindergarten and kindergarten students missed an average of 13.9 days, seventh and eighth graders 12.6 days, fourth through sixth graders 11 days, and first through third-grade students 11.5 days. 

    Eleven of the 15 school districts in El Dorado County were designated for differentiated assistance from the county because of high levels of chronic absenteeism in 2022. County Office of Education staff met with leaders from the 11 districts to review data and identify the root causes, said Ed Manansala, El Dorado County superintendent of schools. The county office provided data to districts every month in an effort to zero in on why student groups and individual students were absent and moving toward chronic absenteeism, he said.

     Last year, the county had three school districts on the state list because of chronic absenteeism. This year there were none, Manansala said.

    “To me, it’s a validation that the statewide system of support is working,” he said.

    Long-term English learners added

    While many districts improved their chronic absentee numbers and other indicators last year, avoiding the need for support, 215 districts are on the list, in part, because of the performance of their long-term English learners — a student group that was added this year.

    The performance of long-term English learners on academic tests, graduation rates and other indicators was the leading reason schools and districts were flagged for improvement this year. 

    The dashboard defines long-term English learners as students who speak a language other than English at home and have been enrolled in U.S. schools for seven years or more but have not yet achieved proficiency in English. In the past, the dashboard only included data for English learners as a whole.

    The inclusion of long-term English learners in the dashboard is the result of legislation that advocacy organizations pushed for several years. 

    “It’s a monumental step forward,” said Martha Hernandez, executive director of Californians Together, a statewide organization that advocates for English learners. “Long-term English learners’ needs will no longer be hidden, and they’ll be spotlighted for statewide accountability.”

    Hernandez said it is paramount that school districts use the new data about long-term English learners to develop programs and train teachers on how to help these students in particular. Long-term English learners have needs that differ from recently arrived immigrant students. For example, long-term English learners often have a good command of informal spoken English, but have not mastered reading and writing in the language.

    In addition, Hernandez said districts should also focus on helping students achieve fluency in English faster, so they do not become long-term English learners in the first place.

    “English learners come to school bright and ready to learn, and the system really fails them. (If) they become long-term English learners, it’s not an indication of the students, but really the system’s failure to meet their needs,” Hernandez said. 

    In El Dorado County, there are six districts in need of assistance from the county office of education. Like many districts in California this year, El Dorado Union High School District made the list because of the addition of long-term English language learners to the state metric. Manansala and Mike Kuhlman, superintendent of the high school district, have begun discussions on how to improve the achievement of long-term English learners.

    “We have 12 TK-8 districts that feed into that high school district, so it’s going to become a systemwide discussion,” Manansala said. “Again, we’re going to look at that more closely over these next few years.”

    More earn State Seal of Biliteracy

    The number of students who received the State Seal of Biliteracy on their high school diplomas also increased — up from 52,773 in 2022-23 to 64,261 in 2023-24. This may be due to a law that went into effect in 2024 that offers students more ways to prove their proficiency in English, in addition to a second language.

    In the past, advocates and administrators said many students, particularly English learners, didn’t receive the State Seal of Biliteracy, even though they were bilingual, because there weren’t enough options to prove proficiency in English.

    Graduation rates up slightly

    High school graduation rates in California increased 0.2 percentage points to 86.4% this year. But that was enough to give the state the largest cohort of students to graduate from high school since 2017, with 438,065 students, according to state officials. Of those 227,463 met the requirements to attend the University of California or California State University.

    Graduation rates have stayed fairly stable over the last decade, primarily because many districts allowed juniors and seniors to graduate upon meeting the state’s minimum requirement of 130 units during pandemic closures, instead of the higher number of units most districts required.

    Suspension rates decline

    Suspension rates declined slightly last school year, from 3.5% in 2022-23 to 3.2%.

    The decline in suspension rates was for all student groups, according to the California Department of Education, although there continues to be a focus on disparities in suspensions for African American students, foster youth, homeless students, students with disabilities and long-term English learners.

    Equity report

    Assistance to districts is also based on poor performance by student groups. So, even if a district overall has satisfactory performance, with yellow or even green, it will receive county guidance if the ratings of one or more student groups are red as measured on multiple measures of performance.

    An equity report on the dashboard gives users a look at the progress of the 14 student groups that attend California schools, including African American, American Indian, Asian, English learners, Filipino, foster youth, Hispanic, homeless, two or more races, Pacific Islander, socioeconomically disadvantaged, long-term English learners, students with disabilities, and white students.

    This year, school districts will get assistance to improve outcomes for long-term English learners in 215 districts, students with disabilities in 195 districts, homeless students in 125 districts, foster youth in 104 districts, English learners in 84 districts, economically disadvantaged students in 68 districts, white students in 30 districts, American Indian and Alaska Native in 27 districts, students of two or more races in 19 districts, Pacific Islander students in eight districts, and Asian students in one district, according to an EdSource analysis.

    The number of districts needing help to improve outcomes for African American and Latino students declined this year. Districts will get assistance to help African American students in 51 districts, down from 66 in 2018. Thirty-nine districts will get assistance to help Latino students, down from 44 compared with 2018. 

    “Across California, we’re seeing that when we provide for the most vulnerable in our communities, all students reap the rewards,” said State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond in a statement. “Our migrant students and socioeconomically disadvantaged students show marked improvements in consistent school attendance and graduation rates, reflecting the dedication of our educators and students alike.”





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