Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed “Career Passport” aims to streamline job seekers’ credentials into a digital portfolio, making it easier for employers to recognize individuals’ skills and experiences.
While the concept may seem promising, the reality is that learning employment records (LERs) — the foundation of the Career Passport — are still in the early stages of development and adoption. Few employers and job seekers currently use them, and the technology remains largely unknown and untested.
Before the government spends $100 million in taxpayer dollars on technology that lacks meaningful adoption and trust, the focus should be on allowing innovators to first develop LER technology that is valid, reliable and useful for both employers and job seekers.
The Career Passport is not the state’s first attempt at a large-scale education and workforce data initiative. The Cradle-to-Career (C2C) data system, which was supposed to create a seamless record of Californians’ educational and career progress, remains years behind schedule and is still largely theoretical. Furthermore, the effort is a prime example of the state’s poor track record in this space. C2C marketed itself as a system that would stitch together “data from multiple education systems” only to deliver none of that to date. If the state cannot successfully deliver on even the first leg of the C2C system, why should we expect better results from a Career Passport? Rather than spreading thin, already dwindling resources and distracting an overburdened state workforce with another massive set of promises, the state should focus on completing the work it has already spent money on and not yet delivered.
Before attempting to implement the Career Passport, California should wait until the innovation sector has figured out how to make learning employment records that work at scale, demonstrate real value in the hiring process and earn buy-in from employers and job seekers. Pouring state funds into largely experimental technology at this point risks wasting taxpayer money during a $68 billion budget deficit.
Moreover, the state government is the wrong entity to drive innovation at this stage. The bureaucratic inefficiencies associated with public-sector initiatives — lengthy procurement processes, cumbersome regulations, and political red tape — will not ensure success. Instead, the state’s involvement will disrupt and possibly undermine existing voluntary collaborations already making headway in developing learning employment records and similar technology. The state’s proposal to put itself as the driver of this work risks turning what is currently a collaborative ecosystem, into a competitive battle for state dollars, stifling innovation rather than fostering it.
California should allow the innovation sector to do what it does best — collaborate, experiment and refine solutions until they are proven effective. What needs to happen — and is already happening — is that learning employment records companies, educational institutions, employers, and other innovators are working together to figure out how to develop and refine these technologies in ways that employers and learners trust, which will lead to adoption. This process of collaboration and iteration is essential to ensuring that they become a useful and reliable tool in the job market.
Government intervention at this stage, particularly a massive infusion of public funds, risks disrupting collaboration, creating unnecessary noise and slowing down true innovation. During this crucial innovation phase, the government needs to stay out of the way and allow the private and nonprofit sectors to innovate freely. Only after learning employment records have demonstrated their value and reliability in effectively matching talent to jobs, should the state consider spending money on their widespread adoption.
If Gov. Newsom genuinely wants to improve how Californians translate their education and experiences into career opportunities, he should wait until the technology is ready rather than disrupting innovation and placing a massive bet on an experiment. And, he should recognize that it is far too early to invest state dollars in such a venture.
Job hunting may be awful, but California’s employers and job seekers deserve better than just another set of unfulfilled promises.
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Alex Barrios serves as president of Educational Results Partnership, a nonprofit data science organization that developed Cal-PASS Plus, California’s first intersegmental longitudinal data system, and founded the ERP Institute to promote educator and employer collaboration to improve the efficiency of talent to job matching.
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.
A new Assembly bill aims to swap a voluntary curriculum with academic standards that would direct what should be taught.
The focus would remain teaching the triumphs, struggles and perspectives of Native Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans and Black Americans.
The bill would restrict an alternative Liberated Ethnic Studies curriculum, which focuses on the power of white supremacy and condemns Israel as an oppressive colonial state.
Thirty-one legislators, led by the Legislative Jewish Caucus, are calling for a do-over on teaching ethnic studies after a half-dozen years of strife.
The authors are convinced that flaws in a voluntary model curriculum have led to complaints and lawsuits alleging that some districts are using biased and antisemitic course content and instruction. Therefore, they propose starting again by creating academic standards that would direct what is taught in the course and how.
Assembly Bill 1468 would require the State Board of Education to restart a curriculum process that was highly contested six years ago. It resulted in multiple drafts and an uneasy compromise of language and goals reflected in a nearly 700-page California Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum. Since its adoption in 2021, school districts have had the responsibility to create their own curriculum based largely on interpretations of ambiguities of what constitutes an ethnic studies course.
“When California believes in something, we write standards for it,” said Assemblymember Dawn Addis, D-Morro Bay, a former teacher. “Whether it’s English language arts, English language development, history, social science — there are different sets of standards. It creates a common understanding of what kids are supposed to be able to learn and do, and what teachers are supposed to teach.”
“What’s happened in our schools is, one, antisemitism. But two, it’s tearing a lot of communities apart over something that is supposed to be really beneficial to children when done right.”
In addition to creating academic standards, the bill would create new disclosure and oversight measures that don’t apply to the current model framework or academic standards for other subjects. They would require:
school districts to submit ethnic studies curricula to the California Department of Education for review
the Instructional Quality Commission, which advises the State Board of Education, to recommend a framework and instructional materials aligned to the new standards;
the California Department of Education to report annually on compliance with state laws;
providers of content and standards trainers to submit their materials to the state to ensure compliance with the standards.
Opposition will likely be intense.
“The bill’s push for increased oversight and censorship is deeply concerning, restricting students’ ability to engage in critical discussions on human rights, globalism, and social justice,” said Tricia Gallagher-Geursten, a lecturer in ethnic studies at the University of California, San Diego. “Furthermore, it diminishes the intellectual integrity of ethnic studies by dismissing the foundational theories and pedagogies that define all academic disciplines, violating the principle of academic freedom.”
“AB 1468 is driven by those seeking to regulate educational content by silencing perspectives they oppose,” she said. “At this crucial moment, the UC Ethnic Studies Faculty Council stands with California students and our diverse communities in urging legislators to oppose AB 1468 and protect the integrity of ethnic studies.”
Last year, the University of California (UC) and California State University (CSU) ethnic studies faculty and the California Teachers Association led the opposition to a less sweeping bill that would have required more disclosure of a proposed ethnic studies course and a review by a committee of teachers and parents. The California Teachers Association and UC and CSU ethnic studies faculty members criticized it as unwarranted and unprecedented interference with instruction.
Addis and Assemblymember Rick Zbur, D-Los Angeles, introduced the bill late in the session and withdrew it because of a lack of support. This year’s 32 co-authors include legislators outside the 18-member Jewish Legislative Caucus, including Assemblymembers David Alvarez, D-San Diego, and Sharon Quirk-Silva, D-Fullerton.
“Jewish students are facing a very difficult environment in the community at large, certainly on college campuses,” said Alvarez. “It’s important that we acknowledge that and that we have curriculum that’s standards-based, as we do with other curriculums, reflects California’s values and steers away from antisemitism.”
Targeting Liberated Ethnic Studies
The legislation would curtail districts that have adopted Liberated Ethnic Studies, although it doesn’t name the curriculum or the consortium identified with promoting it. UC and CSU ethnic studies professors and instructors developed the Liberated version as an alternative after the State Board largely rejected the first draft of the model curriculum, which they had written, as ideological and biased against Jews.
The state’s final version of the model curriculum presents a multiperspective exploration of the culture, achievements and struggles, past and ongoing, of the four primary racial and ethnic groups in California. They are Native Americans, Black Americans, Asian Americans, and Hispanic Americans.
The Liberated version takes a perspective that stresses the ongoing oppression of people of color through white supremacy and capitalism. It directs students to examine their own self-identities as to how their race, ethnicity, sexuality, and wealth and privilege intersect with others. Ethnic studies teachers say students find the courses uplifting, not pessimistic.
To date, the state has kept no records on curricula that districts have adopted, but more than two dozen districts have contracted with groups affiliated with Liberated trainers and leaders.
Charges of antisemitism
Legislators made an explicit reference to that first draft when they passed Assembly Bill 101, which established the as-yet unfunded mandate for districts to offer a one-semester ethnic studies course in high school starting in fall 2025 and to require taking it for a high school diploma starting in 2029-30.
They wrote, “it is the intent of the Legislature that (districts) not use the portions of the draft model curriculum that were not adopted by the Instructional Quality Commission due to concerns related to bias, bigotry, and discrimination.”
Both Attorney General Rob Bonta and Brooks Allen, executive director of the State Board of Education and an adviser to Gov. Gavin Newsom, have sent separate memos reminding districts to follow that prohibition. Nonetheless, proponents of the Liberated curriculum point to references to oppression and “intersectionality” included in the final framework to argue that their approach is consistent with the state framework.
The Liberated curriculum also emphasizes solidarity with the Palestinian people in their struggle against domination by Israel, a modern “settler colonial state” oppressing people of color.
