Maira Rodriguez, a teacher at Ferndale Elementary in Humboldt County, participates in professional learning.
Credit: Joanna Galicha / the Humboldt County Office of Education
California voters demonstrated their commitment to arts education in our schools with the passage of Proposition 28, which brings unprecedented resources for teaching the arts to every school in California. The state also adopted a forward-looking arts standards and curriculum framework and reinstated theater and dance credentials.
But truly realizing the potential of that commitment requires arts teachers who are fully prepared to teach the arts.
Unfortunately, California currently faces a statewide shortage of credentialed and classified PK-12 educators, especially multiple-subject and single-subject arts credentialed educators. The California Commission on Teacher Credentialing’s most recent data show a decrease in new arts teachers. Currently, only 3% of all credentialed teachers hold a single-subject credential in the arts. In the 2021-22 school year, California had about 7,500 teachers with clear arts credentials. This works out to be one teacher with a single-subject arts credential for every 785 California public school students.
upcoming roundtable | march 21
Can arts education help transform California schools?
In an era of chronic absenteeism and dismal test scores, can the arts help bring the joy of learning back to a generation bruised by the pandemic?
Join EdSource on March 21 at 3 p.m. for a behind-the-scenes look at how arts education transforms learning in California classrooms as schools begin to implement Prop. 28.
The thousands of new teachers needed to expand access to arts education will take years to recruit and prepare. With this persistent statewide hiring challenge, we urge immediate attention from state policymakers and district leaders to provide high-quality differentiated professional learning for arts educators already in classrooms and preparation programs. Professional learning is a critical component of California’s arts education infrastructure. Teachers are not a monolith and have a wide range of professional learning needs and interests. So we need tailored professional learning for a wide variety of arts educators, including:
Intern teachers. While data from the Commission on Teacher Credentialing shows that the arts have fewer intern teachers than the other single-subject areas on average, internships can offer a shorter path to the classroom. Since intern teachers are at the start of their teaching careers, key factors for keeping them in the classroom include mentoring, interaction with professional learning communities (PLCs), and networks of other arts teachers.
Teachers, especially those with out-of-state preparation. These teachers will continue to need professional development in the recently adopted state framework and standards. The California Arts Education Framework for Public Schools, adopted in 2020, did not have a robust statewide rollout due to the pandemic and is an essential resource for new and established teachers. Funding professional learning in this area will benefit teachers trained in- and out-of-state.
“Ineffective” credentials. According to California Department of Education data, arts students in California are more likely to be taught by an educator with an “out-of-field” or “ineffective” credential than students in other subject areas. While institutions prepare new arts educators, professional learning must be widely available, easily accessed and responsive to the many needs of educators who are already teaching but who may be classified by the State Board of Education as “ineffective” due to having out-of-field credentials and permits. Ideally, all educators charged with teaching the arts should be credentialed in the arts discipline they teach. In the meantime, professional learning can help build capacity and increase effectiveness to better support and equip teachers to teach arts content.
Elementary teachers. The distribution of teachers with single-subject arts credentials is not evenly spread across grade levels. More than 75% of credentialed arts teachers work in sixth through 12th grades. As a result, teachers with multiple-subject credentials are a vital arts education provider to elementary students. Besides being required in the California education code, arts education in elementary schools is an essential foundation that enables students, by middle and high school, to be successful in arts courses that meet the A-G admission requirements for University of California and California State University or in a career technical arts, media and entertainment pathway to prepare for a career.
Multiple-subject teachers. They make up the largest group of credentialed educators in California, and research shows that multiple-subject teachers who integrate the arts in their teaching are reinvigorated and more engaged. Incorporating more preparation in the arts for multiple-subject credentialed teachers, through summer intensives, and job-embedded training builds teacher knowledge, skills and confidence in the arts while supporting arts learning across all grade levels.
To meet such diverse needs, California needs support from the legislators, policymakers, higher education institutions, and PK-12 professional learning providers. The professional learning infrastructure exists, and there are many avenues across the state for high-quality professional learning. Prioritizing funding toward high-quality professional learning helps advance the intent of Proposition 28.
We must nurture and strengthen the entire system. Policymakers must advocate for a robust statewide funding effort similar to past models such as health education, history-social science, ethnic studies, mathematics, science, and computer science. Building capacity through professional learning for those already in classrooms and in teacher preparation programs should be funded and prioritized. There are many organizations across the state already engaged in effective professional learning, and these efforts are necessary to build our human capacity to fully realize the promise of Proposition 28.
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Letty Kraus is director of the California County Superintendents Arts Initiative, which works through the 58 county offices of education to support high quality, sequential, standards-based arts education for all students in California.
Patti Saraniero is principal of Moxie Research, a research and evaluation firm serving arts, culture, science and educational organizations.
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.
In data science classes, students write computer programs to help analyze large sets of data.
Credit: Alison Yin/EdSource
The article was updated March 5 to include the letter from high-tech executives supporting the Algebra II requirement. It also clarifies that AP Statistics is for students who have completed Algebra II.
An influential committee of the UC Academic Senate weighed in again last month on the contentious issue of how much math high school students must take to qualify to attend a four-year California state university.
It ruled that high school students taking an introductory data science course or AP Statistics cannot substitute it for Algebra II for admission to the University of California and California State University, starting in the fall of 2025.
The Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools or BOARS reaffirmed its position by accepting the recommendations of a workgroup of math and statistics professors who examined the issue. That workgroup determined that none of these courses labeled as data science “even come close” to qualifying as a more advanced algebra course.
Robert Gould, a teaching professor and vice chair of undergraduate studies in the statistics department at UCLA and lead author of Introduction to Data Science, said that he disagrees with BOARS’ decision. The course was created under the auspices of the National Science Foundation through a math and science partnership grant.
“We are disappointed, of course,” he said. “We believe our course is rigorous and challenging and, most importantly, contains knowledge and skills that all students need for both career and academic success.”
But how, then, will UC and CSU ultimately fit popular data science courses like CourseKata, Introduction to Data Science, and YouCubed’s Explorations in Data Science into course requirements for admission? That bigger question won’t be determined until May when the math workgroup will issue its next report.
Data science advocates are worried that BOARS, which commissioned the review, may disqualify data science and possibly statistics under the category of math courses meeting the criteria for admissions. Increasing numbers of high school students are turning to introductory data courses in a world shaped by artificial intelligence and other data-driven opportunities and careers. They see them as approachable alternatives to trigonometry, pre-calculus and other rigorous courses students must take to major in science, technology engineering or math (STEM) in college.
Dozens of high school math teachers and administrators have signed a letter being circulated that will go to the UC regents. It reiterates support for data science and statistics courses and criticizes BOARS for not consulting high school teachers and data science experts for their perspectives.
“Our schools and districts have adopted such courses because they provide an innovative 21st-century experience that excites and engages students, impart tangible quantitative skills needed for a wide variety of today’s careers and academic fields, and offer new ways for students to interact with and learn mathematics,” the letter states.
Pamela Burdman, executive director of the nonprofit Just Equations, agreed in a blog post titled “The Latest in the Inexplicable War on High School Data Science Courses.” “The bottom line is that districts are increasingly offering these courses because they are relevant and engaging for many students who otherwise would be turned off by mathematics,” she wrote.
Will it help or hinder equity?
Critics of substituting introductory data sciences courses for advanced algebra include STEM professors at UC and CSU. Many say they support data science, but not courses lacking the full range of math topics in high schools that students need for STEM or any major requiring quantitative skills. Skipping foundational math in high school will set back the cause of equity for underserved students of color, not advance it, they argue, by creating the illusion that students are ready for statistics, computer science and data science majors when they aren’t. That may force them to take catch-up courses in community college.
“The only way we’re going to diversify STEM fields is to keep historically excluded young students on the algebraic thinking pathway just a little bit longer,” Elizabeth Statmore, a math teacher at Lowell High in San Francisco and former software executive, wrote to EdSource last year. “That will give them the mathematical competencies they will need to make their own decisions about whether or not they want to pursue rigorous quantitative majors and careers.”
Proponents of holding the line on Algebra II and encouraging more students to pursue STEM majors are circulating their own attention-grabbing letter titled Strong Math Foundations are Important for AI. The signers, including Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, his nemesis Elon Musk, founder of Tesla, SpaceX and CEO of X, and executives from Apple, NVIDIA, Microsoft and Google, “applaud” UC for maintaining the math requirements.
“While today’s advances might suggest classic mathematical topics like calculus or algebra are outdated, nothing could be further from the truth. In reality, modern AI systems are rooted in mathematics, making a strong command over math necessary for careers in this field,” it reads. “Failure to maintain standards in the mathematical curriculum in public education will increase the gap between public schools — especially those of under-resourced districts — and private schools, hampering efforts to diversify STEM.”
