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  • Trump Regime Inflicts Chaos on Prestigious Science Agencies

    Trump Regime Inflicts Chaos on Prestigious Science Agencies


    Jocelyn Kaiser wrote in Science magazine about the chaos inflicted on the National Institutes of Health by Trump appointees and Elon Musk’s DOGS (not a misspelling) wrecking crew. Large numbers of scientists were fired, some were rehired, then fired again. What was the goal? Was it to sow demoralization and fear? If so, it succeeded.

    Since World War II, the U.S. has led the world in science, medicine, and technology, which are important components of our economy. It’s by no means clear why Trump selected people who were determined to disrupt and destabilize the core of the federal science program. Kaiser interviewed many insiders to compile this overview of a machine of destruction, unleashed for unknown reasons on some of our most important science agencies.

    Kaiser wrote

    On a cool, sunny, mid-April day, the cheerful redbuds and other flowering trees amid the sprawling labs on the National Institutes of Health (NIH) main campus belied the pervasive gloom. Nearly 3 months into President Donald Trump’s administration, NIH in-house scientists and other workers were reeling from mass layoffs of colleagues; the removal of leaders; and limits on travel, communication, and purchasing that have shut the agency off from the outside world, hamstrung experiments, and crushed the community’s spirits.

    On that spring day in Bethesda, Maryland, one senior scientist lamented that two star colleagues in his institute were heading back to their native China from NIH, abandoning a destination that had always drawn talent from around the world. “I want to cry,” he said. Another pointed to the abrupt retirement the previous day of a noted NIH nutrition scientist who said the agency had censored his publications and interactions with the media.

    The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), billionaire Elon Musk’s quasi-official White House enforcer, “pops in and out” of online meetings of senior leaders, the scientists said. Another researcher, who is not a U.S. citizen, mentioned that he has prepared a “deportation plan,” including a company lined up to ship belongings back to his native country, in case he’s fired and loses his work visa.

    The atmosphere is one of “chaos and fear and frustration and anger,” said a senior scientist with NIH’s intramural research program who, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity to protect themselves and others from retribution. This scientist added: “It’s this feeling of utter powerlessness and repeated insults.”

    A former top NIH official who was forced out believes that’s the intent. “I think the plan is to sow as much chaos as possible. … I think they want a dispirited workforce at NIH so people will just say ‘to hell with it’ and leave.”

    It’s working. Hundreds of NIH employees took voluntary buyouts offered by the Trump administration. And at least 25 of the roughly 320 physician-researchers who lead trials of drugs, cell therapies, and vaccines at NIH’s massive Clinical Center are leaving, as are consulting physicians, a researcher there told Science.

    In NIH entryways, recently installed portraits of Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and new NIH Director Jayanta “Jay” Bhattacharya have become a forum for silent protests. A photo of tanks rolling through Tiananmen Square during China’s 1989 student uprising was briefly plastered below one set of visages. On a different wall on another day, flyers appeared for a nationwide protest of Trump’s science cuts along with a Post-it note with the word “Shame.” A staff memo sent out the day a Science reporter visited warned of penalties for “damage or destruction of federal property” including “defacement of portraits.”

    A researcher who has spent more than 2 decades with NIH’s intramural research program believes the world’s largest biomedical agency will never be the same. “However bad everyone on the outside thinks it is, it is a million times worse. They’re dismantling and destroying everything.”

    Along with firing about 2500 of the agency’s 20,000-strong federal workforce and pushing others to retire, Trump officials have used what some call “bureaucratic sabotage” in ways that likely explain why NIH has disbursed at least $1.8 billion less in funding to outside researchers in this administration’s first 3 months than it did in the same time period in 2024. They have canceled more than 800 grants on topics such as HIV research, transgender health, and vaccine hesitancy. NIH, at HHS’s behest, also tried to impose a crippling cut in the overhead payments made to universities that carry out grant-funded research.

    More disruption looms, including HHS-demanded cuts to billions of dollars in contracts that fund key support staff and research centers and a White House proposal due any day now that will likely aim to slash up to 44% from NIH’s $47.4 billion budget and overhaul its structure. An agency that once had strong bipartisan support and was seen as the crown jewel of U.S. science, and the envy of the world, now faces a diminished, uncertain future.

    I think the plan is to sow as much chaos as possible. … I think they want a dispirited workforce at NIH so people will just say ‘to hell with it’ and leave.

    Some on the NIH campus that April day held out hope for Bhattacharya, who has said he wants to “undo some of the disruptions” and get NIH research back on track. Bhattacharya told Science this week, “It’s been a tough period” at NIH, but “I think things have turned around significantly.”

    But others see him as firmly aligned with the Trump administration. In recent remarks to the research community, Bhattacharya said he wants to pivot NIH toward Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) agenda, which focuses on chronic diseases, a shift that could come at the expense of the basic research and infectious disease studies that the agency now funds. “His presentation was distressing on multiple fronts,” says longtime NIH observer Keith Yamamoto, a cell biologist at the University of California (UC) San Francisco. 

    Others outside the agency share a pessimistic assessment of NIH. “I don’t think there’s any way to sugarcoat the last 100 days. The state of the enterprise is chaotic and it’s in jeopardy,” says Mary Woolley, president of Research!America, a biomedical research advocacy group. “I am terribly worried,” says molecular biologist Shirley Tilghman, former president of Princeton University. “It will take years to undo the damage that is being inflicted right now.”

    THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S interference with NIH began the day after he took office, when HHS political appointees imposed a “pause” on communications from its 27 institutes and centers. Past administrations had sometimes briefly halted press releases and other communications, but this time, NIH extended the pause to public meeting attendance by scientists who handle grant programs and reviews. That meant meetings were abruptly halted, sometimes minutes before the start time or even midway through. In-house scientists and grants staff were also told to freeze hiring, purchasing, and travel. Days later, on 27 January, the White House froze grant payments from all federal agencies.

    That first week, Trump appointed an acting director to replace Monica Bertagnolli, who had stepped down as NIH director days before the presidential transition. But instead of veteran Principal Deputy Director Lawrence Tabak, who had previously held the acting role, he chose Matthew Memoli, a longtime influenza researcher with NIH’s intramural program. Memoli had questioned the need for widespread COVID-19 vaccinations during the pandemic. That put him at odds with Anthony Fauci, then director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and a frequent target of conservatives, and may have elevated Memoli in the administration’s eyes.

    On Friday of the second week, the director’s office, known as Building 1, received an order to post a notice imposing an immediate 15% cap on indirect costs, the overhead payments the agency includes with each grant, to save $4 billion. Former NIH officials say they were alarmed by the sudden memo, which had multiple errors and directly conflicted with congressional restrictions on the agency’s indirect costs rates. By Monday, universities had won a court order halting the cap, arguing it was illegal.

    That same week, the first signs of a widely expected purge of NIH leadership emerged. Tabak was called to a meeting at HHS headquarters in downtown Washington, D.C., and told he was reassigned to a job there and would lose his NIH lab. The 25-year NIH veteran announced his retirement later that day. Deputy Director for Extramural Research Michael Lauer, who oversaw NIH grant policies, abruptly retired later that week amid rumors he, too, would be reassigned. Before he left, Lauer ordered staff to lift the NIH grant freeze after a court ruled it was illegal.

    Next came what many dubbed the “Valentine’s Day massacre”—the dismissal of nearly 1200 NIH employees who, along with thousands of other federal workers, had a “probationary” status because they were new to the agency or, in many cases, were veterans but had recently changed positions. Among them were crucial Clinical Center staff along with more than a dozen tenure-track investigators. Illustrating the haphazard nature of the firings, the clinical staff and animal care workers were quickly rehired when it became clear they were essential, and the firings of the tenure-track scientists were also eventually reversed. HHS also abruptly halted routine renewals of the many intramural scientists on term-limited appointments—a policy reversed after an appeal from Memoli but that NIH researchers say has recently resurfaced.