The slaughter of 1,200 Israelis by Hamas fighters in communities bordering Gaza in October 2023, followed by more than a year of fighting and bombings that have displaced hundreds of thousands of Gazans and caused the deaths of an estimated 40,000, have heightened tensions in the classroom. Jewish organizations and parents have complained that one-sided lessons against Zionism and the Israeli government have blended into overt antisemitism.
The federal Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights is investigating discrimination allegations against Berkeley Unified. The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law has filed complaints against Fremont High School, Santa Clara Unified, and, in its latest filing, against Etiwanda School District in Rancho Cucamonga. It alleges that a seventh grade girl’s middle school failed to intervene to stop physical abuse and repeated antisemitic slurs, including a Hitler “joke,” by other students. Last month, Santa Ana Unified agreed to discontinue three Liberated-affiliated ethnic studies courses after a lawsuit over public meetings violations revealed antisemitic bias and slurs by staff members.
The proposed bill does not prohibit discussions of the Israel-Palestine issue, avoiding a trespass on free speech. However, it calls for ethnic studies to “focus on the domestic experience and stories of historically marginalized peoples in American society.”
Like Assembly Bill 101 before it, the bill would ensure that ethnic studies “remains true to its original intent — promoting inclusivity, respect, and historical accuracy for all communities with a domestic focus,” said Sen. Josh Becker, D-Menlo Park.
The 2016 law that authorized the creation of a model curriculum framework called for a committee consisting of faculty members of university ethnic studies departments, K-12 teachers, and administrators experienced in teaching the subject. The committee members whom the State Board appointed ended up writing the disputed first draft. AB 1468 also calls for a similar advisory committee, the majority of whom would be experts in ethnic studies.
Wouldn’t that possibly lead to standards similar to those in the model curriculum’s first draft — and a repeat of the animosities of the first process?
Bill author Zbur disagrees. The governor, not the State Board of Education, would name the members, and the language of the bill’s intent would make clear that the experts would be more “traditional” and not proponents of the Liberated curriculum. The advisory committee would also include representatives of communities most frequently targeted by hate crimes, thus assuring a voice from the Jewish community.
Newsom would appear sympathetic to the effort. In April 2024, he pledged in his Golden State Plan to Counter Antisemitism that he “will work with the Jewish Caucus and Legislature to pursue legislation strengthening the guardrails established by AB 101.”
His administration has not commented on the new bill.
Third graders read along as teacher Patty Lopez reads a text about plastic straws aloud.
Credit: Zaidee Stavely / EdSource
A few years ago, I met a first-grade English learner in a bilingual program who was learning to read in Spanish. The student, who I’ll call Elena, and her mother were from Guatemala. Elena’s mother only had a second-grade education, but she knew that one facet of Elena’s education was the gateway to all future opportunities: learning to read.
Elena had started school late, and her mother was taking no chances. She worked with Elena to teach her some basics — how letters formed syllables and syllables formed words. Elena was able to read by the end of first grade, but the outcome could have been very different without her mother’s efforts. Whether she knew it or not, what Elena’s mother taught Elena aligns with decades of reading research on how the brain learns to read — regardless of native language.
Unfortunately, most children from low-income communities like Elena’s do not share her story. Millions of California students fail to make adequate progress in reading. Today, only one-third of economically disadvantaged Latino students and one-fourth of economically disadvantaged African American students meet or exceed grade-level standards in English language arts. This is not because they are incapable of learning, but largely because they are not taught using effective practices supported by a broad consensus of reading researchers and experts.
These practices include a strong emphasis on foundational literacy skills, typically known as phonics and decoding, and an emphasis on developing language, comprehension and knowledge.
But foundational literacy skills are not given enough attention in California, leaving too many students with a weak or nonexistent foundation for literacy development and academic success.
Literacy achievement in California is alarming. Fewer than half of California students meet or exceed grade-level standards in English language arts. For decades, California students have been either smack in the middle or, more often, trailing national reading achievement. In the most recent national assessments, California’s fourth-grade students’ scores were below 36 other states in reading proficiency. And, according to research from the Stanford Education Data Archive, California has one of the largest gaps in fourth-grade reading proficiency between low-income and non-low-income students in the nation.
The real-world consequences of poor literacy skills are devastating for both individuals and society as a whole:
Our state has invested millions of dollars in literacy over the past decade, but we are still not seeing an adequate return. This is, in part, because much of the policy to date has consisted of mixed and confusing recommendations from the state. We have failed to put into practice the best knowledge we have about promoting literacy development.
Meanwhile, states like Mississippi have gone from significantly below average in reading proficiency and among the worst in the nation to significantly above the national average and one of the most improved, after passing comprehensive early literacy policies that align with reading research. The average low-income California fourth grader is a full year behind their counterpart in Mississippi.
California now has the potential to make similar progress and take a positive step forward if elected leaders in Sacramento choose to vote for Assembly Bill 1121. The bill could help align decades of interdisciplinary reading research with reading instruction by providing paid professional development for elementary school educators in more effective literacy practices and requiring school districts and charter schools to adopt English language instructional materials from a new State Board of Education list aligned with evidence-based means of teaching literacy (identified in current law).
Even with advanced language skills and vast knowledge, you can’t be a successful reader if you can’t pull words off a page quickly, effortlessly and accurately. Similarly, you can’t be a successful reader if you lack the language and knowledge to make sense of words.
AB 1121 will help move us toward a more comprehensive approach to reading instruction, emphasizing the importance of developing the neural pathways between sounds, letters, and meaning that are necessary for the brain to learn to read.
Building these pathways is essential for those learning in any language. Research around the world demonstrates there are many commonalities in learning and teaching to read in any language, whether it’s a language one already knows or is simultaneously learning. English learners have much to gain from implementing known effective approaches to teaching reading, which include what Elena’s mother did instinctively to help her build a strong foundation of literacy.
In the Information Age, reading is the gateway to all future opportunities. Our students don’t have time to waste while we, the adults they’ve entrusted with their education, continue to fight fruitless “reading wars.” If we care about our children’s futures, and our state’s, we must push for effective reading instruction in all classrooms by passing AB 1121.
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Claude Goldenberg, a former first grade and junior high teacher, is Nomellini & Olivier Professor of Education, emeritus, at Stanford University. His areas of expertise are literacy education and English language learners.
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.
Cal State Long Beach lecturer Casey Goeller wants his students to know how to use AI before they enter the workforce.
Tasmin McGill/EdSource
Since Open AI’s release of ChatGPT in 2022, artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots and models have found their way into the California college systems. These AI tools include language models and image generators that provide responses and images based on user prompts.
Many college professors have spoken out against AI’s use in college coursework, citing concerns of cheating, inaccurate responses, student overreliance on the tool, and, as a consequence, diminished critical thinking. Universities across the U.S. have implemented AI-detecting software like Turnitin to prevent cheating through the use of AI tools.
However, some professors have embraced the use of generative AI and envision its integration into curricula and research in various disciplines. To these professors, students learning how to use AI is critical to their future careers.
An October 2024 report from the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business found that 38% of the school’s faculty use AI in their classrooms.
Ramandeep Randhawa, professor of business administration and data science at USC, was one of the report’s 26 co-authors and organized the effort.
“As companies increasingly integrate AI into their workflows, it is critical to prepare students for this AI-first environment by enabling them to use this technology meaningfully and ethically,” Randhawa said. “Universities, as bastions of knowledge, must lead the way by incorporating AI into their curricula.”
All in on AI
At California State University, Long Beach, gerontology lecturer Casey Goeller has incorporated AI into his course assignments since fall 2023.
Students enter Goeller’s Perspectives on Gerontology course with various levels of experience with AI. By asking students for a show of hands, Goeller estimates the class is usually evenly split, with some students having no experience, others having dabbled with it and some who have used it extensively.
Goeller aims to help students understand how AI can be beneficial to them academically, whether it be assisting with brainstorming, organizing, or acting as a 24/7 on-call tutor.
To achieve this, Goeller’s assignments include students using an AI tool of their choice to address his feedback on their essays based on criteria such as content, flow and plagiarism concerns. Another assignment, worth 15% of their grade, emphasizes the importance of prompt engineering by having students use AI-generated questions to interview an older person in their life.
While Goeller gets a lot of questions from fellow faculty members about how AI works and how to implement it, he also hears plenty of hesitation.
“There’s a lot of faculty who’s still riding a horse to work, I call it,” Goeller said. “One of them said, ‘I am never going to use AI. It’s just not going to happen.’ I said, ‘What you should do if you think you can get away with that is tomorrow morning, get up really early and stop the sun from coming up, because that’s how inevitable AI is.’”