Surprise actions by UC Office of President
For decades, UC and CSU have required that students complete three years of math with at least a “C” — usually in the sequence Algebra I, Geometry, and Algebra II, also called Advanced Algebra – as the math component of A-G, the 15 courses needed for admission. For students taking integrated math, it is Math I, II and III. Both university systems recommend a fourth year of math, and most students take at least that; aspiring STEM majors take two or more additional courses leading to Calculus.
BOARS establishes policies on admissions, but a small office in the UC President’s Office, the High School Articulation Unit, vets tens of thousands of courses that developers and high school teachers submit for approval. Starting in 2014, the unit began authorizing AP statistics and new data science courses as “validating” or satisfying Algebra II or Integrated Math III content requirements. That meant they either built on the content standards that students had covered or would cover in the course.
Although AP Statistics doesn’t cover most Algebra II topics, the rationale for validating it and data science courses — mistakenly so, BOARS determined in retrospect — was that Algebra II includes some statistics, and most teachers never get around to teaching it. That was problematic for introductory data science courses, because the state hasn’t set standards for what should be covered in the courses. The College Board, the creator of AP Statistics, states that the course is designed for students who have completed Algebra II.
During the last few years, the staff in the review office approved the three most popular data science courses in more than 400 high schools. After analyzing the three courses, the UC workgroup professors concluded, “We find these current courses labeled as ‘data science’ are more akin to data literacy courses.”
UC academic committee meetings, including BOARS, are closed to the public. But minutes from the July 2023 meeting indicated that some faculty members were dismayed that the articulation office had validated so many data science courses without their knowledge. “At least one member repeatedly suggested that UCOP has misinterpreted/misapplied the advanced math standard for years — and absent correction, will continue to do so — and so review of all current courses potentially implicated is needed,” the minutes state.
BOARS hasn’t ruled out approving future data science courses that include more advanced algebra as a substitute for Algebra II; the articulation office has validated Financial Algebra for that purpose. BOARS invited course alternatives in a June 2020 statement, saying it saw the expanded options “as both a college preparation and equity issue.”
But data science proponents are concerned that the math workgroup will take the opposite position and recommend that the three introductory data science courses be treated as elective courses for A-G but not fourth-year math courses. Ruling that way, they argue, would discourage future non-STEM majors from taking an alternative quantitative reasoning course as seniors. Such a position would reinforce a narrow view that only courses leading to Calculus are legitimate math offerings in the senior year.
“Revocation of Area C (math) status will significantly reduce our ability to foster students’ statistical and data competency or incentivize enrollment in these programs, at a time when such quantitative abilities are increasingly necessary for functioning personally and professionally in the 21st Century,” the letter to the UC regents says.
Lai Bui, a veteran math teacher at Mills High School in the San Mateo Union High School District, said there’s no justification for treating CourseKata, an introduction to data science course, differently from AP Statistics, which BOARS has qualified as a fourth-year math course. Students in CourseKata use coding to analyze datasets, while AP Stats students use graphing calculators, which have limitations, she said.
UCLA and CSU Los Angeles created CourseKata in 2017 as a semester course for college and as a two-semester course for high schools; otherwise, they are similar, said Bui, who has taught it for four years.
“CourseKata is definitely not data literacy,” she said. “It’s a math course, like AP Statistics, only more real-world connected. I see students succeeding in math instead of thinking, ‘I am not a math person.’”
In 2023, the CSU Academic Senate expressed frustration that UC was approving courses in data science in lieu of Algebra II without consulting it and urged more joint decision-making involving A-G decisions. In January, three CSU professors were added to the 10-member UC math workgroup.
Mark Van Selst, a psychology professor at San Jose State and member of the Academic Preparation and Education Programs Committee, considered CSU’s counterpart of BOARS, said this week he fully supports the decision not to retreat from Algebra II as a base of knowledge. But he also favors qualifying non-traditional fourth-year math courses that strengthen quantitative reasoning. He said he hopes the UC math workgroup drafts standards or learning outcomes for data science to distinguish between electives and advanced math courses.
Gould said he would need to review the possible criteria before deciding whether to revise the content of Introduction to Data Science.
“A data science education is essential for all students, and all students deserve a relevant and useful math education,” he said. “Despite the committee’s decision, we think it’s important that data science and statistics courses continue to qualify as fourth-year math courses.”
Heather Cox Richardson writes today that Trump eagerly overstepped his authority so as to create a crisis in Los Angeles. Local and state authorities responded appropriately to protests against the aggressive actions of ICE. But Trump insisted that there was an insurrection underway, a statement teeeted by his aide Stephen Miller. He took charge of the state National Guard, which was last done in 1958 when President Eisenhower called in the Arkansas National Guard to restore order in Little Rock during white protests against civil rights enforcement.
HRC suggests two reasons for Trump’s eagerness to call in troops in L.A. First, he wants a pretext to send troops anywhere anytime, in effect, to create a police state. Second, he wants to distract attention from his embarrassing breakup with Elon Musk, the chaos caused by his tariffs, and the controversies surrounding his “One Ugly Bill” and its threat to Medicaid.
A third reason is that he seized on the opportunity to humiliate Democratic Governor Newsom.
A fourth reason is that he loves to play the part of a tough guy.
She wrote:
Flatbed train cars carrying thousands of tanks rolled into Washington, D.C., yesterday in preparation for the military parade planned for June 14. On the other side of the country, protesters near Los Angeles filmed officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) throwing flash-bang grenades into a crowd of protesters. The two images make a disturbing portrait of the United States of America under the Donald J. Trump regime as Trump tries to use the issue of immigration to establish a police state.
In January 2024, Trump pressured Republican lawmakers to kill a bipartisan immigration measure that would have beefed up border security and funding immigration courts because he wanted to campaign on the issue of immigration. During that campaign, Trump made much of the high immigration numbers in the United States after the worst of the coronavirus pandemic, when the booming U.S. economy attracted migrants. He went so far as to claim that migrants were eating people’s pets.
Many Trump supporters apparently believed officials in a Trump administration would only deport violent criminals, although Trump’s team had made it clear in his first term that they considered anyone who had broken immigration laws a criminal. Crackdowns began as soon as Trump took office, sweeping in individuals who had no criminal records in the U.S. and who were in the U.S. legally. The administration worked to define those individuals as criminals and insisted they had no right to the due process guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.
Anna Giaritelli of the Washington Examiner reported that at a meeting in late May, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, who appears to be leading the administration’s immigration efforts, “eviscerated” federal immigration officials for numbers of deportations and renditions that, at around 600 people per day, he considered far too low. “Stephen Miller wants everybody arrested,” one of the officials at the meeting told Giaritelli. “‘‘Why aren’t you at Home Depot? Why aren’t you at 7-Eleven?’” Miller said.
After the meeting, Miller told Fox News Channel host Sean Hannity that the administration wanted “a minimum of 3,000 arrests for ICE every day, and President Trump is going to keep pushing to get that number up higher each and every single day.” Thomas Homan, Trump’s border czar, took the message to heart. “You’re going to see more work site enforcement than you’ve ever seen in the history of this nation,” he told reporters. “We’re going to flood the zone.”
According to a recent report by Goldman Sachs, undocumented immigrants made up more than 4% of the nation’s workforce in 2023 and are concentrated in landscaping, farm work, and construction work. Sweeps of workplaces where immigrants are concentrated are an easy way to meet quotas.
The Trump regime apparently decided to demonstrate its power in Los Angeles, where over the course of the past week, hundreds of undocumented immigrants who went to scheduled check-in appointments with ICE were taken into custody—sometimes with their families—and held in the basement of the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building in downtown L.A.
This was the backdrop when on Friday, June 7, federal officials launched a new phase of the regime’s crackdown on immigration, focusing on L.A. workplaces. Agents in tactical gear sweeping through the city’s garment district met protesters who chanted and threw eggs; agents pepper sprayed the protesters and shot at them with what are known as “less-lethal projectiles” or “non-lethal bullets” because they are made of rubber or plastic. Protesters also gathered around the federal detention center, demanding the release of their relatives; officers in riot gear dispersed the crowd with tear gas.
Officers arrested more than 40 people, including David Huerta, the president of the Service Employees International Union California (SEIU), for impeding a federal officer while protesting. Huerta’s arrest turned union members out to stand against ICE.
At 10:33 a.m. yesterday morning eastern time—so, before anything was going on in Los Angeles—Miller reposted a clip of protesters surrounding the federal detention center in Los Angeles and wrote that these protesters constituted “[a]n insurrection against the laws and sovereignty of the United States.” Miller has appeared eager to invoke the Insurrection Act to use the military against Americans.