    AS FEBRUARY ROLLED into March, a new threat crystallized for the university scientists and other extramural researchers who receive the bulk of NIH funds: HHS ordered NIH to cancel hundreds of grants that allegedly violated Trump executive orders barring funding for topics that touched on diversity, equity, and inclusion and LGBTQ health. The cuts included HIV trials in South Africa, training grants, health equity and environmental studies, as well as work on vaccine hesitancy and COVID-19.

    “It was soul sucking every time to see those lists of grants that were vulnerable,” says Emily Erbelding, an NIAID division director who was put on leave this month. NIH letters terminating the grants stated that the work “no longer effectuates agency priorities”—language meant to satisfy recently revised grant policy requirements.

    The cuts have made a huge dent in some research fields, such as transgender health, which has lost at least $157 million in unspent NIH funding. Although researchers can appeal terminations, and a few cancellations have been reversedwithout explanation, some scientists have already shut down their programs. After losing $5 million in research and training grants studying ways to improve health care for Alzheimer’s disease in sexual and gender minorities, social scientist Jason Flatt of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas laid off his two full-time staff and is scrambling to find other support for five graduate students. “This has been my life’s work,” says Flatt, who now expects to pivot to less politically fraught Alzheimer’s studies.

    It will take years to undo the damage that is being inflicted right now.

    At some top research universities all NIH funding, regardless of its focus, has become leverage as the Trump administration pressures the institutions on matters unrelated to science. First the White House killed NIH grants, and other federal funds, to Columbia University in March saying it had not properly combated antisemitism in the wake of campus protests against Israel’s bombing of Gaza. Columbia has been negotiating policy changes, so far without winning back its funding, more of which was frozen. At dozens of other universities NIH funding is threatened. Harvard University, facing the loss of at least $2.2 billion in multiyear grants from NIH and other agencies, has called the demands an attack on academic freedom and on 21 April, filed a lawsuit challenging the cancellations. Bhattacharya told Science he supports the freezes because “these institutions ought to obey the civil rights laws.” 

    Much of the money flowing from NIH to universities supports early-career researchers. Other changes at the agency also threaten the U.S. pipeline for scientists. Virtually all NIH-funded training programs aimed at attracting underrepresented groups to science are now gone. “I’m concerned that these events are very likely to affect who decides to stay in science and we will lose important and necessary scientific talent,” says cell biologist Needhi Bhalla of UC Santa Cruz, who has mentored several trainees supported by these awards.

    THE FIRST DAY OF APRIL, Bhattacharya’s start date, brought another wave of about 1300 job cuts at NIH as part of Kennedy’s plans to downsize and centralize operations at all HHS agencies. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) faced similarly huge reductions in force. That same week, four institute directors and one acting director at NIAID and other NIH institutes were told they had been put on leaveand in most cases offered reassignments to sites with the Indian Health Service far from their current homes. (None has publicly resigned or accepted the reassignment so far.) Other NIH leaders, including the chief of the agency’s well-regarded international center and some close to Fauci, were removed as well.

    The HHS-imposed staff cuts, which ignored a plan developed by NIH leadership and submitted by Memoli, wiped out many communications, acquisitions, human resources, and policy offices. They swept up intramural scientists who many thought would be protected, including 10 tenured neuroscientists who Kennedy later said were fired by mistake—one of many acknowledged errors at NIH, CDC, and FDA. (As this story went to press, these scientists were back in the lab but had still not been officially reinstated.)

    Even NIH’s biggest supporters acknowledge that some parts of the massive agency could be improved or made more efficient through centralization of necessities such as information technology. But as one senior scientist put it, “There was no planning.” Institute leaders are now scrambling to get functions handled by the disbanded offices operating again.

    However bad everyone on the outside thinks it is, it is a million times worse. They’re dismantling and destroying everything.

    Some of the internal restrictions have recently been eased. Peer-review meetings to consider grant proposals have resumed, as well as institute council meetings, which do the second level of funding review. Bhattacharya quickly lifted the freeze on travel and purchasing.

    Yet the staff shortages are still taking a toll. One intramural scientist had to cancel a talk at a local university because his slides, submitted 30 days earlier, had not yet been approved. The few senior scientists who have rare agency credit cards are swamped with requests to buy lab supplies. “The backlogs are crazy,” a postdoc says—6 months for mice or a microscope part that would normally take 2 weeks. Researchers are getting by with workarounds such as sharing antibodies.

    With continuing losses of key technicians, physicians, and administrative staff, the Clinical Center now lags in lab testing and faces difficulty bringing in patients from outside the United States, who are needed for studies of rare diseases. Its patient population has dropped by at least 30% since Trump took over, to below 70 in April compared with more than 100 during the same month in past years, a senior clinical investigator there tells Science. The Clinical Center’s Steven Rosenberg, a pioneer in using a person’s own immune cells to fight their advanced cancer, says the staff cuts and purchasing delays mean up to 2-month delays in treatment for his seriously ill patients and fewer treated overall. “We’re working at a much slower pace,” he says.

    WHETHER THINGS WILL get better at NIH now that it has a permanent director is anyone’s guess. Although he has said he backs research on health disparities, which his own work has examined, Bhattacharya supports the Trump administration cuts to diversity programs, which he calls “a political ideology.” And he has brushed off killing HIV grants in South Africa as part of a shift of resources to support Kennedy’s focus on Americans’ health. “I’m concerned that he has little autonomy,” Yamamoto says.

    Rosenberg, who has met with the new director, is more optimistic: “He seemed very reasonable and eager to improve things,” he says.

    More reshaping of NIH could be coming. Career staffers in Building 1 have been replaced with political appointees with no experience with research agencies. DOGE and HHS are expected to approve new grant solicitations, and the agency this week began to absorb an HHS-mandated $2.6 billion cut in contracts that fund vaccine scientists, equipment maintenance, long-running heart disease studies, and much more.

    Kennedy’s influence is a particular worry. The HHS director ordered NIH to launch a study of the causes of autism, which Kennedy has falsely blamed on vaccines, although he says other “environmental” causes could have a role. Another study the White House and Kennedy have told NIH to instigate will explore “regret” among transgender people who undergo hormone treatments. “The conclusions seem predetermined,” says biochemist Jeremy Berg of the University of Pittsburgh, former director of NIH’s basic science institute and former editor-in-chief of Science. “It undermines the credibility of NIH particularly because it seems designed to drive a particular political agenda.”

    The Republicans in control of Congress so far have taken no action to protect NIH, although Senator Susan Collins (R–ME) said today at a hearing on the state of the biomedical research enterprise that the cuts to NIH scientists and grants “must be reversed.” Collins chairs the committee that oversees NIH’s budget and held the hearing in partnership with the panel’s senior Democrat, Senator Patty Murray (WA). Murray has protested the many NIH cuts, most recently to NIH’s landmark Women’s Health Initiative, which HHS said it had reversed after an outcry. Congress will also decide whether to go along with Trump’s proposed, radically smaller NIH budget and reorganization plan. Indirect cost payments will almost certainly be revisited and trimmed. “We are undoubtedly at an extremely challenging time for the biomedical research community,” says Jennifer Zeitzer, deputy executive director of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology.

    For now, the biomedical research community and NIH staff are hoping the resumption of council meetings will allow grants to flow out again—although staff shortages will be an impediment. Disbursing NIH’s full budget before the end of the fiscal year on 30 September “is going to be a near impossible feat for the number of people left,” says a former cancer institute official. If so, hundreds of millions of dollars in congressionally approved funding meant to identify new medical treatments and test them in patients across the U.S. and world will go back to the Department of the Treasury.