Goeller heeds the difficulties in establishing a conclusive way to incorporate AI into curricula due to different academic disciplines and styles of learning, but he does recognize the growing presence of AI in the workforce. Today, AI is filling various roles across industries, from analyzing trends in newsrooms and grocery stores, to generating entertainment, a point of contention for SAG-AFTRA members during 2023’s Hollywood strikes.
“If we don’t help our students understand AI before they escape this place, they’re going to get into the workforce where it’s there,” Goeller said. “If they don’t know anything about it or are uncomfortable with it, they’re at a disadvantage compared to a student with the same degree and knowledge of AI.”
California State University, Northridge, journalism lecturer Marta Valier has students use ChatGPT to write headlines, interview questions and video captions in her Multimedia Storytelling and Multi-platform Storytelling classes due to the inevitability of AI in the workforce.
The goal of the implementation is to teach students how AI algorithms operate and how journalists can use AI to assist their work. Not using it, she said, “would be like not using ink.”
“I absolutely want students to experiment with AI because, in newsrooms, it is used. In offices, it is used,” Valier said. “It’s just a matter of understanding which tools are useful, for what and where human creativity is still the best and where AI can help.”
AI tools such as ChatGPT and Copilot are frequently updated, so Valier emphasizes flexibility when teaching about these technological topics.
“I basically change my curriculum every day,” Valier said. “I think it reminds me as a professional that you need to constantly adapt to new technology because it’s going to change very fast. It’s very important to be open, to be curious about what technology can bring us and how it can help us.”
However, Valier acknowledges the issues of AI in terms of data privacy and providing factual responses. She reminds students that it is their responsibility to make sure the information ChatGPT provides is accurate by doing their own research or rechecking results, and to avoid reliance on the platform.
“Be very careful with personal information,” Valier said. “Especially if you have sources, or people that you want to protect, be very careful putting names and information that is sensitive.”
Valier sees a clear difference in the quality of work produced by students who combine AI with their own skills, versus those who rely entirely on artificial intelligence.
“You can tell when the person uses ChatGPT and stays on top of it, and when GPT takes over,” Valier said. “What I am really interested in is the point of view of the student, so when GPT takes over, there is no point of view. Even if [a student] doesn’t have the best writing, the ideas are still there.”
Balancing AI use in the classroom
Many AI-friendly instructors seek to strike a balance between AI-enriched assignments and AI-free assignments.
At USC, professors are encouraged to develop AI policies for each of their classes. Professors can choose between two approaches, as laid out in the school’s instructor guidelines for AI use: “Embrace and Enhance” or “Discourage and Detect.”
Bobby Carnes, an associate professor of clinical accounting at USC, has adopted a balance between both approaches while teaching Introduction to Financial Accounting.
“I use it all the time, so it doesn’t make sense to tell (students) they can’t use it,” Carnes said.
An avid user of AI tools like ChatGPT, USC associate professor of clinical accounting Bobby Carnes encourages AI experimentation for some assignments, but prohibits students from using it on exams. (Christina Chkarboul/EdSource)
Carnes uses AI to refine his grammar in personal and professional work and to develop questions for tests.
“I giveChatGPTthe information that I taught in the class, and then I can ask, ‘What topics haven’t I covered with these exam questions?’ It can help provide a more rich or robust exam,” Carnes said.
He doesn’t allow students to use AI in exams that test for practical accounting skills, though.
“You need that baseline, but we’re trying to get students to be at that next level, to see the big picture,” he said.
Carnes said he wants his students to take advantage of AI tools that are already changing the field, while mastering the foundational skills they’ll need to become financial managers and leaders.
“The nice thing about accounting is that the jobs just become more interesting (with AI), where there’s not as much remedial tasks,” Carnes said.
Preserving foundational learning
Olivia Obeso, professor of education and literacy at California State Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo, believes establishing foundational knowledge and critical thinking skills through AI-free teaching is non-negotiable.
Obeso enforces her own no ChatGPT/AI usage policy in her Foundations of K-8 Literacy Teaching class to prepare her students for challenges in their post-collegiate life.
“AI takes out the opportunity to engage in that productive struggle,” Obeso said. “That means my students won’t necessarily understand the topics as deeply or develop the skills they need.”
Obeso is also concerned about ChatGPT’s environmental impact: For an in-class activity at the start of the fall 2024 semester, she asked students to research the software’s energy and water use.
The energy required to power ChatGPT emits 8.4 tons of carbon dioxide per year, according to Earth.Org. The average passenger vehicle produces 5 tons per year. Asking ChatGPT 20-50 questions uses 500 millliters (16.9) ounces of water, the size of a standard plastic water bottle.
By the end of the exercise, Obeso said her students became “experts” on ethical considerations concerning AI, sharing their findings with the class through a discussion on what they read, how they felt and whether they had new concerns about using AI.
“You are a student and you are learning how to operate in this world, hold yourselves accountable,” Obeso said.
Jessica Odden, a senior majoring in child development, said Obeso’s class helped them understand AI use in the classroom as an aspiring teacher.
“For people that are using (AI) in the wrong ways, it makes people reassess how people might be using it, especially in classes like this where we are training to become teachers,” Odden said. “What are you going to do when you actually have to lesson-plan yourself?”
Odden makes sure she sticks to learning the fundamentals of teaching herself so that she will be prepared for her first job.
AI in curricula
At the University of California, San Diego, some faculty members have echoed a concern for AI’s infringement upon independent learning.
Academic coordinator Eberly Barnes is interested in finding a middle ground that incorporates AI into curricula where it complements students’ critical thinking, rather than replaces it.
Barnes oversees the analytical writing program, Making of the Modern World (MMW), where her responsibilities include revising the course’s policy of AI use in student work.
The current policy enables students to use AI to stimulate their thinking, reading and writing for their assignments. However, it explicitly prohibits the use of the software to replace any of the aforementioned skills or the elaboration of the written piece itself.
Despite the encouraged use of AI, Barnes expressed her own hesitancy about the role of AI in the field of social sciences and the research and writing skills needed to work within it.
“One of the goals in MMW is to teach critical thinking and also to teach academic writing. And the writing is embedded in the curriculum. You’re not going to learn to write if you’re just going to machine,” Barnes said. “The policy is inspired by the fact that we don’t think there’s any way to stop generative AI use.”
When Barnes designs the writing prompts for the second and third series in the MMW program, she collaborates with teaching assistants to make assignment prompts incompatible with AI analysis and reduce the likelihood that students will seek out AI’s help for passing grades.
“Students feel absolutely obsessed with grades and are very pressured to compete,” Barnes said. “That’s been around. I mean it is definitely worse here at UCSD than it was at other colleges and universities that I’ve been at.”
A tool, not a cheat code
Dr. Celeste Pilegard
Celeste Pilegard is a professor of cognitive science and educational psychology at UCSD. She has been teaching introductory research methods since 2019, focusing on foundational topics that will prepare students for higher-level topics in the field.
Educators like Pilegard have been struggling to adapt after the widespread adoption of AI tools.
“For me and a lot of professors, there’s fear,” Pilegard said. “We’re holding onto the last vestiges, hoping this isn’t going to become the thing everyone is using.”
Pilegard is concerned that students rely on AI tools to easily pass their intro-level courses, leaving them without a firm understanding of the content and an inability to properly assess AI’s accuracy.
“It’s hard to notice what is real and what is fake, what is helpful and what is misguided,” Pilegard said. “When you have enough expertise in an area, it’s possible to use ChatGPT as a thinking tool because you can detect its shortcomings.”
However, Pilegard does believe AI can assist in learning. She likens the current situation with AI to the advent of statistical analysis software back in the 1970s, which eliminated the need to do calculations by hand.
At that time, many professors argued for the importance of students doing work manually to comprehend the foundations. However, these tools are now regularly used in the classroom with the acceptance and guidance of educators.
”I don’t want to be the stick in the mud in terms of artificial intelligence,” Pilegard said. “Maybe there are some things that aren’t important for students to be doing themselves. But when the thing you’re offloading onto the computer is building the connections that help you build expertise, you’re really missing an opportunity to be learning deeply.”
The U.S. Department of Education announced that it is reducing its workforce by half, shutting seven of 12 regional branches of its Office for Civil Rights.
California has over 700 pending cases with the Office for Civil Rights. The Trump administration has not provided details on what happens to cases handled by the shuttered regional office in San Francisco.
The administration said this dramatic slashing would be followed by “significant reorganization to better serve students, parents, educators and taxpayers.”
Educators and civil rights advocates say that vulnerable students will not have recourse when schools violate their civil rights.
The announcement of a large-scale effort to reduce the workforce of the U.S. Department of Education on Tuesday — or nearly half of the agency’s staff — is raising concerns among California educators and advocates about the future of civil rights enforcement and funding for vulnerable students.
Seven of 12 regional offices that handle federal civil rights complaints were shuttered, including the Office for Civil Rights branch in San Francisco, which handles complaints filed in California.