On Saturday, in the predominantly Latino city of Paramount about 20 miles south of L.A., Rachel Uranga and Ruben Vives of the Los Angeles Times reported that people spotted a caravan of border patrol agents across the street from the Home Depot. Word spread on social media, and protesters arrived to show that ICE’s arrest of families was not welcome. As about a hundred protesters arrived, the Home Depot closed.
Over the course of the afternoon, protesters shouted at the federal agents, who formed a line and shot tear gas or rounds of flash-bang grenades if anyone threw anything at them or approached them. L.A. County sheriff’s deputies arrived to block off a perimeter, and the border agents departed shortly after, leaving the protesters and the sheriff’s deputies, who shot flash-bang grenades at the crowd. The struggle between the deputies and about 100 protesters continued until midnight.
Almost four million people live in Los Angeles, with more than 12 million in the greater L.A. area, making the protests relatively small. Nonetheless, on Saturday evening, Trump signed an order saying that “[t]o the extent that protests or acts of violence directly inhibit the execution of the laws, they constitute a form of rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States.” Based on that weak finding, he called out at least 2,000 members of the California National Guard to protect ICE and other government personnel, activating a state’s National Guard without a request from its governor for the first time in 50 years.
At 8:25 p.m., his social media account posted: “If Governor Gavin Newscum, of California, and Mayor Karen Bass, of Los Angeles, can’t do their jobs, which everyone knows they can’t, then the Federal Government will step in and solve the problem, RIOTS & LOOTERS, the way it should be solved!!!”
California’s governor Gavin Newsom said Trump’s plan was “purposefully inflammatory.” “LA authorities are able to access law enforcement assistance at a moment’s notice,” Newsom said. “We are in close coordination with the city and county, and there is currently no unmet need. The Guard has been admirably serving LA throughout recovery. This is the wrong mission and will erode public trust.” Newsom said the administration is trying “not to meet an unmet need, but to manufacture a crisis.”
Trump apparently was not too terribly concerned about the “rebellion”; he was at the UFC fight in Newark, New Jersey, by 10:00 p.m.
At 10:06 p.m., Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who is under investigation over his involvement with a Signal chat that inappropriately included classified information, posted: “The violent mob assaults on ICE and Federal Law Enforcement are designed to prevent the removal of Criminal Illegal Aliens from our soil; a dangerous invasion facilitated by criminal cartels (aka Foreign Terrorist Organizations) and a huge NATIONAL SECURITY RISK.” He added that the Defense Department was mobilizing the National Guard and that “if violence continues, active duty Marines at Camp Pendleton will also be mobilized—they are on high alert.”
At 2:41 a.m., Trump’s social media account posted: “Great job by the National Guard in Los Angeles after two days of violence, clashes and unrest. We have an incompetent Governor (Newscum) and Mayor (Bass) who were, as usual…unable to to handle the task. These Radical Left protests, by instigators and often paid troublemakers, will NOT BE TOLERATED…. Again, thank you to the National Guard for a job well done!”
Just an hour later, at 3:22 a.m., Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass posted: “I want to thank LAPD and local law enforcement for their work tonight. I also want to thank[Governor Gavin Newsom] for his support. Just to be clear, the National Guard has not been deployed in the City of Los Angeles.”
National Guard troops arrived in L.A. today, but James Queally, Nathan Solis, Salvador Hernandez, and Hannah Fry of the Los Angeles Times reported that the city’s garment district and Paramount were calm and that incidents of rock throwing were isolated. Law enforcement officers met those incidents with tear gas and less-lethal rounds.
Today, when reporters asked if he planned to send troops to L.A., Trump answered: “We’re gonna have troops everywhere. We’re not going to let this happen to our country. We’re not going to let our country be torn apart like it was under Biden.” Trump appeared to be referring to the divisions during the Biden administration caused by Trump and his loyalists, who falsely claimed that Biden had stolen the 2020 presidential election. (In the defamation trial happening right now in Colorado over those allegations, MyPillow chief executive officer Mike Lindell, who was a fierce advocate of Trump’s lie, will not present evidence that the election was rigged, his lawyers say. They added: “it’s just words. All Mike Lindell did was talk. Mike believed that he was telling the truth.”)
At 5:06 p.m. this evening, Trump’s social media account posted: “A once great American City, Los Angeles, has been invaded and occupied by Illegal Aliens and Criminals. Now violent, insurrectionist mobs are swarming and attacking our Federal Agents to try and stop our deportation operations—But these lawless riots only strengthen our resolve. I am directing Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, and Attorney General Pam Bondi, in coordination with all other relevant Departments and Agencies, to take all such action necessary to liberate Los Angeles from the Migrant Invasion, and put an end to these Migrant riots. Order will be restored, the Illegals will be expelled, and Los Angeles will be set free.” He followed this statement with that odd closing he has been using lately: “Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
Marketplace host Kai Ryssdal answered: “Hello. I live in Los Angeles. The president is lying.”
At 6:27, Governor Newsom posted that he has “formally requested the Trump Administration rescind their unlawful deployment of troops in Los Angeles county and return them to my command. We didn’t have a problem until Trump got involved. This is a serious breach of state sovereignty—inflaming tensions while pulling resources from where they’re actually needed. Rescind the order. Return control to California.” The Democratic governors issued a statement standing with Newsom and calling Trump’s order “ineffective and dangerous.”
At 10:03, Trump posted: Governor Gavin Newscum and “Mayor” Bass should apologize to the people of Los Angeles for the absolutely horrible job that they have done, and this now includes the ongoing L.A. riots. These are not protesters, they are troublemakers and insurrectionists. Remember, NO MASKS!” Four minutes later, he posted: “Paid Insurrectionists!”
There is real weakness behind the regime’s power grab. Trump’s very public blowup with billionaire Elon Musk last week has opened up criticism of the Department of Government Efficiency that Musk controlled. In his fury, Musk suggested to Trump’s loyal followers that the reason the Epstein files detailing sexual assault of children haven’t been released is that Trump is implicated in them. Trump’s promised trade deals have not materialized, and indicators show his policies are hurting the economy.
And the Republicans’ “One Big, Beautiful Bill” is raising significant opposition. Today Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) complained about the excessive spending in the bill for ICE, prompting Stephen Miller to complain on social media and to claim that “each deportation saves taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars.” But David J. Bier of the libertarian Cato Institute on Friday estimated that the deportation plans in the measure would add almost $1 trillion in costs.
There is no doubt that as their other initiatives have stalled and popular opinion is turning against the administration on every issue, the Trump regime is trying to establish a police state. But in making Los Angeles their flashpoint, they chose a poor place to demonstrate dominance. Unlike a smaller, Republican-dominated city whose people might side with the administration, Los Angeles is a huge, multicultural city that the federal government does not have the personnel to subdue.
Trump stumbled as he climbed the stairs to Air Force One tonight.
Chico State University was about to fire former biology professor David Stachura for dishonesty, sexual harassment and retaliation when it agreed to withdraw the charges last month in exchange for his resignation in a deal that bans him from working again in the California State University system, documents obtained by EdSource show.
In return for his resignation, Stachura dropped several appeals that were in process, including ones to the State Department of Civil Rights, the Division of Occupational Safety and Health and the California State University’s Chancellor’s Office, documents show.
Stachura’s lawyer, Kasra Parsad of Santa Rosa, did not respond to messages on Tuesday.
Chico State began investigating Stachura anew last year after EdSource reported in December 2022 that a previous investigation concluded in 2020 that he had an inappropriate affair with a student that included sex in his office and that court records showed he had allegedly threatened to kill two professors who cooperated in the university’s probe of the matter.
The newly released records, obtained under the state Public Records Act, show that the university found in the two separate investigations that Stachura was untruthful about his affair with the student and that he retaliated against two professors who cooperated in the investigation of that matter.
Documents described his court testimony last year when the university sought and won a workplace violence restraining order against Stachura as inconsistent with other statements about his relationship with the student.
There were “numerous important inconsistent or misleading statements by Dr. Stachura throughout the evidence,” according to a report.
“Given Dr. Stachura’s inconsistent answers, it is clear that Dr. Stachura is altering his statements regarding his relationship with (the student) to suit his needs at any given moment,” Scott Lynch, the university’s director of labor relations wrote in an Aug. 24, 2023, report.
A separate investigation found Stachura retaliated against two professors who cooperated in the sex investigation.
Title IX investigator Gloria Godinez wrote in a 45-page report dated Aug. 24, 2023, that a witness said Stachura said the two professors were “going against him,” that he referred to them as “f—— bitches,” said he “hated” them, and “often ranted about the investigation.”