    Like those on the NIH campus who spoke with Science, many of the agency’s former leaders are also not optimistic about the next 100 days, or the rest of Trump’s term. Geneticist Francis Collins, NIH director from 2009 to 2021 who abruptly retired in late February and closed his NIH lab, is one. “Reckless decisions will disrupt a noble institution with a stunningly positive track record, drive young scientists to leave the country, and damage the future health of the nation.”

    With reporting by Sara Reardon.

    Update, 2 May, 11:55 a.m.: Additional comments from NIH Director Jayanta “Jay” Bhattacharya, from an interview after this story was posted, have been added.



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  • Berkeley superintendent, GOP congressman tussle over ‘liberated’ ethnic studies

    Berkeley superintendent, GOP congressman tussle over ‘liberated’ ethnic studies


    Berkeley Unified School District Superintendent Enikia Ford Morthel and Republican Rep. Kevin Kiley at the House Education and Workforce Committee hearing on May 8, 2024.

    Credit: YouTube

    A first-term California congressman sparred with the superintendent of Berkeley Unified and denounced the district’s choice of a consultant to create an ethnic studies curriculum during a House subcommittee hearing on antisemitism in K-12 schools Wednesday at the Capitol.

    During his five minutes allowed for questioning, U.S. Rep. Kevin Kiley, a Republican representing a huge expanse of eastern California, pressed Superintendent Enikia Ford Morthel about the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium.

    The group pitches to school districts in California an alternative to the state’s ethnic studies model curriculum framework with a focus on dismantling capitalism, systems of racism, and Zionism, which it equates to colonialism. The group’s leaders include ethnic studies professors from California State University and the University of California.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-tcSzYrQr8

    Berkeley Unified School District Superintendent Enikia Ford Morthel and Republican Rep. Kevin Kiley at the House Education and Workforce Committee hearing on Wednesday.

    The district hired the group on a one-year contract in June 2023 for $111,120 to serve as what Ford Morthel called “a thought partner.” Berkeley’s memorandum of understanding said that the district’s Ethnic Studies Advisory Committee recommended the group as a  “content expert group” that would “provide instructional materials, teacher training, and consultation for implementing ethnic studies.”

    The consortium’s contract is up for renewal next month. Jewish parents in Berkeley have written the school board opposing continuing it. In their letter, the parents criticized the consortium as pushing “a non-inclusive, biased, divisive, and one-sided ideological world view.”

    Ford Morthel testified Wednesday that the district has not purchased a Liberated Ethnic Studies curriculum. Rather, she said, the district takes pride that teachers and community partners have written the curriculum. Teachers created lessons on Israel and Palestine because of “a lot of curiosity, a lot of questions, and quite frankly, a lot of confusion from many of our students wanting to know what was going on.”

    The district did not respond Thursday to EdSource’s question on what the consortium is providing the district.

    The district has not released the lesson plans, and a parent, Yossi Fendel, has sued the district for them. Fendel said that what he had been allowed to view of the ninth-grade lessons was biased against Israel and violated the district’s policy on teaching controversial issues, the publication Berkleyside reported.

    The Liberated consortium is one of several consulting groups whose curriculum proposals have generated controversy in Sacramento and Berkeley.

    The 16 members of the leadership team are listed on the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium’s website and include leaders from across the state in ethnic studies.

    In 2019, state officials sharply criticized the first draft of the ethnic studies curriculum and ordered major revisions by writers from the state Department of Education. The authors disavowed the state’s model version of the curriculum and broke off to create the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum.

    Critics included State Board of Education President Linda Darling-Hammond and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond. The Jewish Legislative Caucus cited the curriculum’s one-sided view of the Israel-Palestine conflict and a favorable definition of the “boycott, divestment, sanctions movement,” which calls for sanctions and boycotts of Israel. Gov. Gavin Newsom called the document “insufficiently balanced and inclusive.”

    Please answer yes or no 

    Early in the two-hour hearing, the chair of the subcommittee, Rep. Aaron Bean, R-Fla., forced Ford Morthel and the other two superintendents on the panel, New York City schools Chancellor David Banks and Montgomery County school board President Karla Silvestre, to give one-word answers to a series of complicated questions. One was whether the phrase “From the river to the sea Palestine will be free” is antisemitic.

    Yes or no, Bean asked?

    “If it is calling for the elimination of the Jewish people in Israel,” Ford Morthel responded.  “And I will also say that I recognize that it does have different meanings to different members of our community.”

    “I’m going to go ‘yes.’ I’ll put you down, yes,” Bean said.

    Kiley used that answer against her during his questioning. He referred to a slide in the teacher-prepared curriculum that cited the “From the river to the sea” phrase as a call for freedom and peace and paired it with a “supportive quote” by Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Michigan, soon after the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas in Israel. Congress censured Tlaib on a 224-188 Republican-led vote, with members claiming it implied support for armed resistance to abolish the state of Israel.

    Many people, including most Jews, also view it that way. Others, Tlaib included, say it evokes future coexistence where everyone can live in freedom in Palestine.  

    “Do you think that’s an appropriate thing to have on a slide for students?” Kiley asked Ford Morthel.

    “So,” she replied, “we definitely believe that it’s important to expose our students to a diversity of ideas and perspectives. And if it was presented as a perspective, I do think it’s appropriate.”

    “You said earlier you thought this was antisemitic, and you put this on a slide in the classroom, and then students go around the hall saying it. I don’t think there’s anything surprising about that,” Kiley said.

    Noting that the district passed a policy against hate speech last year, Ford Morthel said, “Public schools reflect the values and aspirations of their local communities. Berkeley is no different. 

    “Our history of activism, social justice, diversity, and inclusion is alive and well today. And we recognize the need to teach students to express themselves with respect and compassion.”





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  • How earning a college degree put four California men on a path from prison to new lives | Documentary 

    How earning a college degree put four California men on a path from prison to new lives | Documentary 


    Jennifer Molina
    May 9, 2024

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

    Samual N. Brown, Allen Burnett, Charlie Praphatananda and Dara Yin have stories to tell.

    Their time in prison was shrouded by their reality. Three of the four were charged with murder and sentenced to life without parole. It’s what one of them, who entered prison at 20, describes as death by incarceration.

    Taking college courses had been going on for decades in California prisons, but in 2016, California State University Los Angeles became the first college to offer bachelor’s degrees to people in prison.

    Now, eight of the state’s 34 adult prisons have started or are soon to begin partnerships that award four-year degrees, making California a leader in expanding college degree programs into the state’s prisons.

    The trend touches only a sliver of incarcerated people, however. While California incarcerates about 95,600 people in its prison system, about 230 enrolled in the fall in a bachelor’s degree program. For the four men whose stories are told in this documentary, just the chance to earn the degree made it possible for them to see themselves living a different life outside of prison. Three ultimately got their sentences commuted. The fourth was paroled.

    Read more:

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    EdSource has been on it when big shifts happen – like the Department of Education shutting down many areas of their work. But we also remain committed to following the long-term stories in our communities and having an impact through our reporting.

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  • College commencements face disruption from pro-Palestinian protests

    College commencements face disruption from pro-Palestinian protests


    Pro-Palestinian encampment encroaches on the stage and grass area where commencement is planned for Sunday at Pomona College.

    Credit: Michael Burke / EdSource

    At Pomona College in eastern Los Angeles County, commencement ceremonies are scheduled to take place this weekend on the college’s central Marston Quad, with events planned Friday through Sunday.

    But as of late Thursday, a pro-Palestinian encampment on the quad was growing in the exact location where commencement is supposed to be held. Dozens of students have set up tents, Palestinian flags and barricades around the college’s graduation stage, making it unclear whether the college will be able to proceed with commencement activities.