“There is no federal presence enforcing civil rights in schools in California,” said Catherine Lhamon, the former assistant secretary for civil rights at the U.S. Department of Education. “Our country and California will effectively see an end to a federal backstop of harm in schools.”
While local and state governments provide the vast majority of funding and governance for TK-12 schools and higher education, the federal government handles key aspects of education in the U.S., including disbursing student loans and Pell Grants; funding programs for students with disabilities as well as schools serving low-income students; and overseeing national research that provides critical data for educators and policymakers.
The U.S. Department of Education is also tasked with enforcing federal civil rights laws, authorized by Congress, through its Office for Civil Rights in order to protect students from discrimination. California alone has more than 700 pending complaints of civil rights violations.
“I don’t know what is going to happen to those cases,” said an attorney who works in the San Francisco branch of the Office for Civil Rights. The attorney declined to be identified, citing concerns about retaliation for speaking out. “The students are going to suffer.”
McMahon said in a statement that the reduction in force reflects a commitment to efficiency and accountability, and that the department will “continue to deliver on all statutory programs that fall under the agency’s purview, including formula funding, student loans, Pell Grants, funding for special needs students, and competitive grantmaking.”
Some conservative groups, such as the Cato Institute, applauded the dramatic slashing of staff.
“We don’t know how many people are actually needed to execute (the U.S. Department of Education) jobs, and it’s time to find out if it’s been a bloated bureaucracy all along,” said Neal McCluskey, director of Cato’s Center for Educational Freedom.
But many educators and advocacy groups who work with students forcefully condemned the cuts.
The Los Angeles Unified School District board passed a resolution Tuesday condemning the cuts to the U.S. Education Department, as well as cuts to other federal funding for school meals and Medicaid. Board member Kelly Gonez called on legislators to “push back against this radical and cruel agenda.”
“The Trump administration and its allies in Congress are looking to decimate federal funding to schools, including cuts to school meals, MediCal, and education block grants,” Gonez said. “More threats are on the horizon due to Trump’s ongoing efforts to dismantle the Department of Education entirely. We will not stand by while this administration removes essential support for students.”
‘These are not minor issues’
After a student with autism died after being restrained, Davis Joint Unified agreed to change its policies and training related to secluding and restraining students in 2022. That same year, Los Angeles Unified promised to address the concerns of disabled students who said they received little legally required special assistance during the height of the pandemic.
These are just a few of the high-profile complaints that the Office for Civil Rights investigated and settled in California.
“These are not minor issues,” said Lhamon, who was then the assistant secretary for civil rights.
The Biden administration pleaded with Congress for additional funding to staff the Office for Civil Rights, which was facing a mushrooming caseload that reached an all-time high during his presidency, according to the Office for Civil Rights’ annual report. Now staff face the prospect of their caseload doubling from 50 cases per person to 100 cases — an “untenable” number, Lhamon said.
The increase in cases, combined with an existing staffing shortage has likely created a backlog, extending the wait time for investigations to be completed and findings issued, said Megan Stanton-Trehan, a senior attorney at Disability Rights California who represents students with disabilities.
“With increasing complaints and an idea that we want to increase efficiency, what we shouldn’t be doing is closing offices and decreasing the workforce, unless what we really want is to not enforce civil rights,” said Stanton-Trehan.
The federal government is sending the message that though students are required to attend school, there is no federal agency that will protect them from harm, Lhamon said.
“That’s dangerous for democracy; it’s dangerous for schools,” she said.
The U.S. Department of Education has not announced a plan for transferring cases from San Francisco or any other shuttered regional office.
“We are in this work because we care, and we are compassionate,” said the San Francisco Office for Civil Rights attorney. “We are devastated for our students.”
The Office for Civil Rights page listed 772 records of pending cases that the office is currently investigating in the state of California, though it does not include any cases filed after Jan. 3. Of those, 597 of the listed cases involved K-12 institutions, while another 175 involved post-secondary education. Many of the complaints — 388 pending cases — involve disability discrimination complaints.
The cases date back to complaints filed in 2016 on a range of topics, including discrimination on the basis of national origin, religion and English learner status, as well as allegations of sexual violence, racial harassment and retaliation.
Earlier this week, the Trump administration announced that it had sent letters to 60 universities to inform them that the Office for Civil Rights was investigating them for antisemitic discrimination. That list included Sacramento State, Chapman University, Pomona College, Santa Monica College, Stanford University, UC Davis, UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara and UC Berkeley.
Ana Najera-Mendoza, director of education equity and senior staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Southern California, is concerned that these complaints may take precedence over others. Every complaint filed in the Office for Civil Rights deserves to be considered in good faith, she said.
Stating that a reduction in force doesn’t equate to a reduction in the department’s responsibilities, Najera-Mendoza said, “No administration should elect to enforce some complaints over others to enforce a specific agenda.”
A dining commons at University of California Davis
Credit: Gregory Urquiaga / UC Davis
From curriculum to location, there’s so much to weigh when choosing a college or university.
And for high school seniors or prospective transfers who have dietary restrictions — particularly for medical reasons, including food allergies and chronic conditions such as celiac disease — picking a school that can accommodate their dietary needs is critical.
Before May 1, the official day to commit, here’s what to ask about dining halls, kitchen access and beyond.
Who should I reach out to?
The availability and range of options vary greatly from campus to campus, and the best way to get information is to ask the right people.
Reaching out to and scheduling an appointment with a campus dietitian nutritionist can be the easiest way to understand what options are available in the dining halls, and the extent to which the campus can guarantee safe options.
Some campuses have made extensive efforts. But others, like Cal Poly Humboldt and San Francisco State, can’t guarantee that meals can be made without cross-contamination.
“We understand how serious food allergies, celiac disease, and religious dietary needs can be, and we take those concerns to heart,” Todd Larsen, senior executive director for enterprise services at Cal Poly Humboldt, told EdSource. “While our kitchens are held to high safety and sanitation standards, they are not fully equipped to eliminate the risk of cross-contamination for individuals with severe dietary restrictions.”
Sometimes, campuses will also allow you to speak with a chef before a student enrolls; the chef can help answer specific questions about how meals are prepared and what kinds of measures they can take to prevent cross-contamination.
It’s also worth reaching out to current students or campus organizations focused on certain dietary needs for their perspective on the availability and safety of foods. This can also be helpful if you’re exploring what kinds of kosher or halal options are available.
Beyond dining services, it’s worth speaking with campus housing officials about living arrangements that include access to a kitchen.
What options are available at dining halls?
While dedicated kitchens are rare, many campuses throughout the state try to accommodate those with serious dietary needs — including labeling for top allergens and training for kitchen staff — but their approaches vary.
At some campuses, the options are more limited, with students being granted access to a common refrigerator stocked with frozen meals, whose labels students should read carefully before consuming.
UCLA, for example, takes such an approach, granting students with celiac disease, wheat allergies or gluten intolerance access to rooms with their own microwave, refrigerator, freezer, toaster and gluten-free meals.
Other campuses, like Sacramento State, have a dedicated station at a dining hall that features only allergen-free/friendly options or will allow students to work directly with an individual chef. And some, including UC Davis’s Dietary Support Program, grant students opportunities to order customized meals that are “prepared in a separate area, on separate equipment and by staff who have been trained on the dangers of cross-contact,” according to Emily Ortega, a registered dietitian nutritionist with the UC Davis Dining Services nutrition programs.
And if a student isn’t sure if something served in the dining halls is safe, or looks like it could be improperly labeled, it is important to check with the chef and inform the campus nutritionist.
Some campuses, like UC Merced, allow students to forgo their dining plan if the university cannot meet their needs. They may use a process that campus spokesperson Alyssa Flores Johansen says “involves multiple conversations, medical certification, and coordination with several campus stakeholders.”
What about access to a kitchen?
In addition to talking with the college or university’s dining program, it’s also important to contact housing to see what accommodations are provided.
For example, if a student needs access to an allergen station in a single dining hall, housing officials can sometimes place them in a dorm that’s closer.
At some campuses, like Cal State East Bay, all student housing includes a kitchenette. But that’s often not the norm, and housing officials can help explore options that include kitchen access, whether it’s living on the same floor as a communal kitchen where students can cook with their own pots and pans, or being assigned to an on-campus apartment.
On a smaller scale, within an individual dorm, it’s sometimes possible to request a separate refrigerator or microwave to help limit cross-contamination.
Think beyond the school year
It’s a good idea to jump on housing accommodations as soon as possible, and make sure a student’s needs will be met at dining halls from their first day of residency.
Ask about the hours of any dedicated station, what is provided during orientation, and what options are available during breaks.
San Diego Unified teachers protest pink slips before a school board meeting last year. The district plans to issue 30 preliminary layoff notices this year.