The professors described Stachura as often glaring at them, blasting loud music they could hear through office walls, and going against their positions in meetings. Another witness told the investigator Stachura talked “about being a troll, an annoyance.”
“Stachura took every opportunity he could to discredit” the professors, Godinez wrote.
The settlement agreement between Stachura and Chico State also shows the university dropped a court claim that Stachura owed it more than $64,000 in legal fees for the defense of a biology lecturer that Stachura sued for libel last year. A judge threw out the suit last year and ruled that Stachura was responsible for legal fees. “The university will not enforce the judgment,” the settlement states.
The workplace violence restraining order that a Butte County Superior Court judge issued last year that bans Stachura from the university for three years will remain in place. Stachura has appealed the order to the state 3rd District Court of Appeal in Sacramento. No date for oral arguments has been set, according to court records. The parties agreed to abide by whatever decision the appeals court issues.
The university will also remove 5,466 pages of investigative and disciplinary documents from Stachura’s personnel files and will respond to any reference or employment-check requests by only providing his dates of employment, salary and job title.
“Chico State entered into this settlement agreement only after careful consideration and in consultation with the CSU,” a spokesman, Andrew Staples, wrote in an email Tuesday. “This settlement puts an immediate end to what has been a lengthy personnel matter and is the best path forward for the university and our campus community.”
The agreements also make it clear that Stachura will not teach in the 23-campus CSU system again. Stachura agreed “to never apply for or accept employment with any campuses of the California State University or their auxiliary organizations,” the document states. “If the university or its auxiliary organizations inadvertently offer Stachura a position, (or) Stachura breaches this agreement by accepting a position with the university or its auxiliary organizations Stachura shall be terminated.”
A high school student contemplates an assignment in math class.
Credit: Allison Shelley for American Education
California, along with many other states and nations, has experienced a dramatic increase of student interest in data and computer science careers. Along with the broader tech industry, these fields have been undergoing exponential growth in recent years that’s expected to continue as artificial intelligence (AI), computing platforms and their applications continue to reach every aspect of society.
It’s the responsibility of our state’s academic systems to educate future data-driven leaders in many areas — tech, finance, business, entertainment, biomedicine and health, climate and sustainability, engineering, law, social welfare, public policy, government and education itself, as well as in innovative approaches to the arts and humanities.
A report recently issued by a work group for the University of California’s Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools (BOARS) concluded that the three most popular high school data science courses being offered in the state do not “even come close to meeting the required standard to be a ‘more advanced’ course” and “are not appropriate as recommended 4th year mathematics courses.”
We applaud the faculty and staff, across the UC system, who helped develop this report and its recommendations. And we’re delighted by the quick response from the UC Office of the President this month, which shared the message with high school counselors and advisers, summarizing the report and explaining additional steps that UC is taking to implement the BOARS recommendations for the 2025-26 academic year.
This is a noteworthy example of the California educational system working well and listening to expert feedback in order to best serve its students. Hundreds of university professors in the state and beyond came out against the rapid adoption of high school data science classes that were being offered as a supposed substitute for advanced algebraic math, or Algebra II. While these introductory data science courses may whet high school students’ appetites, if they are taken at the exclusion of Algebra II, students will not be adequately prepared for science and technology majors in college. We must make sure that the prerequisites for admission to our colleges and universities adequately prepare students to pursue careers in these fields.
Other Perspectives on this topic
This could leave the impression that we don’t support data science — which is far from the truth! We believe that data science is an important discipline to study and a career path for making important contributions in our communities and world. Data science can be a route to increased data literacy, enabling students to distinguish between real information and misinformation and the skills to pursue data-driven approaches to whatever their passions and wherever their careers may lead.
We know from years of study and practice that learning math is cumulative. In order for California students to be adequately prepared for the science and technology majors they may choose to pursue in college — including data and computer science — the advanced math curriculum in high school is essential. While data science and statistics courses have been rapidly added to high school options and are welcome additions, these courses cannot replace the foundational math content found in Algebra II. We also acknowledge, and encourage, innovative curricula aiming to teach Algebra II via the context of data science, as such courses could be appropriate.
We applaud UC and California decision-makers for their recognition that Algebra II is necessary student preparation for the successful completion of college degrees that require a strong grounding in math, including data and computer science. We welcome opportunities to continue this conversation and promote successful outcomes by ensuring students obtain the math knowledge and skills to pursue careers in science and technology.
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Jennifer Chayes is dean of the UC Berkeley College of Computing, Data Science, and Society, and professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences, information, mathematics and statistics.
Jelani Nelson is a professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences at UC Berkeley.
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.
CSU’s Young Males of Color conference in October 2023.
Credit: CSU Dominguez Hills
Last year, Cal State campuses received some sobering details about the growing gaps in graduation rates between students of color and their white counterparts. Instead of decreasing, the graduation equity gaps between Black, Latino and Native or Indigenous students have been increasing.
But some campuses are targeting new dollars and deploying new strategies to specifically target students of color that will help increase graduation, persistence and retention.
CSU’s Young Males of Color Consortium, which is housed at Cal State Dominguez Hills, received $3.2 million from a group of organizations including Ballmer Group, College Futures Foundation, ECMC Foundation and Ichigo Foundation to create new programs that support men of color on Cal State campuses. Sixteen CSU campuses and their neighboring community colleges will deploy those programs with the goal of improving rates of transfer, retention and graduation for up to 800 students. The partnered universities and colleges will start working with up to 40 young men each to pilot the new strategies.
The consortium, which started in 2017, has the goal of working across campuses to share information and data, and find solutions to help CSU’s Black and brown men.
The main challenge the consortium realized it needed to tackle was “institutional complacency” because many campuses failed to have the right data on students of color, or limited their investment in improving their academic performance, said William Franklin, vice president of student affairs for the Dominguez Hills campus.
Last year, during CSU’s Graduation Initiative 2025 event, new data revealed the graduation gap between Black, Latino and Native American students and their peers increased by 1 point to a 13% difference. The 2023 six-year graduation rate for Black students, for example, is at 47% but 62% for all students.
The rates on the Dominguez Hills campus, for example, are lower for Black and Latino men. The six-year rate for Black men is 36.4% and 38.9% for Latino men on the campus. Data for Native American and Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander students was not available.
“We need to hire full-time folks and we need to really give them training,” Franklin said. “We need to begin to connect with our institutional research office and understand our data better. It doesn’t necessarily mean we need more money, but we do need to spend the money that we have differently in order to ensure that those male of color programs get the kind of support they need.”
With the new funding, the campuses will work together to assess and evaluate instructors and staff, while also providing professional development opportunities. The campuses would also work with their community college partners to better assist them in transferring more Black and brown students to the universities.
Members of the consortium have already visited other universities outside of California that have seen success in improving graduation rates for Black and Latino students such as Georgia State University, Urban Prep Academies in Chicago and the University of Texas at Austin, Franklin said.
And while they’re unsure which strategies will work best for Cal State students, figuring it out is part of the funding.
“Our funders have also given us an opportunity to take the funding they’ve given us to provide it as seed money for campuses to put some innovative programs and strategies in place,” Franklin said. “Fail fast or succeed fast, and learn what they need to do in order to scale those things that work.”
Black Honors College
Sacramento State is also trying something new to help not only the Black students on its campuses but across the system.
This fall, the university will debut the country’s first Black Honors College. Sac State has one of the CSU’s largest populations of Black students, and low graduation rates. The six-year rate for all Black students is about 45%.
“We’re the No. 1 institution serving Black students and we’re in the bottom third when it comes to graduation rates,” Sac State President Luke Wood said. “Our 75-year history has shown that what we’re doing is not working. I don’t just speak about that from the perspective of being president here, but I was a student here at Sac State. I got my bachelor’s degree here. I got my master’s degree here, and many of the people who are my contemporaries never graduated because the institution is not designed to support Black students.”
Sac State officials also looked outside of California for solutions, particularly at historically Black colleges and universities where graduation rates are much higher.
“We’re creating an institution within the institution so students have a standalone experience with their own curriculum, their own faculty, their staff, their space,” Wood said.
The college would be open to students of all majors, but the first two years of curriculum would have an African-American focus. For example, political science or statistics classes would have a unique focus on Black politics, issues and community.
Wood said the idea is built on research that shows creating a “family-like environment” and offering a curriculum relevant to students’ lives and experiences improves their academic success.
The new college will have 6,000-square feet of dedicated space with its own faculty, dean, counselors, academic advisers, support staff and outreach. But the ultimate goal is to see more Black Honors Colleges appear statewide and nationally, despite the conservative attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion happening in other states.
But Wood anticipates more Black Honors Colleges appearing on community college campuses, some of which have already contacted Sac State for guidance or information, with the potential to establish a transfer relationship with the university.