    Protesters said Thursday that they have no plans to leave the encampment until the college meets their demands to divest its endowment funds from companies supporting Israel and its war in Gaza. 

    “These schools love their pageantry and their ceremonies, so seizing the commencement plaza was really just a strategic move to show the college that we will continue to disrupt business as usual until they divest,” said Kwame Nkrumah, a sophomore at the college studying political sociology. 

    The elite liberal arts college of about 1,700 students is one of several campuses across California with commencement events scheduled this weekend that could be disrupted by protests. 

    The University of Southern California canceled its main stage commencement ceremony altogether, citing security concerns. It does have other events planned, including a celebration for graduating students and their families at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum that was held Thursday night. 

    At UC Berkeley, which will hold its main ceremony Saturday morning, campus officials acknowledge protests are possible but say they are moving ahead with commencement like business as usual.

    They are some of the first graduations to be held since pro-Palestinian encampments and protests popped up last month across California and the rest of the country, sparked by the arrests of more than 100 protesters at Columbia University on April 18. Protesters have demanded their campuses divest from Israel. Protesters at one campus in California declared success earlier this week, when Sacramento State changed its investment policy to state that the college will no longer invest “in corporations and funds that profit from genocide, ethnic cleansing, and activities that violate fundamental human rights.”

    At Pomona, campus officials say they remain committed to holding their commencement events this weekend. The first event scheduled to take place on the quad is Friday at 5 p.m., when the college plans to hold an induction for its chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, an honor society. On Saturday evening, the college plans to hold a celebratory dinner on the quad for graduates and their families before the main commencement ceremony on Sunday morning.

    “Throughout the year, college leaders have offered to meet with student protesters and will continue to do so. We will promote safety for all members of our community and pursue our educational mission, considering the full range of viewpoints. We are committed to holding Commencement to honor the Class of 2024, with their loved ones, and preparations are continuing,” a college spokesperson said in a statement to EdSource.

    College officials, who were not made available for an interview, have not disclosed how or whether they plan to clear the encampment in order to hold the commencement activities. Nkrumah said students are prepared for the possibility that police will attempt to clear the encampment. Last month, 20 students were arrested while occupying the college president’s office.

    Mattin Khoshzaban, a graduating senior at Pomona, said he and his classmates have heard little from administrators ahead of this weekend’s ceremonies. Khoshzaban said he supports the protesters and their message but added he’s frustrated by the possibility that commencement could be disrupted. Like many current college seniors, he graduated from high school in 2020 and didn’t get an in-person graduation ceremony because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

    “Although they’re trying to protest the administration, it feels like a protest against the students. And especially because we didn’t get our first graduation,” he said. “We have our families flying in. We literally don’t know what’s going to happen.”

    Khoshzaban, who is studying economics, has a dozen family members who were expected to fly into the Los Angeles area starting Thursday night from Oregon, including his parents, grandparents, siblings and even aunts and uncles. 

    “My family has protested other things at different times, but they are upset for me because they know I didn’t have a high school graduation,” said Khoshzaban, who added that it would be “very meaningful” for him to be able to walk across the commencement stage.

    Anwar Mohamed, another graduating senior, feels differently. He also had his high school graduation in Chicago canceled because of the pandemic, but he isn’t worried about whether he walks across the stage.

    Demanding that Pomona divest is a personal issue for Mohamed, who is one of the organizers of the encampment. Mohamed, who is Muslim, said he remembers his family talking about Palestine since he was just 3 years old.

    “Every time we were in Friday prayer, it was always like our prayers are to Palestine. Like our actions are to Palestine, our beings are for Palestine,” he said. “And I think for me as a senior, it’s realizing that I didn’t come here for walking across a stage. College was never about this degree. College was about doing this study and understanding the material world that we live in.”

    Farther north in California, at UC Berkeley, planning for commencement is proceeding normally and will be held Saturday morning at California Memorial Stadium. College officials are not ruling out the possibility of protests but say there are no plans to change any of the usual commencement programming. 

    “Berkeley graduation ceremonies have been venues for all sorts of protests for many years. This year, like every year in the past, our efforts will focus on ensuring the ceremony can be successfully held, and on supporting the ability of graduating students, their friends, and families to safely enjoy and take part in an incredibly meaningful day,” said Dan Mogulof, a spokesperson for the campus.

    Christopher Ying, a graduating senior at UC Berkeley, said he appreciates that Berkeley is moving ahead with a typical commencement. Ying is this year’s recipient of the University Medal, Berkeley’s top honor for graduating seniors, and will give a speech at the ceremony. He received the honor in part for his work with incarcerated people, including tutoring them and helping them edit and publish news stories that were distributed at prisons statewide. 

    Ying doesn’t plan to address Israel’s war in Gaza during his speech, saying that it wouldn’t be genuine to talk about it because none of his extracurriculars while in college related to the conflict. But he added that the university never told him he couldn’t talk about the conflict in his speech. 

    Meanwhile, at the University of Southern California, college officials canceled the commencement speech of valedictorian Asna Tabassum before canceling the ceremony altogether. Tabassum had been attacked by pro-Israel groups over a link in her Instagram bio that led to a website supporting Palestine.

    “I’m glad that Berkeley is not going down that same path. Berkeley obviously has a very rich history of having been involved with the free speech movement,” Ying said.





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  • State’s school awards dinner at Disneyland comes with hefty price tag

    State’s school awards dinner at Disneyland comes with hefty price tag


    State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, center, stands with Mickey and Minnie Mouse, alongside Lisette Estrella-Henderson, center right, the Solano County Superintendent of Schools, at Disneyland in Anaheim during the California School Recognition Program in 2019.

    Credit: Lisette Estrella-Henderson / X

    California schools that have significantly improved student achievement will be honored in a ceremony hosted by the California Department of Education at Disneyland on Friday, but the $500 per person ticket price has some superintendents fuming.

    Districts pay between $460 and $500 per person to attend the California School Recognition Program Awards Ceremony, depending on when they register. They also pay the cost of employee travel to Anaheim and for their lodging. The Disneyland Hotel is offering a conference rate of $324, plus taxes and fees. Parking is $60 per vehicle. 

    The price tag is leaving some superintendents conflicted. Do they send teachers and other staff to celebrate their school’s success, or do they use the money to pay for other needs, such as professional development, tutors or supplies?

    “The state understands that most districts, a majority of districts right now, are in budget constriction and deficit spending,” said Anne Hubbard, superintendent of the tiny 900-student TK-6 Hope Elementary School District in Santa Barbara. “And it seems just crazy that the CDE would be the host of this event, this honoring, this lifting up of education, with a price tag that just does not make sense to me.”

    The annual awards ceremony celebrates California Distinguished Schools, National Blue Ribbon Schools, Green Ribbon Schools Green Achievers and Civic Learning Awards Schools. It is expected to draw 1,300 people to the hotel, according to event organizers.

    The event, which has been held at the venue for decades, will cost more than half a million dollars. It is paid for with registration fees and sponsorships.

    School may have a nacho party instead 

    Hubbard was proud and excited when she learned that Vieja Valley Elementary — one of the district’s three schools — had been named a California Distinguished School. She quickly booked a few rooms at the Disneyland Hotel and proceeded to the registration page to see if there was a limit to the number of employees she could send.

    “I was completely floored when I got to the checkout and saw the price tag for attending the ceremony — $490, plus a $10 processing fee,” Hubbard said. 

    Hubbard asked event organizers if her staff could forgo the dinner and be in attendance to receive the award. She said she was told everyone must pay to attend. Hubbard decided it would be less expensive and more inclusive to celebrate with the entire staff and is considering a nacho bar.