California school districts are again turning to layoffs to shore up budgets shrunk by declining enrollment, expiring federal Covid relief funds and a leveling off of state funding. So far, more than 2,300 school employees have received preliminary layoff notices, and the number is expected to grow.
More than 2,000 of the pink slips have gone to credentialed school staff — primarily teachers, school nurses and librarians, according to the California Teachers Association, which represents 300,000 school employees.
State law requires that districts send pink slips by March 15 each year to any employee who could be laid off by the end of the school year. Although many of the layoff notices are withdrawn by May 15 — the last day final layoff notices can be given to tenured teachers — the annual practice is criticized by many for demoralizing school staff and causing disruption to school systems.
“Layoffs are devastating and chaotic to our school communities and harm student learning conditions,” said CTA President David Goldberg. “This is even happening in communities like Pasadena, where educators and students lost their homes in wildfires. Our union will not stand by. We will demand that every single one of these notices is rescinded in the coming weeks.”
Pasadena Unified has issued 117 preliminary layoff notices, including 115 to credentialed staff.
Districts tried to avoid large layoffs
Some districts tried to avoid large-scale layoffs by considering other options, including early retirement incentives. San Francisco gave buyouts to 300 veteran teachers and other staff, and Santa Ana Unified gave that option to 166 teachers, but ultimately both districts are still laying off staff.
In fact, the two districts have issued the largest number of pink slips in the state so far, according to CTA data. San Francisco Unified notified 395 teachers of potential layoffs and Santa Ana Unified sent pink slips to 351 teachers, according to the CTA. Santa Ana Unified Chief Business Officer Ron Hacker says that number has since been reduced to 280.
San Francisco Unified, the state’s sixth-largest school district, has been struggling to close a $113 million deficit that helped put it on the list of the state’s most financially strapped districts. The district has also sent preliminary layoff notices to 164 teachers’ aides, and to 278 administrators and other staff.
Santa Ana Unified is attempting to reduce a $180 million structural deficit, but it also needs to reduce staff, Hacker said. In 2018, the school board decided not to pursue layoffs despite overstaffing and a structural deficit. The overstaffing problem continued through Covid when funding was tied to a state stipulation that districts can’t lay off employees, he said.
“The Covid relief grant funds are no longer flowing, and they’re expired, so we’re at the point now where we can’t sustain the counseling ratios and the class sizes that we have,” Hacker said.
The district also plans to make cuts to supplies, services and capital outlay to help balance the budget, Hacker said in an interview last month.
“That being said, 80% of our budget is salary and benefits, so the only way to tackle that entire structural deficit is to include positions too,” he said.
Most districts overstaffed
Some school districts avoided making staffing cuts despite declining enrollment, said Michael Fine, chief executive director of the state’s Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team.
“I think if you were to look at some statewide data on staffing versus enrollment, you’d see that almost everybody’s overstaffed in some fashion, at least on the certificated side, which is where we see that data,” Fine said.
Data on support staff, also known as classified staff, is not being collected by the state, he said.
District offered early warning bonuses
Santa Rosa Elementary School District and San Ramon Unified issued more than 100 pink slips to teachers and other credentialed staff in recent months, with the districts sending out 151 and 129 pink slips respectively, according to the CTA list.
Santa Rosa City Schools is trying to trim its budget by $30 million to reduce a structural deficit. The district, which operates 24 schools, has lost 3,000 students over the last decade.
Instead of offering an early retirement incentive, which wouldn’t save money for the district, Santa Rosa Unified gave employees bonuses if they gave advance notice that they wouldn’t be working at the district next school year, said Lisa August, associate superintendent of business services. Employees who gave notice by Jan. 31 received a $1,000 bonus, $750 if they gave notice by Feb. 15, and $500 if by Feb. 28.
The CTA list does not include many districts still in the process of issuing layoff notices, or whose unions did not report their numbers. Among them is Berkeley Unified, whose school board voted last week to notify 180 employees, 10 of whom are teachers, that they could lose their jobs, according to Berkeleyside.
Oakland Unified, which is on the state’s list of most financially strapped districts, also plans to issue 97 pink slips to teachers and central office staff, according to district information. And, Oxnard Union School district projects it will issue 91 pink slips to school staff, including 41 teachers and counselors, according to the Ventura County Star.
Layoffs can make recruitment harder
Layoffs can hurt teacher recruitment and make it more difficult to find teachers for hard-to-fill positions teaching special education, science, math, special education and English learners.
Teacher layoffs during the Great Recession, between 2007 and 2009, are widely considered to be one of the causes of the current teacher shortage because they discouraged people from entering teacher preparation programs. In recent years, enrollment in teacher preparation programs in the state has declined.
It’s unclear how many teachers will actually be laid off before next school year, as many pink slips are rescinded after district officials review credentials, expected retirements and projected enrollment numbers at school sites, and hearings with an administrative law judge are held to determine who stays and who goes.
The annual process can be nerve-wracking for teachers, especially those at the bottom of the seniority list, who could be issued pink slips in consecutive years.
“More than 2,000 educators have received a notice that they may not have a job next year, and tragically, that number increases each day,” Goldberg said. “These are the people who show up every day to teach and care for students in public schools across California — teachers, school counselors, social workers, instructional aides, custodians, and more.
“At a time when our students deserve a stable learning environment, smaller class sizes, and more mental health support, it is unconscionable to even think about laying off public school educators,” Goldberg said.
California Department of Education and California Department of Public
Health issue
joint guidance
on the coronavirus to school districts.
Colleges in California and nationally
move to
online instruction in response to the coronavirus. The California
Department of Education
receives
a USDA waiver that enables districts to feed students during
coronavirus-related closures.
Newsom signs
executive order
assuring closed schools remain funded as schools throughout the state
announce closures and distance learning
begins.
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond
advises districts
to plan for providing distance learning through the end of the school
year.
Colleges
begin to announce
plans not to resume classes in person. CSU, UC later announce
decision to keep most fall classes online.
EdSource analysis
shows wide disparities in how much school districts will receive
through federal CARES Act.
Newsom projects a $54 billion deficit and $19 billion less in
Proposition 98 funding over two years for schools and community
colleges. Proposed budget
slashes funding for preschool and child care plans, teacher development programs.
Superintendents of urban California districts pen open letter to lawmakers saying proposed budget cuts will set back restarting school.
In historic action, UC
moves to drop
SAT/ACT and develop a replacement exam for admissions.
College graduates forced to abandon the traditional celebrations and
ceremonies associated with graduation turn to
families or even video games to mark their accomplishments.
In Los Angeles, Oakland, West Contra Costa County
, Sacramento and San Francisco, K-12 officials reconsider
whether police should be in schools and activists urge for their
removal in the wake of the George Floyd killing.
A spike in Covid-19 cases prompts
more districts to plan for online education for the beginning of the
2020-2021 school year.
State imposes
strict regulations for school opening and closing based on counties on
state’s monitoring list. Establishes waiver process
to allow some elementary schools to reopen.
In response to new regulations, many school districts abandon plans
for fall hybrid learning and in-person classes.
Los Angeles Unified reaches deal
with teachers over distance learning while other districts struggle to
finalize plans.
State health officials release first health and safety guidance
for how colleges and universities can reopen, but most classes must be
offered remotely and have other restrictions in place.
State-issued guidance
permitting limited openings will apply to districts in counties on the
coronavirus watch list, where schools are shut down, followed by guidance
allowing small cohorts of 14 students and two adults for special
education, homeless and foster students.
Los Angeles Unified announces plan
to offer coronavirus testing to all students, staff. Power outages
due to a heat wave hit California as school resumes virtually across
the state.
Almost all colleges and universities open
with few in-person classes, but dorms still house students and some
campuses plan for testing and contact tracing.
Newsom introduces
four-tiered color coded county tracking system to replace the previous
monitoring list for counties. The “Blueprint for a Safer Economy”
tracks counties by the number of Covid-19 cases recorded each day and
the percentage of positive cases out of the total number of tests
administered, both averaged over seven days. The system has had a
major impact on a school’s ability to reopen for in-person
instruction.
$900 billion Covid-19 relief package, including $82 billion for K-12
and colleges, plus $22 billion for Covid-19 testing that could help to
reopen schools. Of the $82 billion, $6.5 billion went to California
for K-12 schools.
, which allowed in-person instruction in counties in “purple” tier
with daily case rate of less than 25, and a $2 billion
incentive program
to bring back in-person instruction for elementary grades and students
with special needs in prioritized categories by mid-February.
Supporters of former President Donald Trump storm the United States
Capitol in a riot. California educators
condemn and reflect
on what many call an “insurrection.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom proposes a new state budget increasing funding to
California colleges to stabilize tuition rates, provide emergency aid,
and “re-engage” students who have dropped out due to the Covid-19
pandemic. The budget also proposes $4.6 billion for summer school
programs.