“We’re going to grow this Honors College pretty extensively,” he said. “Our goal right now is 500 or 600, but when we can get more resources, our goal is to get to a thousand students.”
NOTE: EdSource receives funding from several foundations, including the College Futures Foundation and ECMC Foundation. EdSource maintains sole editorial control over the content of its coverage.
Steve Perez chats with a representative at the Northern Virginia Community College Office of Wellness and Mental Health resource table during the ADVANCE program welcome event at George Mason University on Jan. 31.
Credit: Taneen Momeni / EdSource
Steve Perez faced a daunting challenge as he considered where to attend college.
The first in his family to pursue a higher education, Perez was “basically all on my own.” Rejected from his top choice, Virginia Tech, he was considering community college near his hometown of Falls Church, Virginia. But he worried whether he would be able to successfully transfer to a four-year university, knowing it would be up to him to take the right courses and successfully apply for admission.
“No one in my family really knows anything about college,” he said. “That was really tough.”
Students start at the community college but are immediately accepted to George Mason before even taking their first community college class. The colleges also provide students up front with the full list of courses they need to earn their bachelor’s degree, a task that in other states is often left to students.
Northern Virginia Community College serves about 70,000 students across its six campuses in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., more than any other community college in the state. Likewise, George Mason is the largest public research university in Virginia with about 40,000 students, most of them commuters. Their main campuses separated by just 5 miles, Northern Virginia historically has sent more students to George Mason than any other community college.
A statue of George Mason on the George Mason University campus in Fairfax. Credit: Taneen Momeni / EdSource
Officials say the ADVANCE program perfected that transfer partnership. Since launching in 2018, just over 1,500 students in the program have successfully transferred to Mason, including 415 this past fall. More than 90% of students in the program graduate within two years of transferring to Mason.
The program stands out nationally, even earning kudos from the federal Department of Education for solving a widespread problem of a cumbersome transfer process that stymies students in community college.
In California, most community college students who want to get a bachelor’s degree never transfer. Without adequate support, they often struggle to keep track of courses, ending up with too many credits but lacking required classes. One study found that as few as 2.5% of students intending to transfer do so within two years, and only 23% do so within four years.
The Virginia program could serve as a model for California colleges. The state is in the early stages of adopting its own dual admission programs at both of its public university systems, the University of California and California State University. CSU’s program, open to far more students than UC’s, is especially exciting to college access advocates.
Both programs launched this past fall, and officials are hopeful it will make transferring easier for students.
Taking away the guesswork
In Virginia, the idea of ADVANCE is to “take away the guesswork for students,” said Jen Nelson, the community college’s director of university transfer and initiatives.
Upon enrolling, students receive a link to a portal where they select one of 85 academic pathways, such as business, computer science or psychology. Based on their pathway, the portal then shows them all the classes they need to take to transfer and eventually earn a bachelor’s degree.
“It provides that guarantee that if students take these classes, they’re going to transfer,” Nelson said. “It takes away that concern of, am I taking the right thing? Am I spending my time and money in the right way?”
As long as they maintain at least a minimum grade point average — usually a 2.5 — students are automatically admitted to Mason. They don’t even need to fill out an application.
Along the way, students can meet with counselors who are hired specifically for the ADVANCE program. They also have full access to all the resources offered at Mason, including clubs, libraries and even health care.
In Perez’s case, he chose a computer science pathway and this semester started his lower-division classes, which include general education, math and introductory computer science classes. He’s on track to transfer to George Mason within two years.
At a recent resource fair for new students hosted on the Mason campus, Perez walked from table to table, learning about the resources offered by Mason, including club sports, mental health services and tutoring. He can participate in all of it now that he’s in the program.
Steve Perez grabs a informational card at the Northern Virginia Community College Office of Wellness and Mental Health resource table during the ADVANCE program welcome event at George Mason University on Jan. 31. Credit: Taneen Momeni / EdSource
“I’m really happy I chose this pathway because it gives me a great opportunity,” he said. “And it takes away the stress.”
Not long before ADVANCE launched in 2018, Janette Muir remembers sitting in on an advising session at Northern Virginia for her son, who had recently graduated from high school.
Muir, a professor and George Mason’s associate provost for academic initiatives at the time, was shocked to learn how confusing the transfer process was.
Students received little guidance, and many were taking unnecessary courses.
“I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s so confusing for even a student who has professors as his parents,’” she said.
Her son and other students, Muir said, needed more help. Muir started working with the presidents of both institutions to develop ADVANCE.
Janette Muir addresses ADVANCE students and their friends and family during the welcome event at George Mason University in January. Credit: Taneen Momeni / EdSource
That year, the two colleges launched the program with 21 pathways. It has since grown to 85 pathways, and more than 4,500 students have enrolled since the program’s inception.
Any student can enroll so long as they have not completed more than 30 college credits, and students who do enroll tend to stick around. Among the students in the cohort that entered in fall 2021, 87% returned the following year, far better than the national average retention rate of 61%.
When they transfer to Mason, ADVANCE students on average graduate two semesters faster than non-ADVANCE transfer students. In fact, 92% of them graduate within two years of transferring. Students also finish an associate degree upon transferring, which officials say is important to ensure they have the necessary preparation in their major.
Muir, who now oversees ADVANCE in her role as Mason’s vice provost for academic affairs, said officials have started to expect students to finish the entire program in four years rather than six.
“When you come into this program and you follow the pathways, you do better and you finish sooner,” Muir told new students gathered at a welcome event in January.
For Jaden Todd, a second-year community college student in the program, having access to the pathways portal has been especially helpful.
When Todd first started college, learning certain classes would transfer to some universities but not others was a “big shocker.” He took a Western history class only to learn that it wouldn’t be accepted at another college he was considering,Virginia Commonwealth University, which required a world history course.
“There’s stuff like that where I spent several hundred dollars on a class just to be informed that I would have to retake a class in a similar area,” he said.
When it comes to the courses he needs to transfer to and ultimately graduate from Mason, however, there are no surprises.
If students do have questions, they have access to counselors who have been hired specifically for the ADVANCE program.
Emma Howard, a sophomore who will transfer to Mason this fall, consulted her adviser after learning that one of her courses, which she thought qualified as an elective, wasn’t going to be transferable.
The adviser called the transfer center at Mason and successfully convinced them to count the course, an acting for the camera class.
“They really try to make your time here easier,” Howard said. “They bring a lot of ease and just faith in the matriculation process.”
Eliminating the ‘transfer shock’
When Maria Fruchterman transferred this past fall to Mason, she already had a close circle of friends. That’s because, while she was taking her lower-division community college classes, she was also playing club field hockey at Mason. It was a perk afforded to her because she was in the ADVANCE program.
“It’s been really good for my transition,” Fruchterman said. “I just felt at ease and very comfortable.”
Maria Fruchterman answers questions about the ADVANCE program during a welcome event at George Mason University in Virginia.Credit: Taneen Momeni / EdSource
The motivation to give Northern Virginia students access to the Mason campus was two-fold, Nelson said. For one, as a community college, Northern Virginia doesn’t offer all the same benefits and resources available at Mason and other four-year institutions, like health insurance and mental health counseling.
Officials also wanted to eliminate the “transfer shock” that transfer students often deal with upon arriving at the four-year university, Nelson said. “They’re going to a new environment. Everything is different,” she added.
By giving students access to those resources up front, it allows them to “hit the ground running,” Nelson said.
That’s what Perez is planning for himself. While visiting Mason’s main Fairfax campus for the welcome event, he felt a different buzz than what he was accustomed to at Northern Virginia’s main campus in nearby Annandale.
“I noticed that there’s so many more people around,” he said. “Especially in Annandale, it seems like everyone leaves campus by 3 p.m.”
As he learned about the different clubs offered at Mason, Perez said he planned to join several: a computer science club, a chess club, maybe even an intramural badminton team.
Can California replicate?
Whether California’s dual admission programs will significantly improve transfer won’t be known for some time. Both programs are in their infancy, just launched last fall.
Between the two, CSU may have a better chance at success, with a far more robust program than what UC offers. About 2,000 students enrolled in CSU’s first cohort, compared to just 182 for UC.
CSU’s program is open to essentially any first-time college freshman entering a California community college. Students can enroll by creating an account on the CSU Transfer Planner portal and selecting from one of the degree programs across CSU’s 23 campuses. Eligible students are guaranteed admission.
UC’s program is limited only to students who applied to UC but weren’t eligible because they didn’t complete their A-G course requirements in high school. That was the minimum required by a state law passed in 2021 creating the dual admission programs.