    Demian Barnett, superintendent/principal of nearby Peabody Charter School, will pick up the award for Vieja Valley Elementary. He and another administrator plan to make the three-hour round trip to avoid room charges. Two teachers from the school will stay overnight.

    “We found a way to be able to support four people to go, but I would be using that money to do programming with kids here if I wasn’t doing this,” he said last week.

    Funding help available, CDE says

    The California Department of Education can not directly fund awards or recognition programs because the Legislature has not authorized it to spend taxpayer funds in this way, said Elizabeth Sanders, director of communications for the CDE.

    She says honorees should first look to their district foundation to cover the cost of attending the awards dinner, but can also contact the department for help obtaining a sponsor or a scholarship, if funds are available. Honorees who do not attend will receive their award by mail at no charge, she said.

    A check of the registration website last week found no mention of scholarships, and superintendents who spoke to EdSource were not aware that funding could be available.

    The only district team that directly requested financial assistance this year has been able to find local support and is registered for the event, Sanders said.

    Photos and giant mice

    The California School Recognition Program Awards Ceremony will start at 10 a.m. with group photos taken throughout the day, according to the California Department of Education registration webpage. 

    Guests can also wait in line to take photos with Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, passing sponsor and district booths as they move along. Mickey and Minnie Mouse are on hand for photos as well. 

    The awards dinner begins at 6 p.m. with entertainment usually provided by student musicians, according to past attendees. It is scheduled to last three hours.

    Distance can make travel costs prohibitive

    Ferndale Unified in Humboldt County will spend more than $10,000 from its general fund to send Principal/Superintendent Danielle Carmesin and two Ferndale Elementary School teachers to Anaheim.

    Because of the school’s distance from the event — 662 miles — the school’s staff will fly to Anaheim and stay two nights.

    The cost is steep for a district struggling with budget cuts, but district leaders decided it was important to celebrate the big improvements the school has made in math, English and science scores on the state’s California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress, or CAASPP tests.

    “It’s all just a publicity stunt, but if you don’t show up, then that’s not fair for my school,” Carmesin said. “So they have you kind of over a barrel, and it’s like, we haven’t won it in over 10 years; my face is going to be in that picture.”

    Live Oak Unified is sending half its teachers

    The cost of the event is prohibitive for rural schools, said Yuri Calderon, executive director of the Small Schools Districts’ Association. Calderon said many small districts are struggling to make ends meet, and have staffing shortages that take precedence.

    Live Oak Unified in rural Sutter County is sending the principal of Encinal Elementary School and two teachers to the dinner in Anaheim to collect a Distinguished School Award. The school won the award for the first time by improving test scores and suspension rates, said Superintendent Mathew Gulbrandsen.

     Gulbrandsen would have sent more staff to the awards ceremony, but the cost limits the number of people who can participate, he said. Additionally, the school would have to pay substitutes $120 each to cover classes because the event is on a Friday.

    “I mean that school itself is a small school — 120 students,” he said. “Five teachers, a principal, a secretary. There’s no way all of them could attend on a workday. You’d have to shut the school down. So we can’t do that.” 

    They want more for their money

    Sanders said that a $500 registration fee is pretty standard for a daylong conference, but superintendents interviewed by EdSource said they expected more for the money — possibly some workshops or a keynote speaker.

    “So, I thought, OK, is Taylor Swift playing? What’s going on? Hubbard said. “And really to find out that there is nothing, and you have to attend the banquet in order … to just pick up the award. I would have taken a team down there, taken them out to dinner for under $500 by the way.”

    Hubbard said she has attended many two- and three-day conferences that include multiple meals that cost less than the awards dinner at Disneyland. 

    When she previously attended the National Blue Ribbon School Award celebration in Washington, D.C., Hubbard paid for travel and rooms, but no registration fee. The event included three days of speakers and workshops. Every school receives a National Blue Ribbon School flag and plaque at the awards luncheon, according to the website. 

    The California School Boards Association offers one free ticket to the Golden Bell Awards Ceremony to each school district or county office that wins. Each additional ticket is $150. The event, which will take place at the Hyatt Regency in Sacramento on Dec. 4, includes appetizers and dessert. It honors outstanding programs and governance practices of California school boards.

    Conference breaks even 

    With 1,300 attending this year, the registration fees for the California School Recognition Program Awards Ceremony will bring in at least $600,000, plus contributions from corporate sponsors such as Pearson, Garner Holt Education Through Imagination, Smart School, the California State Lottery and the California Association of School Business Officials.

    “We’re not accumulating a big pile of money that we kick back to the department or anything like that,” said Ed Honowitz, chief executive officer of Californians Dedicated to Education Foundation, the CDE’s nonprofit foundation. “It really is kind of essentially a break-even kind of thing. Sometimes, there’s some carryover from one year to the other, but it’s kind of minimal.”

    Registration and sponsorship funds are collected, and bills for the awards event are paid by the Californians Dedication to Education Foundation, but the event is run by CDE staff, Honowitz said.

    Rising conference costs are causing challenges for organizations across the state, he said.

    The CDE has worked to make the conference as affordable as possible, even considering cutting the visits from Minnie and Mickey Mouse to save money, Sanders said. In the end, it was decided that the cost of the mice — a few hundred dollars, according to Sanders — was worthwhile.

    Suites for top CDE executives

    According to a former manager who has attended the event within the last five years, Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond and other high-level CDE staff stayed in suites with access to a VIP area with complimentary food and beverages.

    The former manager described the room as a corner suite with a kitchen, living room and bedroom, and large windows that allowed a view of the nightly fireworks at Disneyland. Similar rooms as the one described go for $1,252 at the regular rate, according to the website.

    Rooms, travel and meals for volunteers and staff are paid for by sponsors and do not come from registration costs, Sanders said. 

    Carmesin says the cost of the event shows that CDE leaders are disconnected from the work educators do.

    “You know, they think they’re celebrating us, but giving me an invoice didn’t make me feel very celebratory,” she said.





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  • Newsom again pledges to spare cuts for TK-12 and community colleges, but not for CSU and UC

    Newsom again pledges to spare cuts for TK-12 and community colleges, but not for CSU and UC


    Gov. Gavin Newsom unveils his revised 2024-25 state budget during a news conference in Sacramento on May 10, 2024.

    Credit: AP Photo / Rich Pedroncelli

    Despite a further deterioration in state revenues, Gov. Gavin Newsom again pledged Friday to protect ongoing funding and the large-scale initiatives for TK-12 schools that he has set in motion.

    “I just don’t want to see education cuts,” Newsom said during a news conference on the revision to the proposed 2024-25 state budget he presented in January. “Right now, I want to see us preserve the progress we have made on community schools, on preschool, on after-school-for-all, summer school — all the work we’ve been doing.”

    Newsom’s comment during a two-hour session with reporters reflected the challenge of writing annual budgets subject to volatile revenue fluctuations dependent on the incomes of the top 1% of earners. Receipts from capital gains taxes that soared to $349 billion in 2021-22 dropped to $137 billion in 2023-24. The current fiscal year ends June 30.

    As a result of the projected shortfall, other state operations could face additional cuts. Newsom didn’t make the same promise he made for schools to higher education, leaving California State University system officials on edge. In a statement, CSU Chancellor Mildred Garcia said she was “deeply concerned” about a revised state budget that would grant no increase next year, then a 2% increase in 2025-26, instead of a 10% increase over two years as promised in January.   

    “As the institution that educates the evolving workforce of California, this budget places us in a position of making difficult decisions,” Garcia said.

    It was not clear whether the University of California would face similar cuts, although Newsom typically treats both systems similarly. UC officials would not comment on the issue. In a statement Friday, UC President Michael Drake said that the system is hoping to “finalize a budget that sustains the University’s research, public service, and education mission.”  

