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  • The Texas Flood Deaths Could Have Been Prevented

    The Texas Flood Deaths Could Have Been Prevented


    Journalist Steve Monacelli reviews the consistent failure of Texas politicians to pay for an early flood warning system. Texas has a huge budget and a huge surplus, but public safety was not a priority for the legislature or the Governor Greg Abbott or the Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick. They were willing to cut taxes and pour $1 BILLION into school vouchers, but unwilling to fund a flood warning system. Such a system was considered unnecessary and “too expensive,” although it would have saved lives.

    Monacelli wrote in Barbed Wire, reposted at MSNBC:

    Extreme weather events aren’t a new phenomenon in Texas. According to data from the National Centers for Environmental Information, Texas ranks first in the United States for deaths from natural disasters. The frequency of costly and deadly weather events has steadily increased since the 1980s, when an average of 1.4 disasters totaled a billion dollars in damage or more per year, to a peak of 20 events in 2024. But in recent years, even with the increasing threat of natural disasters, Texas lawmakers and officials have been largely asleep at the wheel — unable or unwilling to take better precautions that, in hindsight, seem both necessary and painfully obvious.

    This most recent disaster — a catastrophic flash flood in Texas Hill Country that has taken the lives of at least 100 people, including at least 27 campers and counselors at Camp Mystic — began to escalate in the early hours of Friday while most were still sleeping. 

    Texas lawmakers and officials have been largely asleep at the wheel.

    Over the prior two days, the National Weather Service had issued a series of emergency weather alerts. So had the Texas Division of Emergency Management. On Wednesday, the Division of Emergency Management activated emergency response resources across 10 state agencies because of increased threats of flooding in West and Central Texas ahead of the holiday weekend, and it escalated those resources Thursday. 

    Flood watches distributed out of the Austin-San Antonio regional National Weather Service office Wednesday named several counties, including Kerr, and a list of specific towns, including Hunt, where Camp Mystic is located. Flooding was anticipated, but per most local officials, not to the degree that ultimately occurred. Texas Emergency Management Chief Nim Kidd said at a news conference that the forecast from the National Weather Service “did not predict the amount of rain that we saw.” 

    It wasn’t until 4:03 a.m. on Independence Day that the National Weather Service sent out an emergency alert urging residents to find higher ground and a series of subsequent and increasingly alarmed alerts from 5 a.m. to 7 a.m. 

    But, according to a CBS News analysis, Kerr County didn’t initiate any messages through its Integrated Public Alert Warning System used to send emergency text messages from local government agencies.

    As a result, many swept up in the floods were caught by surprise — particularly in Kerr County, which doesn’t have an emergency warning siren system, despite the topic being a subject of local government discussion for some time. 

    Nearly a decade ago, the county had considered a system of sirens, but that wasn’t pursued because of the high expense required and a rejected 2018 application for a $1 million grant from the Upper Guadalupe River Authority, which offered to cover only 5% of the estimated cost. As recently as 2023, the county commissioners’ court was still discussing grant options, according to meeting minutes. Lacking support from the state or a regional agency, Kerr County, with a budget in the tens of millions, decided it couldn’t afford it. 

    Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly, the county’s top elected official, told The New York Times in a recent interview, “Taxpayers won’t pay for it.”

    A review of the extant reporting on the disaster and the unfolding recovery effort reveals a series of failures at the local and state levels. 

    Local officials not only failed to put in place emergency warning systems in an area known for sudden and potentially deadly floods, but they also appeared blindsided and unprepared to address tough questions. Kelly told reporters at a news conference Friday that officials had no idea the flood was coming, even though the area has a long history of deadly floods.

    “We have floods all the time,” Kelly said. “This is the most dangerous river valley in the United States, and we deal with floods on a regular basis. When it rains, we get water. We had no reason to believe that this was going to be anything like what’s happened here. None whatsoever.”

    Camp Mystic, the site of many of the confirmed deaths, was one of several summer camps in the Kerr County area that weren’t evacuated Friday. Camp Mystic restricts the use of cell phones, which prevented counselors and campers from receiving National Weather Alerts and likely hampered responses to the rising waters in an area lacking evacuation sirens. Asked why they weren’t evacuated at a news conference, Kelly said: “I can’t answer that. I don’t know.”