The law, designed to give students a second chance at attending UC or CSU, asks UC and requires CSU to offer dual admission to students who didn’t “meet freshman admissions eligibility criteria due to limitations in the high school curriculum offered or personal or financial hardship.” CSU’s program goes beyond what’s required by law by offering dual admission to just about any student who was rejected or simply chose not to attend CSU.
UC may be less incentivized to admit students because several campuses have capacity issues and turn away many qualified applicants each year. UC’s program is limited to only six of its nine undergraduate campuses, with its three most exclusive campuses — Berkeley, Los Angeles and San Diego — not included.
CSU’s dual admission program is available at every campus, though select programs with capacity issues are excluded, such as some engineering programs at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.
CSU officials hope the dual admission program will eliminate a problem with the current system: local campuses and their staff aren’t familiar with prospective transfer students until they apply.
“We want this to be an opportunity for us to connect with them way earlier in the process and support them,” said April Grommo, CSU’s assistant vice chancellor of enrollment management.
Similar to the Virginia program, students on CSU’s dual admission pathway get access to an online transfer planner showing them all the classes they need upfront.
Hans Johnson, a senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California’s higher education center, is hopeful it will make a meaningful difference. In an August 2023 PPIC report, Johnson and other researchers identified dual admission as a “promising approach” to help solve California’s transfer dilemma.
“A lot of the challenge for community college students when they start is knowing what is required to get into UC and CSU,” he said. “By front loading all of that information, we think students would face fewer obstacles and be more efficient.”
In addition, CSU’s dual admission program gives community collegestudents access to programs and services available at the campus closest to their residence, like the ADVANCE program does. One CSU campus, Long Beach, for years has already been offering something similar. As part of the “Long Beach Promise 2.0,” launched in 2018, students at nearby Long Beach City College have the option to receive a “future student” ID card for CSU Long Beach and can access the campus library, athletic events, clubs and more.
“A lot of research in higher education focused on why students complete or why they don’t complete has included this notion of belonging, feeling a part of the campus,” Johnson said. “And I think the more that you can do for community college students can only help that sense of belonging so that when you eventually do transfer, you feel like it’s your school.”
In Virginia, staff at George Mason and the community college are often asked how other colleges can replicate their success.
Jennifer Nelson addresses ADVANCE students and their friends and family during the welcome event at George Mason University.Credit: Taneen Momeni / EdSource
Officials at those colleges point out that the two institutions have several factors working in their favor. The partnership is natural given the geographic proximity and historical relationship between the colleges. There are a number of faculty who have taught at both colleges. The colleges’ presidents work closely and actually spend time with each other, like meeting up for an occasional breakfast.
“How do you do this work? I can tell you it’s not easy. If it was easy, lots of people would be doing it,” Muir said. “It takes a lot of relationship-building, a lot of connection and recognizing the value of a community college education.”
It was the height of distance learning when 16-year-old Aaron Butler took Compton Unified’s first step into data science education by joining the Young Data Scientists League. The next year, 2021, the young African American varsity basketball captain enrolled in Compton’s first high school data science course, thanks to a 2020 decision by UC’s admissions committee allowing such courses to qualify for students’ third or fourth year of high school math. Now a business economics major at UCLA, Aaron said that “before I was closed off to math, but data science made me way more interested in mathematics.”
Because of UC’s decision to count data science toward the math requirement for college admissions, Compton’s Dominguez High counselors recommended that students like Aaron enroll in data science without fear of them losing their competitive edge on university admissions. Ensuring college access is paramount for our student population, who are predominantly Hispanic, Black and Pacific-Islander and 94% of whom are socio-economically disadvantaged. Data science, with its hands-on, real-world applications, is exactly the right gateway for both math-averse and math-inclined students alike to engage with rich mathematics and take the UC-recommended four years of math coursework.
Now UC has retracted that decision, making it much less likely that counselors will recommend data science to our students. Consequently, we’re likely to see a decline in enrollment and retention during the four years of high school mathematics among students of color.
Data Science at Dominguez High School is the only course in Compton Unified that allows students to receive regular in-classroom instruction in relevant topics such as predictive mathematical modeling, machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), sensitivity analysis, and programming, which all rely on math concepts taught and reinforced in the data science classroom. This is in addition to a number of other high-level concepts in quantitative reasoning and analysis, such as linear algebra, 3D vector space, conditional probability and more.
As the teacher of Compton’s Data Science course, in partnership with Stanford’s Youcubed, I (Jason) end up teaching content from a range of advanced math standards because, though my students are passing courses like Integrated Math 3, Precalculus and even Calculus, they are not fully grasping the material there. Students report having the opportunity to finally make sense of their traditional math courses by applying concepts as a part of the data science experience. Once they learn to think about math in context, they possess a skill that enables them to learn subsequent math content better.
Another PERSPECTIVE ON THIS TOPIC
This is a defining moment for mathematics education in California. Neural network models, the driving force behind AI tools such as ChatGPT, are one of the hottest subjects in applied mathematics research. By adopting data science in 2020, UC took a proactive step toward reframing mathematics as a relevant discipline that could equip 21st century learners with scientifically valid tools to engage in the rapidly changing information landscape. At the same time, UC recognized alternate pathways to quantitative reasoning courses in college without precluding students from science, tech, engineering and math (STEM) majors. The reversal of that decision will push math back to a position of irrelevance in the eyes of most students, especially those traditionally marginalized in STEM.
Moreover, not allowing data science courses to count for admission doesn’t only sacrifice a hook for attracting students to STEM fields. It also denies students who are not interested in STEM the opportunity to code, exacerbating the digital divide and, consequently, the wealth gap. As UC’s Office of the President wrote after the Berkeley campus created a college of computing, data science and society, “Every undergraduate in any area of study will increasingly need exposure to data science during their time on campus.”
Why should students wait until college to delve into these rich waters of mathematical study?
Narrowing the scope of acceptable mathematics perpetuates exclusivity rather than fostering inclusivity and belief in all learners’ potential. For many Dominguez High students we’ve spoken with who are either enrolled or have graduated from the UC system, success and persistence in STEM, including data science, correlated to growth mindsets, cultural competence, positive identities and supportive communities and structures.
As technology evolves, so must we reevaluate definitions, policies and support systems that address gaps in math achievement, engagement and retention. This comprehensive reassessment requires input from diverse stakeholders, fostering collective understanding and alignment toward common goals. We must put in place a review process that engages school districts, education leaders, classroom educators, faculty from the California State University, and families who can offer crucial insights on the impact of key decisions affecting our most vulnerable populations. This process must be data-driven. It is argued that allowing data science to validate Algebra 2 adversely impacted preparation for STEM degrees for students of color. Where is the data supporting this assertion? On the contrary, we have decades of data that demonstrate that the traditional Algebra 2 pathway disproportionately fails to get students of color college-ready, and falls short of promises to boost post-secondary STEM engagement.
We have seen the power of data science to increase college readiness and STEM engagement for all, particularly underrepresented students of color. As Aaron told us, “Data science was very hands-on because we were applying the math we learned. It made me like the course even more.” Every student like Aaron should have exposure to data science that opens mathematics to them as a highly relevant 21st century discipline where they know they belong.
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Jason Lee Morgan, an 18-year math teacher at Dominguez High School in Compton, instructs the Stanford YouCubed’s data science course.
June 8, 2025, by Dean Hoke: Intercollegiate athletics occupy a powerful and unique place in American higher education—something unmatched in any other country. From the massive media contracts of Division I football to the community pride surrounding NAIA and NJCAA basketball, college sports are a defining feature of the American academic landscape. Unlike most nations, where elite athletic development happens in clubs or academies, the U.S. integrates competitive sports directly into its college campuses.
This model is more than tradition; it’s an engine of opportunity. For many high school students—especially those from underserved backgrounds—the chance to play college sports shapes where they apply, enroll, and succeed. According to the NCAA, 35% of high school athletes say the ability to participate in athletics is a key factor in their college decision [1]. It’s not just about scholarships; it’s about identity, community, and believing their talents matter.
At smaller colleges and two-year institutions, athletics often serves as a key enrollment driver and differentiator in a crowded marketplace. International students, too, are drawn to the American system for its academic-athletic fusion, contributing tuition revenue and global prestige. Undermining this model through sweeping changes to federal financial aid, without considering the downstream effects, risks more than athletic participation. It threatens a distinctively American approach to education, access, and aspiration.
A New Threshold with Big Impacts
Currently, students taking 12 credit hours per semester are considered full-time and eligible for the maximum Pell Grant, which stands at $7,395 for 2024-25 [2]. The proposed House budget raises this threshold to 15 credit hours per semester. For student-athletes, whose schedules are already packed with training, competition, and travel, this shift could be devastating.