    The summary of revenue reductions and spending cuts Newsom released lacked the details that usually accompany a May budget revision; however, more information is expected by Tuesday, the deadline for statutory budget language. 

    Some TK-12 advocates expressed relief, nonetheless. 

    “Given the magnitude of the fiscal crisis, that the governor could put together a budget that largely protects K-12 is remarkable,” said education consultant Kevin Gordon, president of Capitol Advisors.

    Derick Lennox, senior director of governmental relations and legal affairs with the California County Superintendents, was more cautious. “We can appreciate the governor’s commitment to hold schools harmless to the extent he can, but so much will all depend on the details for Proposition 98 and what is available,” he said, referring to the portion of the general fund that determines funding for TK-12 schools and community colleges. 

    Newsom said general fund revenues were expected to decline an additional $7 billion for a total of $27.6 billion for the three-year period from 2022-23 through 2024-25. The total deficit would be nearly twice as big, but the Legislature has made a combination of cuts, savings, and deferred spending since January.

    The shortfall for TK-12 and community colleges, due to lower Proposition 98 funding, would be about $4.2 billion. Although details are scant, Newsom would make up for it mostly by emptying nearly all the remaining $9 billion rainy day fund for schools and community colleges.

    Newsom said the average TK-12 per-student funding for 2024-25 would be $17,502 — $151 per student less than proposed in January. Despite that, funding would include a 1% cost of living increase, a smidge higher than in January. 

    The May revision lists about $1 billion in cuts for early education through high school. Most of the programs are funded by the general fund, not Proposition 98. It would preserve ongoing funding for the expanded transitional kindergarten program for 4-year-olds and long-awaited pay raises for child care providers.

    Cuts would include:

    • $425 million to the Children and Youth Behavioral Health Initiative out of a $4 billion investment, which Newsom said would reflect directing more funding to wellness centers at school sites. Carl Pinkston of the Black Parallel School Board expressed concern. “In the aftermath of the pandemic, many students continue to display signs of trauma, adversely affecting their academic performance and overall well-being,” he said. The initiative “is a critical program that champions equity, aiming to improve behavioral health outcomes for children and youth.”  
    • Delayed funding for additional slots for state-funded child care. Instead of funding 146,000 as planned, the state will continue funding 119,000 new slots funded so far. “Delaying access to child care for the next two years to our youngest Californians is deeply troubling,” said Mary Ignatius, executive director of Parent Voices CA, an advocacy group. “Their childhoods do not pause. Their undiagnosed speech or other developmental delays will make it harder for them two years from now.” 
    • Elimination of $550 million in facilities funding for preschools, transitional kindergarten and full-day kindergarten programs. Newsom suggested funding could be included in a statewide school facilities bond. He said Friday that negotiations were continuing with legislative leaders for a bond on the statewide ballot in November.
    • A cut of $60.2 million to the Golden State Teacher Grant Program, which pays up to $20,000 to teacher candidates enrolled in credential programs who commit to working for years in priority schools. 
    • Elimination of $48 million in 2025-26 and $98 million in 2026-27 for increased payments for state preschools that serve additional students with disabilities.  
    • A cut of all but $100 million in ongoing funding for the Middle Class Scholarship Program, which previously received more than $600 million annually. In past years, more than 300,000 students across UC and CSU have received scholarships, which are available to students whose families earn up to $217,000. 

    Criticism of a key fix to the shortfall

    Newsom’s solution for minimizing cuts to schools and community colleges would rely on a controversial maneuver. He would fill in the biggest piece of the shortfall — $8 billion in an unanticipated drop in Proposition 98 revenue in 2022-23 — by treating it as an overpayment of the state’s funding obligation.  Since schools and community colleges have already spent the money, he’d fill in the gap by cutting the general fund — but not until 2028-29, when the state’s revenue picture presumably would have improved. Since Newsom announced the idea in January, the repayment obligation has grown to $8.8 billion.

    An accounting move of that magnitude hasn‘t been done before. The Legislative Analyst Office (LAO) has questioned the tactic, and so did the California School Boards Association in a statement Friday in which it implied it might sue.

    The association’s logic reflects the complexity of the Proposition 98 formula for determining funding. The school boards association asserts that the 2022-23 funding level was not a voluntary overpayment but rather a constitutional obligation on which subsequent years’ levels of funding are set.

    “This accounting gimmick would lower the baseline for calculating education funding in subsequent years, subjecting California schools to lower revenue for the foreseeable future,” school boards association President Albert Gonzalez said. “This sets a terrible precedent that potentially destabilizes education funding and undermines the voters’ intent when they passed Proposition 98 more than 35 years ago.”

    The California Department of Finance has insisted that the solution is legal. However, on Friday, Newsom did acknowledge that Proposition 98 is complicated.

    “You need not only a Ph.D., but a physics degree, an engineering degree and everything else to unpack its complexities,” he said.





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  • Thomas Edsall: What Scholars Say About Trump’s Reign of Error and Chaos

    Thomas Edsall: What Scholars Say About Trump’s Reign of Error and Chaos


    Thomas Edsall writes a regular feature for The New York Times. In this stunning article, he recounts the views of numerous scholars about what Trump has done since his Inauguration.

    This is a gift article, meaning you can open the link and finish reading the article, which is usually behind a paywall.

    Edsall writes:

    One thing stands out amid all the chaos, corruption and disorder: the wanton destructiveness of the Trump presidency.

    The targets of President Trump’s assaults include the law, higher education, medical research, ethical standards, America’s foreign alliances, free speech, the civil service, religion, the media and much more.

    J. Michael Luttig, a former federal appeals court judge appointed by President George H.W. Bush, succinctly described his own view of the Trump presidency, writing by email that there had never

    been a U.S. president who I consider even to have been destructive, let alone a president who has intentionally and deliberately set out to destroy literally every institution in America, up to and including American democracy and the rule of law. I even believe he is destroying the American presidency, though I would not say that is intentional and deliberate.

    Some of the damage Trump has inflicted can be repaired by future administrations, but repairing relations with American allies, the restoration of lost government expertise and a return to productive research may take years, even with a new and determined president and Congress.

    Let’s look at just one target of the administration’s vendetta, medical research. Trump’s attacks include cancellation of thousands of grants, cuts in the share of grants going to universities and hospitals and proposed cuts of 40 percent or more in the budgets of the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Science Foundation.

    “This is going to completely kneecap biomedical research in this country,” Jennifer Zeitzer, the deputy executive director at the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, told Science magazine. Georges Benjamin, the executive director of the American Public Health Association, warned that cuts will “totally destroy the nation’s public health infrastructure.”

    I asked scholars of the presidency to evaluate the scope of Trump’s wreckage. “The gutting of expertise and experience going on right now under the blatantly false pretext of eliminating fraud and waste,” Sean Wilentz, a professor of history at Princeton, wrote by email, “is catastrophic and may never be completely repaired.”

    I asked Wilentz whether Trump was unique in terms of his destructiveness or if there were presidential precedents. Wilentz replied:

    There is no precedent, not even close, unless you consider Jefferson Davis an American president. Even to raise the question, with all due respect, is to minimize the crisis we’re in and the scope of Trump et al.’s. intentions.

    Another question: Was Trump re-elected to promote an agenda of wreaking havoc, or is he pursuing an elitist right-wing program created by conservative ideologues who saw in Trump’s election the opportunity to pursue their goals?

    Wilentz’s reply:

    Trump’s closest allies intended chaos wrought by destruction which helps advance the elite reactionary programs. Chaos allows Trump to expand his governing by emergency powers, which could well include the imposition of martial law, if he so chose.

    I asked Andrew Rudalevige, a political scientist at Bowdoin, how permanent the mayhem Trump has inflicted may prove to be. “Not to be flip,” Rudalevige replied by email, “but for children abroad denied food or lifesaving medicine because of arbitrary aid cuts, the answer is already distressingly permanent.”