Teachers and other school employees in Mariposa County are among the
first in the state to be vaccinated against Covid-19.
to create a permanent, virtual K-12 academy, citing concerns about the
pandemic’s impact.
Newsom announces the creation of Safe Schools for All Hub, a site
providing resources to school districts regarding California’s Covid-19
strategies.
Covid-19 death toll passes 400,000 in the U.S., CDC announces.
In a news conference, Newsom announces streamlined vaccination efforts,
including an age-based eligibility system and putting teachers high on
the state’s priority vaccination list.
The California Commission on Teacher Credentialing extends a waiver
allowing those in preparation programs to continue teaching as they
finish their credentials, the latest move to combat a teacher shortage
during the pandemic.
Covid-19 death toll in the U.S. surpasses 500,000, CDC announces.
The Biden administration confirms all schools must resume annual
standardized testing, with modifications to protect against Covid. The
requirement had been suspended in March 2020.
The California Department of Public Health reports that infection rates
have fallen significantly, allowing many elementary schools to begin
reopening.
The California Legislature approves a plan providing $2 billion in
incentives for districts that reopen for in-person learning beginning
April 1, starting with the earliest grades first.
allocating about $15 billion to K-12 schools in California to combat the
pandemic and related recession.
One-year anniversary of the World Health Organization (WHO) declaring
Covid-19 a global pandemic.
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) updates
guidelines on distancing in schools in elementary schools. Elementary
schoolers can safely distance from 3 feet, while middle and high schools
should maintain a distance of 6 feet.
U.S. Department of Education announces California is behind on returning
to in-person instruction.
CDC announces that about 80% of K-12 staff, teachers, staff and child
care workers have received at least their first dose of the Covid
vaccine.
after facing lawsuits and criticism from a group of parents for not
reopening sooner.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture announces that it will continue
reimbursing schools and child care centers for free meals, a move
serving food insecure families during the pandemic.
The University of California system announces it will no longer consider
SAT or ACT scores in scholarship or admissions decisions.
California announces a plan to spend $6 billion to expand broadband
internet access to thousands of students underserved by private internet
service providers during distance learning.
State rescinds mandate requiring schools to send home children who
refuse to wear a mask, announcing that it will allow schools to decide
what to do.
The University of California system announces that it will require
students, faculty and staff to show proof of vaccination against Covid.
The California State University System announces that all faculty,
students and staff will be required to show proof of vaccination.
CDC updates masking guidance, recommending masking indoors and in high
transmission areas, amid a surge in the Covid virus’s new delta variant.
Several California community colleges, including ones in the Los Angeles
Community College District and Los Rios Community College District,
implement vaccine mandates amid surging cases.
to be vaccinated against Covid or undergo weekly testing.
Culver City Unified, in west Los Angeles, announces that it will require
all students to be vaccinated against and undergo weekly testing,
becoming the first school district in California to do so.
Several rural districts in California close schools, following an
increase in cases of the delta variant of Covid-19.
The Los Angeles Unified school board votes to require all students 12
and older to be fully vaccinated against Covid-19, becoming the largest
public school district to do so.
The chancellor of the California Community College system announces
student enrollment has dropped below 2 million students for the first
time in over 30 years due to the pandemic.
A judge rules that California students with disabilities can resume
independent study after Assembly Bill 130 was passed, requiring all
schools to provide in-person classes. The bill made an exception for
those who qualified for independent study, but shut out several students
who had various disabilities preventing them from wearing a mask or
making them susceptible to Covid.
The UC system announces it will stick with test-free admissions and will
not replace the SAT and ACT with a new exam.
CDC announces the death toll in the U.S. has surpassed 800,000.
Several school districts, including Los Angeles Unified and West Contra
Costa Unified, announce plans to delay vaccine mandate deadlines.
CDC updates quarantine and isolation guidelines, and California
announces the state will follow them.
CDC reports 1 million active Covid cases in the U.S, the highest daily
total of any country.
About 900 teachers and aides stage a “sickout” to protest the lack of
Covid-19 protections in San Francisco public schools in the midst of a
surge of cases.
Gov. Gavin Newsom announces that funding for schools and community
colleges will increase to over $100 million in the midst of a pandemic
affecting state revenue.
Newsom signs an executive order loosening state regulations for
substitute teachers to combat staffing shortages.
protest by several teachers at a West Contra Costa Unified middle
school, over half of Stege Elementary school’s teachers call out to
protest Covid-19 policies.
Oakland-based research group Children Now releases report card detailing
the effects of the pandemic, wildfires and racial injustice on
children’s education and mental health.
Several CSU and UC campuses suspend in-person classes following a surge
of cases.
San Diego State University sees a record number of fall 2022 applicants,
indicating a bounce back to pre-pandemic levels.
The chancellor of the CSU system announces tuition will not increase for
the 2022-23 school year as many students continue to face financial
struggles due to the pandemic.
A panel for the CSU system recommends eliminating SAT and ACT exams for
admission, following several colleges across the nation during the
pandemic.
EdSource reports that graduation rates held steady during the pandemic.
CDC issues new rating system allowing most students in K-12 schools to
remove masks indoors.
Covid-19 deaths worldwide surpass 6 million.
Two year anniversary of when the World Health Organization declared the
coronavirus a global pandemic.
California ends school mask mandate.
President Joe Biden proposes $88.3 billion dollars in new discretionary
funds for American colleges, a 16% increase from the previous year.
Almost 1 million Covid deaths have been reported in the U.S.
The National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers announces
state-based preschool programs suffered from massive pandemic-related
losses, including enrollment decline and loss of state funding.
Biden and the Department of Education announce an extension of the
student loan payment pause until Aug. 31. The pandemic-era policy
assisted millions of borrowers nationwide.
College students introduce a bill to add a 24-hour mental health hotline
number on student ID cards due to the growing mental health crisis
associated with the pandemic and other social justice issues.
U.S. Covid deaths top 1 million.
Newsom announces a revised state budget allocating $128 billion to
schools and community colleges in the state, $20 billion more than
initially proposed. The new budget is slated to provide $3.3 billion for
districts affected by inconsistent attendance due to new Covid variants.
The Public Policy Institute of California reveals that science
instruction decreased in K-12 schools across the state during the
pandemic. More than 200 districts were surveyed, citing teacher burnout
related to the pandemic and a lack of funding for science, technology,
engineering and math programs.
California to provide free lunch to all K-12 students, expanding on the
USDA’s pandemic-era universal meal program.
Several public universities and colleges begin in-person instructions
with few Covid restrictions.
As educators worry about the pandemic’s effect on students, the state
Department of Education announces it will delay release of standardized
test scores from the previous year, prompting a public outcry.
standardized test scores projected to show declines related to global
pandemic. This is a contrast from the initial announcement indicating a
delay.
EdSource reports that California students have performed significantly
worse on state standardized states, highlighting another one of the
pandemic’s impacts on education.
CSU board of trustees abandons a plan to require a fourth year of math
for admission, citing pandemic-related concerns.
Gov. Gavin Newsom proposes a budget decrease for California Community
Colleges and K-12 schools, while continuing to allocate funding for
“learning recovery from Covid.”
Officials from the Department of Public Health announce plans to end the
Covid vaccine mandate for school children.
Several elementary schools in Marin County institute a temporary mask
mandate following an uptick in cases.
CDC adds Covid-19 vaccine to recommended immunization schedule for
children ages 6-17.
CalFresh announces it will end two temporary exceptions allowing more
students to qualify for CalFresh during the pandemic.
Despite hopes of return to a “pre-pandemic normalcy,” state data reports
a decline in TK-12 enrollment.
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers,
testifies in front of Congress regarding Covid-related closures at
schools.
World Health Organization announces that Covid-19 is no longer
considered a global pandemic.
CalMatters reports that the Golden State Education and Training Grant
Program, which allows those affected by job loss due to Covid to enroll
in a college program, is set to end by June 15 in order to combat
ongoing budget deficit.
School officials and union leaders for Los Angeles Unified reach
agreement to extend winter breaks. If ratified, the measure will extend
the school year in hopes of combating Covid-related learning loss.
State Legislature mandates a change in literacy standards, hoping to
combat reading loss.
In a 6-3 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court rules President Joe Biden
lacked the authority to implement a plan erasing $400 billion in college
student debt, leaving millions of people affected by financial woes
during the pandemic in a limbo.
The Legislature announces two bills to combat a teacher shortage
exacerbated by the pandemic, including one set to pay student teachers
for their required 600 hours of instruction.
to prevent them from testifying in a suit alleging that the state failed
to prevent learning loss for low-income and other high-risk groups. Some
professors from the university planned to testify regarding the effects
of the pandemic on chronic absenteeism and student engagement/enrollment
measures.