NCAA academic standards require student-athletes to maintain full-time enrollment (typically 12 hours) and make satisfactory academic progress [3]. Adding another three credit hours per term may force many to choose between academic integrity, athletic eligibility, and physical well-being. In sports like basketball, where teams frequently travel for games, or in demanding STEM majors, completing 15 credit hours consistently can be a formidable challenge.
Financial Impact on Student-Athletes
Key Proposed Changes Affecting Student-Athletes:
Pell Grant Reductions: The proposed budget aims to cut the maximum Pell Grant by $1,685, reducing it to $5,710 for the 2026–27 academic year. Additionally, eligibility criteria would become more stringent, requiring students to enroll in at least 15 credit hours per semester to qualify for full-time awards. These changes could result in approximately 700,000 students losing Pell Grant eligibility [4].
Elimination of Subsidized Loans: The budget proposes eliminating subsidized federal student loans, which currently do not accrue interest while a student is in school. This change would force students to rely more on unsubsidized loans or private lending options, potentially increasing their debt burden [5].
Cuts to Work-Study and SEOG Programs: The Federal Work-Study program and Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants (SEOG) are slated for significant reductions or elimination. These programs provide essential financial support to low-income students, and their removal could affect over 1.6 million students [6].
Institutional Risk-Sharing: A new provision would require colleges to repay a portion of defaulted student loans, introducing a financial penalty for institutions with high default rates. This could strain budgets, especially at smaller colleges with limited resources [7].
Figure 1: Total student-athletes by national athletic organization (NCAA, NAIA, NJCAA).
While Figure 1 highlights the total number of student-athletes in each organization, Figure 2 illustrates how deeply athletics is embedded in different types of institutions. NAIA colleges have the highest ratio, with student-athletes comprising 39% of undergraduate enrollment. Division III institutions follow at approximately 8.42%, and the NJCAA—serving mostly commuter and low-income students—relies on athletics for 8.58% of its total student base [8].
Even Division I, with its large student populations, includes a meaningful share (2.49%) of student-athletes. These proportions underscore how vital athletics are to institutional identity, especially in small colleges and two-year schools where athletes often make up a significant portion of campus life, retention strategy, and tuition revenue.
Figure 2: Percentage of student-athletes among total undergraduate enrollment by organization (NCAA Divisions I–III, NAIA, NJCAA).
The Pell Grant Profile: Who’s Affected
Pell Grants support students with the greatest financial need. According to a 2018 report, approximately 31.3% of Division I scholarship athletes receive Pell Grants. At individual institutions like Ohio State, the share is even higher: 47% of football players and over 50% of women’s basketball players. In the broader NCAA system, over 48% of athletes received some form of federal need-based aid in recent years [9].
There are approximately 665,000 student-athletes attending college. The NCAA reports that more than 520,000 student-athletes currently participate in championship-level intercollegiate athletics across Divisions I, II, and III [10]. The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) oversees approximately 83,000 student-athletes [11], while the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) supports around 60,000 student-athletes at two-year colleges [12].
The NAIA and NJCAA systems, which serve many first-generation, low-income, and minority students, also have a high reliance on Pell Grant support. However, exact figures are less widely published.
The proposed redefinition of “full-time” means many of these students could lose up to $1,479 per year in aid, based on projections from policy experts [13]. For low-income students, this gap often determines whether they can afford to continue their education.
Fewer Credits, Fewer Dollars: Academic and Athletic Risks
Another major concern is how aid calculations based on “completed” credit hours will penalize students who drop a class mid-semester or fail a course. Even if a student-athlete enrolls in 15 credits, failing or withdrawing from a single 3-credit course could drop their award amount [14]. This adds pressure to persist in academically unsuitable courses, potentially hurting long-term academic outcomes.
Athletic departments, already burdened by compliance and recruitment pressures, may face added strain. Advisors will need to help students navigate increasingly complex eligibility and aid requirements, shifting focus from performance and development to credit-hour management.
Disproportionate Effects on Small Colleges and Non-Revenue Sports
The brunt of these changes will fall hardest on small, tuition-dependent institutions in the NCAA Division II, Division III, NAIA, and NJCAA. These colleges often use intercollegiate athletics as a strategic enrollment tool. At some NAIA schools, student-athletes comprise 40% to 60% of the undergraduate population [8].
Unlike large Division I schools that benefit from lucrative media contracts and booster networks, these institutions rely on a patchwork of tuition, modest athletic scholarships, and federal aid to keep programs running. A reduction in Pell eligibility could drive enrollment declines, lead to cuts in athletic offerings, and even force some colleges to close sports programs or entire campuses.
Already, schools like San Francisco State University, Cleveland State, and Mississippi College have recently announced program eliminations, citing budgetary constraints [15]. NJCAA institutions—the two-year colleges serving over 85,000 student-athletes—also face a precarious future under this proposed budget.
Economic Importance by Division
Division I: Athletics departments generated nearly $17.5 billion in total revenue in 2022, with $11.2 billion self-generated and $6.3 billion subsidized by institutional/government support or student fees [16]. Many Power Five schools are financially resilient, with revenue from TV contracts, merchandise, and ticket sales.
Division II: Median revenue for schools with football was around $6.9 million, but generated athletic revenue averaged only $528,000, leading to significant deficits subsidized by institutional funds [17].
Division III: Division III schools operate on leaner budgets, with no athletic scholarships and total athletics budgets often under $3 million per school. These programs are typically funded like other academic departments [18].
NAIA and NJCAA: These schools rely heavily on student-athlete enrollment to sustain their institutions. Athletics are not profit centers but recruitment and retention tools. Without Pell Grants, many of these athletes cannot afford to enroll [11][12].
Figure 3: Estimated number of NAIA, Division III, and NJCAA programs by state.
Unintended Tradeoffs: Equity and Resource Redistribution
Attempting to offset lost federal aid by reallocating institutional grants could result in aid being shifted away from non-athletes. This risks eroding equity goals, as well as provoking internal tension on campuses where athletes are perceived to receive preferential treatment.
Without new revenue sources, institutions may also raise tuition or increase tuition discounting, potentially compromising their financial stability. In essence, colleges may be forced to choose who gets to stay in school.
The High-Stakes Gamble for Student-Athletes
Figure 4: Estimated impact of Pell Grant changes on student-athletes, including projected dropouts and loan default rates.
For many student-athletes, especially those from low-income backgrounds, the Pell Grant is not just helpful—it’s essential. It makes the dream of attending college, competing in athletics, and earning a degree financially feasible. If the proposed changes to Pell eligibility become law, an estimated 50,000 student-athletes could be forced to drop out, unable to meet the new credit-hour requirements or fill the funding gap [19]. Those who remain may have no choice but to take on additional loans, risking long-term debt for a degree they may never complete. The reality is sobering: Pell recipients already face long-term student loan default rates as high as 27%, and for those who drop out, that figure climbs above 40% [20]. Stripping away vital support will almost certainly drive those numbers higher. The consequences won’t stop with individual students. Colleges—particularly smaller, tuition-dependent institutions where athletes make up a significant share of enrollment—stand to lose not just revenue, but the very programs and communities that give purpose to their campuses.
Colleges, athletic associations, policymakers, and communities must work together to safeguard opportunity. Student-athletes should never be forced to choose between academic success and financial survival. Preserving access to both education and athletics isn’t just about individual futures—it’s about upholding a uniquely American pathway to achievement and equity.
Dean Hoke is Managing Partner of Edu Alliance Group, a higher education consultancy. He formerly served as President/CEO of the American Association of University Administrators (AAUA). With decades of experience in higher education leadership, consulting, and institutional strategy, he brings a wealth of knowledge on small colleges’ challenges and opportunities. Dean is the Executive Producer and co-host for the podcast series Small College America.
Congressional Budget Office. (2025). Reconciliation Recommendations of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. Retrieved from https://www.cbo.gov/publication/61412
NJCAA, NAIA, and NCAA. (2023). Student-Athlete Participation Reports.
Teacher apprentice Ja’net Williams helps with a math lesson in a first grade class at Delta Elementary Charter School in Clarksburg, near Sacramento.
Credit: Diana Lambert / EdSource
Top Takeaways
California leaders dismiss the criticism and methodology of the rankings.
And yet, graduate credentialing programs cram a lot in a year.
Many teachers may struggle with the demands of California’s new math framework.
In its “State of the States” report on math instruction published last week, the National Council on Teacher Quality sharply criticized California and many of its teacher certification programs for ineffectively preparing new elementary teachers to teach math and for failing to support and guide them once they reach the classroom.
“Far too many elementary teacher prep programs fail to dedicate enough instructional time to building aspiring teachers’ math knowledge — leaving teachers unprepared and students underserved,” the council said in its evaluation of California’s 87 programs that prepare elementary school teachers. “The analysis shows California programs perform among the lowest in the country.”