    From a broader perspective, Rudalevige wrote:

    The damage caused to governmental expertise and simple competence could be long lasting. Firing probationary workers en masse may reduce the government employment head count, slightly, but it also purged those most likely to bring the freshest view and most up-to-date skills to government service, while souring them on that service. And norms of nonpoliticization in government service have taken a huge hit.

    I sent the question I posed to Wilentz to other scholars of the presidency. It produced a wide variety of answers. Here is Rudalevige’s:

    The comp that comes to mind is Andrew Johnson. It’s hardly guaranteed that Reconstruction after the Civil War would have succeeded even under Lincoln’s leadership. But Johnson took action after action designed to prevent racial reconciliation and economic opportunity, from vetoing key legislation to refusing to prevent mob violence against Blacks to pardoning former members of the Confederacy hierarchy. He affirmatively made government work worse and to prevent it from treating its citizens equally.

    Another question: How much is Trump’s second-term agenda the invention of conservative elites, and how much is it a response to the demands of Trump’s MAGA supporters?

    “Trump is not at all an unwitting victim,” Rudalevige wrote, “but those around him with wider and more systemic goals have more authority and are better organized in pursuit of those goals than they were in the first term.”

    In this context, Rudalevige continued, the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025

    was not just a campaign manifesto but a bulwark against the inconsistency and individualism its authors thought had undermined the effectiveness of Trump’s first term. It was an insurance policy to secure the administrative state for conservative thought and yoke it to a cause beyond Trump or even Trumpism.

    The alliance with Trump was a marriage of convenience — and the Trump legacy when it comes to staffing the White House and executive branch is a somewhat ironic one, as an unwitting vehicle for an agenda that goes far beyond the personalization of the presidency.

    In the past, when presidential power has expanded, Rudalevige argued,

    it has been in response to crisis: the Civil War, World War I, the Depression and World War II, 9/11. But no similar objective crisis faced us. So one had to be declared — via proclamations of “invasion” and the like — or even created. In the ensuing crisis more power may be delegated by Congress. But the analogue is something like an arsonist who rushes to put out the fire he started.

    One widely shared view among those I queried is that Trump has severely damaged America’s relations with traditional allies everywhere.

    Mara Rudman, a professor at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, wrote in an email:

    The most lasting impact of this term will be felt in the damage done to the reputation of the United States as a safe harbor where the rule of law is king and where the Constitution is as sacred a national document as any country has developed.

    Through his utter disregard for the law, Trump has shown both how precious and how fragile are the rules that undergird our institutions, our economic and national security and the foundation for our democracy.

    To finish this excellent article, please open the link.



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  • Mariachi program teaches history and culture as well as music

    Mariachi program teaches history and culture as well as music


    Credit: Allie Palomera from SCCOE

    Zaida Ramos first learned the magic of mariachi from her father when she was a little girl. Now they make music together, running the bilingual music program for San Jose’s Alum Rock Union School District.

    Her father, Juan, is the maestro, the music director. She’s the program director. The father and daughter duo collaborate to share the culture and heritage of mariachi music with their students. The Ramos clan has been teaching children music for more than two decades. It’s a veritable family business.

    “Mariachi is how I grew up. In my family, we were always singing,” said Ramos, a vocalist who also plays the violin. “It’s so fulfilling for us, so rewarding, to share mariachi with the families and with the whole community. Everybody is part of the performance because everybody’s connected to these songs, you know? Many times you’ll hear the audience sing along, they laugh, they cry. It resonates with everybody in some way, it’s their story.”

    Students from third to eighth grade gather after school and during the summer to steep in the folkloric music of the southwest region of Mexico, a musical tradition marked by stringed instruments, strolling musicians clad in intricately embroidered costumes and a distinctive yell known as a “grito.” The youngsters in this program learn how to play instruments, including the guitarron, guitar, vihuela, violin, and the trumpet and to sing, art forms that require equal parts creativity and discipline. They also learn the beauty and fluidity of ballet folklorico.

    “I am really driven by the ideal of a free and public education, and the arts need to be part of that,” said Sofia Fojas, arts coordinator for the Santa Clara County Office of Education. “Music and the arts are part of being human. It’s a universal language, a way to bridge the different cultures we see in the classroom in California. It’s really about the importance of arts and culture and engaging youth who traditionally have not had access.”

    Credit: Allie Palomera from SCCOE

    Through the study of mariachi, children from this predominantly Latino district learn that music is more than sound. It’s also about identity, history and culture. Mariachi contains myriad meanings because there is great nuance and complexity embedded in its notes. While the melodies evoke Mexican heritage, with roots deep in the country’s colonial period, many of the themes are also universal.

    “I believe that by embracing our cultural heritage and sharing our stories through music, we can inspire positive change and create a more harmonious society,” said Guillermo Tejeda, a musician who specializes in teaching history, jazz and mariachi to youth. “It’s incredibly rewarding to see how music can empower and inspire young people in our community.”

    Carrying this rich artistic tradition into a new generation is part of what drives Ramos. She sees mariachi as a way to connect students to their own unique voice as well as the collective spirit of their community.

    “I always tell them, you are ambassadors of your whole community,” said Ramos, who also works in real estate. “Wherever you go, you are not only representing East San Jose, you’re representing a whole culture. You’re representing Mexican culture and you’re representing mariachi. There’s a sense of pride in who you are.” 

    Struggle is often a part of the stories told in mariachi music. It’s also part of the reality of teaching music in a time of tight budgets and declining enrollment. While Ramos is cheered by how many of her students acquire a lifelong love of music, she wishes she didn’t always have to fight for more funding.

    “We need more teachers, we need more instruments, we need more support, we need more time, we need more classes,” said Ramos, “and that all comes down to budgeting. We have lots of requests for the kids to perform and to represent Alum Rock, but if we don’t have the budget to support it, we can’t do it.”

    Many arts advocates are hopeful that an infusion of Proposition 28 funding may help bolster projects like the mariachi program, an arts ed program that represents the cultural heritage of the community.

    “Culturally relevant curriculum and instruction helps educators build relationships with students by leveraging what they bring to the classroom,” said Letty Kraus, director of the California County Superintendents Statewide Arts Initiative. “It helps ensure relevance and engagement and maximizes inclusivity.”

    The braided nature of art, the way it’s tightly interwoven with history and culture over time, gives mariachi its power. Arts education also opens up avenues of opportunity and possibility for students as well as nurturing a sense of belonging, experts say. 

    “You’re teaching them about their own past,” said Fojas, who taught orchestra, band and mariachi for 20 years. “The majority of students that I taught were of Mexican descent, so when you’re teaching mariachi, you’re actually teaching them about the history of Mexico.”

    In a post-pandemic world, when absenteeism and disengagement are running high, the arts can be a path to teach students how to persevere through adversity. Budding musicians must learn how to have the grit to rehearse tirelessly and then perform fearlessly before an audience. Fojas sees arts education as a magnet to draw students back to school.

    “Everybody needs to understand the importance of art,” said Fojas. “Arts is culture, and when you deny people arts, you’re denying them culture, and those cultural artifacts are the things we leave behind. So if we deny youth the ability to participate in the arts, we’re denying future generations the ability to see what we’ve left behind.”





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  • Colleges and cannabis: What institutions can and cannot do | Quick Guide

    Colleges and cannabis: What institutions can and cannot do | Quick Guide


    Cannabis has been legal in the state of California since 2016. With California universities adopting cannabis courses that allow students to explore all facets of the developing industry, federal roadblocks that restrict what kinds of courses can be offered remain.

    What kinds of cannabis courses can California colleges offer?