Reversing course, the department announces it will not pursue a lawsuit
against the Stanford researchers.
Chancellor for California Community Colleges announces enrollment has
increased, bouncing back after years of pandemic-related declines.
Los Angeles Unified School District announces it will no longer require
employees be vaccinated against the coronavirus. The mandate was under
controversy as many claimed it was discriminatory.
CAASPP Smarter Balanced assessments reveal that districts have done
little to reverse learning loss due to the pandemic. The learning loss
disproportionately affected Black, Latino and economically disadvantaged
students.
Gov. Gavin Newsom proposes a rainy day fund to protect California
colleges from expected budget shortfalls.
Los Angeles Unified loosens Covid restrictions, allowing children and
school to return to school if symptoms are mild.
A study published by the New England Journal of Medicine finds that long
Covid will have lasting effects on IQ levels and cognitive ability of
schoolchildren.
California Community Colleges reports that the system has lost more than
$5 million due to fraudulent registrations, a trend that has seen an
increase since the pandemic.
Trump-appointed judge in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rules
that Los Angeles Unified employees can sue the district over expired
Covid policies. The suit had been thrown out by a lower court as the
rules were no longer in effect.
The New York Times reports that $190 billion given to schools to help
students recover from pandemic-related learning loss did little to
improve test scores.
Toddlers and babies born during the pandemic suffered from significant
developmental delays due to its effects, the New York Times reports.
Los Angeles Unified superintendent announces that the district has
recovered from some learning loss during the pandemic, with reading
scores showing English proficiency increasing from 41% to 43%. Math
scores also rose by 2 percentage points.
Study by Northwest Evaluation Association reports that a significant
number of eighth graders are approximately a year behind in learning
progress due to the pandemic.
EdWeek reports that district administrators have until Sept. 30 to claim
share of Covid-related federal aid set aside to assist homeless
students.
CSU system announces 461,000 enrolled students, the largest number since
the beginning of the pandemic.
State data indicates improving scores on standardized tests, but not to
pre-pandemic levels. Government officials say the scores show that
districts are making up for learning loss.
The Center on Reinventing Public Education gives California a D grade on
its reporting of the effects of Covid on students.
EdSource reports that several schools and colleges around California
will receive over $45 billion in bonds for construction in a “post-Covid
vote of confidence.”
West Contra Costa district announces it will cut several administrative
and staff positions due to a budget deficit, citing declining enrollment
and expiration of Covid-relief grants as causes.
The science is clear: 80% of brain growth happens by the age of 3, laying the foundation for a child’s cognitive, social, and emotional development. Every moment in which we do not invest in babies’ development is a critical missed opportunity to lay the foundation for our future.
That’s why babies urgently need high-quality, affordable early learning and care from birth. Unfortunately, for many families, this is either too expensive or unavailable, forcing parents into impossible choices between their careers and raising their children.
This dire shortage of care options affects more than just parents. When families can’t find high-quality, affordable care, the ripple effects are felt across workplaces, classrooms, and communities. Parents — and, in most cases, mothers — are often forced to leave the workforce, creating financial instability for their families, reducing career opportunities for women and decreasing the overall productivity in our economy.
To expand access and make early learning and care available to all of California’s children, our educators and caregivers need our support. These professionals, the majority of whom are women of color, are among the lowest-paid workers in the state. This chronic underinvestment has pushed many of them to leave the field, worsening an already extreme shortage of care.
We must expand the workforce because, while 36% of infants and toddlers qualify for subsidized care, only 14% have access to a space. But California — which has led the nation in taking bold action by creating access to universal preschool through the expansion of Transitional Kindergarten (TK) for all 4-year-old children and expanding access to state preschool to 3-year-olds — can close this gap.
It’s time to put solutions into action. Scaling successful models across early learning and care settings means expanding proven, high-quality programs to reach more children, especially those who live in communities that are under-resourced. By adapting these models to child care programs of all sizes — from home-based providers to large early learning centers — we can ensure more children have access to the education and support they need to thrive.
Here’s how we can act now:
Continue to support reforms to child care reimbursement rates to reflect the true cost of care. The goal is to develop policies to give caregivers a just and livable wage.
The Legislature and governor should move ahead with their plans to expand child care access to thousands more children of working-class families through the commitment to funding 200,000 new subsidized child care slots by the 2027-28 state budget, but they should target this access to infants and toddlers, because that is what families need the most.
We must remove the roadblocks to opening new child care centers and home-based providers, such as: allowing new early learning and care teachers to obtain their required college courses while working, as well as speeding up the time it takes for state child care licensing to approve new facilities, as we are currently advocating for at the legislative level.
Let’s Do This, Together
By listening to families; supporting early learning educators and providers; and working collaboratively with our governor, the Legislature, state leaders, and our partners, we can build a system that works for everyone. The future of our state depends on the decisions we make today.
Our babies can’t wait. Let’s act now to ensure they get the support they need to thrive.
•••
Patricia Lozano is the executive director of Early Edge California, a nonprofit organization that advocates for accessible, high-quality early learning and care for communities that are under-resourced, with a primary focus on babies, toddlers, and preschoolers. Scott Moore is the CEO of Kidango, a leading early childhood non-profit that serves thousands of low-income children and families.
The opinions in this commentary are those of the authors. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.
The Sonoma State University men’s soccer team practices in the rain recently on the campus in Rohnert Park. Division II sports are on the chopping block to save money.
Credit: Amy DiPierro / EdSource
On the soccer pitch, inthe physics classroom and in the office of a trusted professor, students at Sonoma State University are confronting a demoralizing challenge: What happens if my program gets cut?
The Rohnert Park campus, 50 miles north of San Francisco, has announced a contentious proposal to close a $24 million budget deficit by nixing six academic departments entirely, eliminating about two dozenmajor degree programs and cutting all NCAA Division II sports, among other measures.
Sonoma State’s experience is the most dire example of the cost reductions at many of the 23 Cal State campuses, which in total serve more than 450,000 students around the state. The university system’s leaders say cuts are prompted by an anticipated decrease in state funding, rising costs and, on some campuses,slumping enrollment figures. The number of students at Sonoma State has plunged dramatically, from 9,400 students in 2015 to a nadir of about 5,800 in2024.
On a recentvisit to the campus, an EdSource reporter spent time with students, faculty and coachesdirectly impacted by the expected cuts. The most defiant promised to fight for reprieves or backed state legislators’ demands for a turnaround plan. This month, some students sued to try to block proposed cuts.
But mostly, students and faculty expressed worry that this could be the last time a Sonoma State undergraduate sees the advanced math explaining why light moves more slowly in air than in a vacuum, ponders the differences between second and third wave feminism or masters the subtle finesse of playing one-touch soccer in the rain.
Geology: ‘All of that will be gone’
Jackson Kaiser grew up at the foot of Mount Konocti in Lake County, part of a volcanic field three hours north of San Francisco that feeds what is reckoned to be the largest geothermal complex in the world. “I had a lot of questions that I didn’t know how to answer,” he said. And that’s why he majored in geology at Sonoma State University.
But the department that has turned Kaiser’s curiosity into a promising career may soon disappear.Kaiser could be among the last 40 or so Sonoma State geology majors, according to a professor in the department, if the university goes ahead with plans to eliminate the department. Sonoma State spokesperson Jeff Keating confirmed that all tenured and tenure-track geology faculty have received layoff notices, though several may be asked to teach temporarily.
On a recent Wednesday afternoon, Kaiser reverently held his favorite rock samples in theclassroom where geology majors take most of their classes. “The idea that that place won’t be here to come back to, that I won’t have an alma mater — it feels like our administration doesn’t want me to be a proud Seawolf,” he said,referring to the campus mascot.
Student Jackson Kaiser, who grew up fascinated by a volcanic field near a large geothermal complex north of San Francisco, laments that he may be among the last geology majors at Sonoma State.Amy DiPierro
Kaiser, 36, was working in the produce department of a Safeway grocery store when he found himself researching the chemical formulas of minerals. He marveled at their straight lines and geometric forms, so elegant they appear unnatural. He wanted to know more.
So around 2022,Kaiser, his partner and their two children, now 4 and 6, started commuting an hour and half or more every weekday from Lake County to Sonoma State, sending the kids to the Children’s School on campus while both parents took undergraduate classes. These days, Kaiser bunks with classmates from Monday to Friday, returning home to his family on weekends. “It’s not great,” he said. “But I’m working towards a better future, where I’ll have a real career and not just be working in a grocery store.”
His chosen career can have high stakes. After all, Kaiser said, it was a careful geological study in the 1960s that ultimately blocked a plan to build a nuclear power plant just 30 minutes from campus on a site traversed by the San Andreas Fault. A geological assessment is often a necessity for construction projects, especially in a region where debris flows can follow climate change-fueled wildfires. But geologists worry their numbers are waning despite growing demand for their skills.