The report’s call for more teacher math training and ongoing support coincides with the state’s adoption this summer of materials and textbooks for a new math framework that math professionals universally agree will be a heavy lift for incoming and veteran teachers to master. It will challenge elementary teachers with a poor grasp of the underpinnings behind the math they’ll be teaching.
Kyndall Brown, executive director of the California Mathematics Project based at UCLA, agrees. “It’s not just about knowing the content, it’s about helping students learn the content, which are two completely different things,” he said.
And that raises a question: Does a one-year-plus-summer graduate program, which most prospective teachers take, cram too much in a short time to realistically meet the needs to teach elementary school math?
California joined two dozen states whose math preparation programs were rated as “weak.” Only one state got a “strong” rating.Source: National Council on Teacher Quality, 2025 State of the States report
Failing grades
The council graded every teacher prep program nationwide from A to F, based on how many instructional hours they required prospective teachers to take in major content areas of math and in instructional methods and strategies.
Three out of four California programs got an F, with some programs — California State University, Sacramento, and California State University, Monterey Bay — requiring no instructional hours for algebraic thinking, geometry, and probability, and many offering one-quarter of the 135 instructional hours needed for an A.
But there was a dichotomy: All the Fs were given to one-year graduate school programs offering a multi-subject credential to teach elementary school, historically the way most new teachers in California get their teaching credential.
On the other hand, many of the colleges and universities offering a teaching credential and a bachelor’s degree through an Integrated Undergraduate Teacher Credentialing Program got an A, because they included enough time to go into math instruction and content in more depth. For example, California State University, Long Beach’s 226 instructional hours, apportioned through all of the content areas and methods courses, earned an A-plus.
The California State University rejects the recent grading from the National Council on Teacher Quality about our high-quality teacher training programs
California State University
Most of the universities that offer both undergraduate and graduate programs — California State University, Bakersfield; San Jose State University; California State University, Chico; California State University, Northridge, to name a few — had the same split: A for their undergraduate programs, F for their graduate credentialing programs.
Most California teacher preparation programs have received bad grades in the dozen years that the council has issued evaluations. The state’s higher education institutions, in turn, have defended their programs and denounced the council for basing the quality of a program on analyses of program websites and syllabi.
California State University, whose campuses train the majority of teachers, and the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, which accredits and oversees teacher prep programs, issued similar denunciations last week.
“The California State University rejects the recent grading from the National Council on Teacher Quality about our high-quality teacher training programs,” the CSU wrote in a statement. The council “relies on a narrow and flawed methodology, heavily dependent on document reviews, rather than on dialogue with program faculty, students and employers or a systematic review of meaningful program outcomes.”
The credentialing commission, in a more diplomatic response, agreed. The report “reflects a methodology that differs from California’s approach to educator preparation,” it said. “While informative, it does not fully capture the structure of California’s clinically rich, performance-based system.”
Heather Peske, president of the National Council on Teacher Quality for the past three years, dismissed the criticism as “a really weak critique.”
“You can look at a syllabus and see what’s being taught in that class much in the same way that if you go to a restaurant and look at the menu to see what’s being served,” she said. “Our reviews are certainly a very solid starting place to know to what extent teacher preparation programs are well preparing future teachers to be effective in teaching.”
It’s not just a problem in California.
“When we compare the mathematics instructional hours between the undergrad and the graduate programs, often on the same campus, we saw on average that undergrads get 133 hours compared to just 52 hours at the graduate level. In both cases, it is not meeting the recommended and research-based 150 hours,” Peske said.
Part of the problem is that graduate programs usually don’t have enough time to instill future teachers with the content knowledge that they need.
Heather Peske
Whether or not examining website data is a good methodology, the disparities in hours devoted to math preparation between undergraduate and graduate programs raise an important issue.
True jacks of all trades, elementary teachers must become proficient in many content areas — social studies, English language arts, English language development for English learners, and science, as well as math. Add to that proficiency in emerging technologies, classroom management, skills for teaching students with disabilities, and student mental health: How can they adequately cover math, especially?
“Part of the problem is that graduate programs usually don’t have enough time to instill future teachers with the content knowledge that they need,” Peske said. “California programs have to reckon with this idea that they’re sending a bunch of teachers into classrooms who have not demonstrated that they are ready to teach kids math.”
Brown said, “There’s no way that in a one-year credential program that they’re going to get the math that they need to be able to teach the content that they’re responsible for teaching.”
That was Anthony Caston’s experience. Before starting his career as a sixth-grade teacher at Foulks Ranch Elementary School in Elk Grove three years ago, Caston took courses for his credential in graduate programs at Sacramento State and the University of the Pacific. There wasn’t enough time to learn all he needed to teach the subject, he said. A few classes were useful, but didn’t get much beyond the third- or fourth-grade curriculum, he said.
“I had to take myself back to school, reteach myself everything, and then come up with some teaching strategies,” Caston said.
Fortunately for him, veteran teachers at his school helped him learn more about Common Core math and how to teach it.
The math content Brown refers togoes beyond knowing how to invert fractions or calculate the area of a triangle; it involves a conceptual understanding of essential math topics, Peske said. Only a deeper conceptual grasp will enable teachers to diagnose and explain students’ errors and misunderstandings, Peske said, and to overcome the math phobia that surveys show many teachers have.
Ma Bernadette Salgarino, the president of the California Mathematics Council and a math trainer in the Santa Clara County Office of Education, acknowledges that many math teachers have not been taught the concepts behind the progression of the state’s math standards. “It is not clear to them,” she said. “They’re still teaching to a regurgitation of procedures, copy and paste. These are the steps, and this is what you will do.”
Although a longtime critic of the council, Linda Darling-Hammond, who chaired California’s credentialing commission before becoming the current president of the State Board of Education, acknowledges that the report raises a legitimate issue.
“Time is an important question,” she said. “It is true that having more time well spent — the ‘well spent’ matters — could make a difference for lots of people in learning lots of subjects, including math.”
Darling-Hammond faults the study, however, for not factoring in California’s broader approach to teacher preparation, including requiring that teaching candidates pass a performance assessment in math and underwriting teacher residency programs, in which teachers work side by side with an effective teacher for a full year while taking courses in a graduate program.
“You could end up becoming a pretty spectacular math teacher in a shorter amount of time than if you’re just studying things in an undergraduate program disconnected from student teaching,” she said.
Weak state policies
The report also grades every state’s policies on math instruction, from preparing teachers to coaching them after they’re in the classroom. California and two dozen states are rated “weak,” ahead of seven “unacceptable” states (Montana, Arizona, Nebraska, Missouri, Alaska, Vermont and Maine) while behind 17 “moderate” states, including Texas and Florida, and a sole “strong” state, Alabama.
The council bases the rating on the implementation of five policy “levers” to ensure “rigorous standards-aligned math instruction.” However, California’s actions are more nuanced than perhaps its “unacceptable” ratings on three and “strong” ratings on two would indicate.
For example, the council dinged the state for not requiring that all teachers in a prep program pass a math licensure test. California does require elementary credential candidates to pass the California Subject Examinations for Teachers, or CSET, a basic skills test, before they can teach students. But the math portion is combined with science, and students can avoid the test by supplying proof they have taken undergraduate math courses.
At the same time, many superintendents and math teachers may be doing a double-take for a “strong” rating for providing professional learning and ongoing support for teachers to sustain effective math instruction.
Going back to the adoption of the Common Core, the state has not funded statewide teacher training in math standards. In the past five years, the state has spent $500 million to train literacy coaches in the state’s poorest schools, but nothing of that magnitude for math coaches.
The Legislature approved $20 million for the California Mathematics Project for training in the new math framework, which was passed in 2023, and $50 million in 2022-23 for instruction in grades fourth to 12th in science, math and computer science training to train coaches and teacher leaders — amounts that would be impressive for smaller states, but not to fund training most math teachers in California. (You can find a listing of organizations offering training and resources on the math framework here.)
In keeping with local control, Gov. Gavin Newsom has appropriated more than $10 billion in education block grants, including the Student Support and Professional Development Discretionary Block Grant,and the Learning Recovery Emergency Block Grant, but those are discretionary; districts have wide latitude to spend money however they want on any subject.
Tucked into a section on Literacy Instruction in Newsom’s May budget revision (see Page 19) is the mention that a $545 million grant for materials instruction will include a new opportunity to support math coaches, too. The release of the final state budget for 2025-26 later this month will reveal whether that money survives.
Brown calls for hiring more math specialists for schools and for three-week summer intensive math leadership institutes like the one he attended in 1994. It hasn’t been held since the money ran dry in the early 2000s.
EdSource reporter Diana Lambert contributed to this article.