    Since legalization, several of California’s public universities have implemented courses exploring topics of business, law and public policy related to cannabis. However, the question of cultivation courses within agricultural programs remains a complex one. 

    Cal Poly Humboldt is one of the California universities that spearheaded the jump into cannabis courses after legalization, adding a cannabis studies major program in the fall of 2023. Concentrations under this major include environmental stewardship and equity and social justice.

    What are colleges unable to do because of federal law?

    Despite the major, neither Cal Poly Humboldt — nor any other plant science department in California colleges — can offer classes in which students handle the plant. Doing so may risk federal student aid, including Pell grants, which support primarily underserved groups like first-generation and minority students.

    “Cannabis remains a federally controlled Schedule I substance,” said Dominic Corva, director of cannabis studies at Cal Poly Humboldt. “The lawyers in the Cal State and UC systems, as well as every other university, argue that it’s federally illegal, and students’ federal aid could be in danger if we allow this.”

    Corva is the founder of the Interdisciplinary Institute for Marijuana Research at Cal Poly Humboldt; around the time of state legalization, Corva was working with his colleagues to develop a curriculum for a cannabis studies major. This major, explained Corva, falls within the university’s sociology department. 

    “The main reason I landed in sociology is because the College of Natural Sciences and College of Professional Studies didn’t want anything to do with it,” Corva said. “CNRS literally couldn’t wrap their heads around how to approach cannabis education without actually doing natural science with it. We were operating in an institutional framework where it was close to impossible for it to happen in any other kind of department.”

    This raises the question of whether cannabis cultivation courses will ever fall within plant science and agricultural departments at universities. 

    UC Davis, which is ranked No. 1 in the nation for agriculture, doesn’t offer any related courses, Gail Taylor, department chair of plant sciences, said. 

    “We have run a seminar course on cannabis in the past with invited speakers but have nothing on the books at the moment. We have run a professional short course on hemp, too,” Taylor said. 

    However, general plant science courses may provide students interested in cannabis cultivation with knowledge they need for a future career in the industry. 

    “Most of the ‘plant sciences’ majors are relevant to cannabis production,” Taylor said. Courses offered may help by “providing generic knowledge that the graduating students can take into multiple industries.”

    Scott Steinmaus is a professor and the department head of plant sciences at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. As a plant science professor, he said that his plant physiology courses are applicable to a range of plants, including cannabis.

    “Plant growth is essentially determined by photosynthesis, and all plants photosynthesize with the same enzymes, with a few nuances that are quite easy to figure out,” Steinmaus said. “We provide our students the resources and experiences to understand how to best grow plants, no matter what those plants are; whether it’s tomatoes, strawberries, grapes, avocados or cannabis.”

    In his plant physiology classes, Steinmaus sometimes uses cannabis in examples, although without physically handling the plant. 

    “The compliance requirements for cultivation and sales of cannabis products are very stringent,” Steinmaus said of state regulations. “We currently do not offer courses where cannabis plants are grown on campus because of the compliance restrictions and that it is not federally legal. That doesn’t mean we couldn’t do so in the future when it does become legal at the federal level.”

    What about hemp?

    Similar roadblocks exist for the cultivation of hemp, a closely related plant that is legal because it contains less than 3% tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the main psychoactive compound in cannabis. 

    Several public institutions of higher learning in the United States, including Santa Rosa Junior College, offer hemp-growing courses. However, these courses are touchy for universities to offer because of compliance regulations. 

    The 2018 federal farm bill clarified that while hemp and its derivatives are no longer considered Schedule I controlled substances, institutions that offer hemp courses must apply for a hemp research license through the state. 

    At Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Steinmaus said the university doesn’t offer hemp courses yet. 

    In the future, if universities were able to legally offer cannabis cultivation courses as well, these would look different depending on the school and where it is in the state, Corva said. 

    “I know that here at Cal Poly Humboldt, it will probably look a lot more like regenerative agricultural program, where students are learning about how to be sustainable with their cannabis,” Corva said. “That’s way off, even if we’re allowed to do it, because there continue to be a lot of firewalls between the industry, state and federal laws.”

    Arabel Meyer is a fourth-year journalism major at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo and a member of EdSource’s California Student Journalism Corps. 





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  • Legislature must tackle sex discrimination and harassment on college campuses

    Legislature must tackle sex discrimination and harassment on college campuses


    Yin Yang /iStock

    Addressing and preventing sex discrimination and sexual harassment on college campuses continues to be one of the most foundational challenges to improving campus climate at higher education institutions in our country.

    In the fall of 2021, as the Biden-Harris administration began its reexamination of Title IX, the federal regulation that prohibits discrimination based on sex in education, the Assembly Higher Education Committee also began its own reexamination of California’s policies to address and prevent sex discrimination and sexual harassment in higher education.

    Three years later, the Higher Education Committee released a 30-plus page report that revealed we are not doing nearly enough to support our public higher education institutions to create an inclusive and safe campus culture for our students, faculty and staff.

    While each public higher education institution does have a nondiscrimination policy in place, it is clear that our campus communities do not trust these institutions to prevent nor properly handle sex discrimination and sexual harassment on campus. According to interviews conducted by the committee and various surveys of students and faculty, campus communities feel that current policy focuses on protecting higher education institutions and not survivors of sexual discrimination and harassment.

    It is the responsibility of campus leadership to provide our students with a safe and inclusive environment; however, the Legislature also has a responsibility to support our institutions in that mission, and to hold them accountable if they fall short.

    My bills, Assembly Bill (AB) 2047 and AB 2048 are a necessary step that the Legislature must take in order to support California’s higher education institutions and its campus communities.

    These two bills are a part of an ambitious, 12-bill legislative package, authored by myself and seven of my legislative colleagues, and predominantly based on recommendations from the committee’s report.

    The package as a whole is imperative in order to foster cultural change, accountability and trust at our higher education institutions. AB 2047 and AB 2048 focus on shifting campus culture and renewing trust.

    AB 2047 will establish an independent systemwide Title IX office to assist with monitoring compliance throughout all three of California’s higher education segments, and AB 2048 will establish an independent Title IX office on each California State University and University of California campus, and in each community college district.

    These offices, both on campus and at the systemwide level, will provide supportive measures to survivors of sexual harassment and discrimination and adjudicate cases in a clear and transparent manner. Furthermore, these bills will work in tandem with the overall legislative package to provide reporting measures to ensure the higher education institutions are preventing and addressing cases of sex discrimination.

    The importance of creating an identifiable authority that will properly adjudicate cases of sex discrimination and implement preventative measures cannot be minimized. These bills will renew community trust in our public institutions and establish a campus culture primed to detect, prevent and address all forms of sex discrimination and harassment with supportive measures and restorative justice. 

    AB 2047 and AB 2048 will provide substantial change for survivors of sexual harassment, but they will also result in substantial monetary cost from the state’s general fund, possibly costing millions of dollars, in order to establish and staff these offices.

    As we are confronted with a significant budget deficit this year, difficult policy decisions will be made, but these bills should be a priority for the Legislature.

    Fundamental change is costly, and as we assess the true costs of these bills and the impact they will have on our state, we must also not forget to consider the cost of doing nothing: the human cost of students who do not feel safe at these institutions and may not be able to experience all that higher education has to offer. The cost of those who carry invisible wounds and do not achieve their full educational potential.

    I am a firm believer in the power and promise of higher education and its ability to transform lives and communities. No student should be deprived of that power and promise due to sex discrimination or sexual harassment.

    We are falling short of our responsibility to these campus communities by further allowing this status quo of handling complaints through costly monetary settlements and lawsuits to remain.

    We cannot let this continue.

    •••

    Mike Fong (D-Alhambra) represents California’s 49th Assembly District and serves as chair of the Assembly Higher Education Committee.

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





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