A geology classroom on the campus of Sonoma State University on Feb. 12,Amy DiPierro
Kaiser, who will graduate at the end of the summer, has been collecting business cards from potential employers like geologic consulting firms. Thanks to the department’s frequent field trips, he’s had opportunities to practice skills like mapping, sample collection and paleontology.
He’s also taken part in department traditions, like feasting on watermelon at the summit after mountainous hikes or visiting the mammoth fossil that Sonoma State students excavated in 1981. “I hate the thought,” he said, “that all of that will be gone.”
Soccer: ‘Play all the way through’
The weather was lousy, but there they were in the rain at 9:15 a.m., the Sonoma State University men’s soccer team, lacing up their boots and stowing their belongings in white garbage bags to keep them dry. They had come from nearby Santa Rosa and far away Kapolei, Hawaii, to attendthe university. Together, they navigated the difficult reality that this could be their team’s last season,no matter how well they played.
There was Carson Sterling, a freshman center back from 18 miles north in Windsor, whose father and mother played soccer for Sonoma State before him. There was defender Cameron Fisk, a junior from Los Angeles studying business marketing, who had rebounded from injuries to play this fall.And, of course, there washead coach Marcus Ziemer, leading the Seawolves for the 34th year.
Ziemer watched the players warm up, his eyes shielded from the drizzle under a black baseball cap and glasses. Since he started as head coach in 1991, the men’s soccer team has won eight conference championships and earned its first and only national title in 2002.
But now things are grim. The university announced on Jan. 22 that it planned to eliminate men’s soccer along with the school’s other NCAA sports, among other austerities.
“It’s a very difficult kind of limbo right now,” he said. “We’re fighting hard to try and save the program and some of the other majors as well, trying to get them to reconsider.”
The Sonoma State University men’s soccer team practices recently in Rohnert Park. With the school’s whole Division II sports program potentially being cut, some team players are looking to transfer through the NCAA portal.Amy DiPierro
Ziemer himself is in limbo, too. Unless efforts to save the Sonoma State Division II sports programs succeed, his contract will end on June 30. He would probably retire rather than seek another coaching job.
In the meantime, Ziemer and his four assistant coaches have advised players who wish to continue their collegiate soccer careers to enter the NCAA transfer portal,expressing interest in moving to other schools. A few already have offers.
“I’m just grateful that with everything going on, we have coaches like them that are willing to help us and see other opportunities,” said Fisk, who has entered the transfer portal while the Sonoma State team’s status is uncertain.
But for now, the team’s focus was on preparing the Seawolves for a challenging spring season, including matchups against NCAA Division I and semi-professional sides. Practice started with dynamic stretches, then a frenetic game of keep-away and a shooting drill to loosen quads grown stiff in the damp.
“The energy is still really high,” said Sterling, who is in talks with soccer programs at other schools. “Obviously, it’s a kind of bad situation, and we’re just hoping for the best. But we’re going to play all the way through no matter what, and we’re going to play hard for each other.”
The squad split into teams for a scrimmage, an assistant coach barking urgent encouragement as they played. He called a time-out. “What does it take? Communication. Thinking one pass, two passes, three passes ahead. Moving, adjusting, being aware,” he yelled, his voice booming over the slick turf. “So because we’re struggling, should we say, ‘Ehh, f— it, move on.’? Or should we grow through it? Let’s grow through it — let’s grow through it together!”
The Sonoma State University men’s soccer team practices in the rain recently in Rohnert Park.Amy DiPierro
Women’s and gender studies: ‘I didn’t get that anywhere else’
Under the fluorescent lights of a windowless basement classroom, Xochilt Martinez Balladares and about 20 other students eagerly awaited a discussion on queer and trans theory. But before they could unpack works by critical heavyweights like Adrienne Rich, they trained their attention on an issuecloser at hand: the plan to dismantle the Sonoma State University Women’s and Gender Studies Department.
If the proposal goes forward, Sonoma State will offer the last women’s and gender studies classes in spring 2026. That could mark the end of a more than 50-year run that started with the founding of the program in the early 1970s and evolved into the Women’s and Gender Studies Department in 2001. Several students said the plan compounds their feeling that historically marginalized groups are under attack as the Trump administration seeks to end diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.
Martinez and her classmates also argued that the department teaches skills central to future careers, while providing community when they need it most. For Martinez, a women’s and gender studies major and Chicano and Latino studies minor, the long-term goal is to go into immigration law. In the short-term, she is considering a social work degree so she can work with at-risk youth and families.
“I almost dropped out twice because I felt very out of place,” said Martinez, 32. But she persevered thanks to a women’s and gender studies instructor who “talked to me on a personal level and made sure that I could continue my education. I didn’t get that anywhere else.”
The department typically attracts 25 to 35 majors a year, said Don Romesburg, the professor who teaches the theory course, but many more students who aren’t majors take its classes. Campus spokesperson Keating confirmed that all the department’s professors have been laid off, but said the university “will continue to support and encourage the teaching of courses that support women’s rights and the rights of the LGBTQIA+ community.”
Janis Phillips, 46,an education graduate student, said the loss of the department makes her question whether the university shares her commitment to students’ social and emotional learning.
“When students feel safe and seen and heard on campuses, that is one of the best predictors of academic success,” she said, facing her classmates around the circle of desks. “So to take a bunch of students and make them feel like they are not seen and not heard will be detrimental to their academic success.”
Students said the major prepares them for careers as psychologists, marriage and family therapists or health care providers. Because majors have to complete a community service requirement, students work with local organizations that help unhoused families, prevent sexual assault and support LGBTQ youth. “We’ve really taken seriously this question that parents often ask their students, which is, ‘What would you do with that degree?’” Romesburg said.
Despite the uncertain future of the department, students are doing the reading, Romesburg said, mindful that those who come behind them might not get the same opportunity. “They’re ready to roll up their sleeves and do project-based work, where they’re really generating ideas and reflections and engaging with the material,” he said.
A flier is posted to a bulletin board on the campus of Sonoma State University.
Physics: ‘Watching something that you love die’
The physics students filing into Scott Severson’s 9:30 a.m. optics class brightened with the wide-eyed surprise of children peeking at a gift: a sturdy wooden crate.
“It’s Christmas in our labs,” Severson said, gesturing toward the crate, which was filled with professional-gradelaboratory hardware. “We ordered this in better days,” he added, and a few students chuckled.
The Sonoma State Physics and Astronomy Department has indeed seen better days. Its alumni have gone on to lead companies, earn advanced degrees and become professors themselves. One of the department’s proudest moments came in 2016, when professor Lynn Cominsky was part of the team that documented a phenomenon called gravitational waves, an achievement that won three of her collaboratorsthe Nobel Prize. Cominsky said she has raised more than $43 million in grants for Sonoma State.
Such prestige has not shielded the Physics and Astronomy Department from cost-cutting plans. Though the department will avoid total elimination, Sonoma State plans to phase out its physics major. It is giving 30 majors two years to graduate and leaving 10 first-year students to find another degree or transfer, Severson said. After that, physics faculty memberswill only teach physics courses for students in other programs, like biology or engineering.
Already, one of the department’s lecturers has received a layoff notice, according to the university. Severson said he and three other remaining tenured faculty will cover the teaching load as the physics degree winds down. He doesn’t anticipate that tenured faculty will lose their jobs, but said some may seek work elsewhere or retire.
Troy Wilson and Jeffery Reedy at Sonoma State University demonstrate an experiment created as part of a program aimed at introducing middle and high school students to STEM fields on Feb. 12.Amy DiPierro
Ending the physics major also could reverberate at Cominsky’s EdEon STEM Learning program, which creates educational materials aimed at inspiring middle and high school students to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and math.
EdEon’s work depends on Sonoma State undergraduates, Cominsky said, and currently employs between 15 and 20 students in fields including physics. “None of the research grants I write would have been possible without physics majors,” she said.
Meanwhile, the students in Severson’s optics class watched as he played them a video illustrating the spiral of two black holes.
“I want you to notice the colors of this,” said Severson, who has taught at the university since 2007. “The brighter the red, the greater the distortion of spacetime as this is happening.”
Among the optics students was Madison Ambriz, who plans to graduate at the end of fall 2025.Ambriz spent the summer learning to assemble circuit boards as part of a collaboration to upgrade the Large Hadron Collider, a famed particle accelerator used to test physicists’ theoretical predictions. “I had such a blast with it,” she said, but her enthusiasm has been tempered by the feeling that it’s too late to save the major.
“It doesn’t matter what we say, doesn’t matter how heartbroken we are, doesn’t matter what the numbers say, they’re still going to cut the [major],” Ambriz said. “And it’s just watching something that you love die, and it’s horrible.”