    A review of the extant reporting on the disaster and the unfolding recovery effort reveals a series of failures at the local and state levels. 

    At the state level, a similar failure to prepare for the worst occurred during the last Texas legislative session. A bill aimed to establish a statewide council to create a statewide emergency response plan and administer grants for things like improved emergency alert systems died in the Senate, with detractors pointing to the $500 million price tag as one reason to oppose it. 

    “This shouldn’t be about anything other than the fact that it’s a half a billion dollars,” state Rep. Tony Tinderholt said during floor debate in April.

    The shortsightedness of this viewpoint can’t be understated, given the high price tag of disasters and of lost lives and the Legislature’s comparative willingness to prioritize other spending, like $2 billion for film industry incentives. (Though Tinderholt, for his part, voted against that, too.) 

    The disaster has served as a wakeup call for at least one state lawmaker, Republican Rep. Wes Virdell, who represents Kerr County and voted against the aforementioned disaster preparedness bill. 

    “I can tell you in hindsight, watching what it takes to deal with a disaster like this, my vote would probably be different now,” Virdell told The Texas Tribune.

    Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who didn’t make the emergency preparedness bill one of his key legislative priorities in his capacity as the president of the Texas Senate, said in an interview on Fox News that if local governments couldn’t afford it, “then the state will step up.” And Sen. Ted Cruz told CBS News he wants to use the tragedy to drive a conversation about how to “make sure warnings of a weather event” reach people more quickly and be “proactive to get people out of the way.”

    But for all this talk about proactive efforts, the facts are clear. Texas lawmakers didn’t fund emergency response systems that potentially could have saved lives, and then 27 girls and their counselors died at a summer camp. In a state with an annual budget of over $338 billion, that is a choice.

    Question: who was awake at 4 am to get the emergency evacuation order? How many had cell phones to get it?



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  • Tuition-free access expanding across California community college campuses

    Tuition-free access expanding across California community college campuses


    Fresno City College campus.

    Credit: Ashleigh Panoo / EdSource

    As enrollment rates across California’s community college system took heavy losses following the Covid-19 pandemic, colleges have focused on advertising their tuition-free access in recent months. 

    Tuition-free community college has been a reality for many students for several decades under the California College Promise Grant, which waives tuition fees for California resident students and non-residents under the California Dream Act who meet the needs-based criteria spelled out in the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, better known as FAFSA.

    For students who don’t qualify for that grant, colleges have the option of using another pot of funding to waive tuition. The separate but similarly named California Promise, created under Assembly Bill 19 in 2017, set aside $46 million annually to be split among the state’s community colleges to support students. 

    Colleges get flexibility with how they spend their portion of the funds, but many are choosing to put theirs toward waiving tuition for students who don’t qualify for the Promise Grant, something administrators say is driving students back to their campuses following pandemic enrollment declines.

    As of the current semester, all 116 California community college campuses offer some form of tuition-free education.

    Thus far, it’s been well-received by students like Paige Stevens, a returning student at Folsom Lake College.

    “I didn’t even know about it. I was set up on a payment plan, paid my first payment, and then the next time I checked my balance, it said it was paid by the California College Promise Grant. I had to look it up,” Stevens said. “Now that I received this financial aid, I was super excited and enrolled in another two classes to take advantage.”

    While much of the data immediately following the pandemic focused on the massive drop in enrollment, which subsequently led to fears of funding cuts, enrollment in the state’s two-year colleges has begun to see a fresh increase, and many administrators point to the Promise Program.

    Some campuses have gone a step further and offered awards to students who may not qualify for the Promise Grant program. 

    Since the 2020-21 semester, Diablo Valley College in Contra Costa County has been offering a “full-time free tuition award” that refunds tuition to students who are California residents, enrolled in at least 12 units, maintain at least a 2.0 GPA and follow an education plan. Marisa Greenberg, marketing and communications coordinator for Diablo Valley, said that more than 8,000 students took advantage of these programs at their campuses.

    “DVC is experiencing a moderate increase in enrollment this semester, and although many factors impact enrollment, we are confident that the college’s free tuition programs have played a role,” Greenberg said in an email. “We know from conversations with students that receiving free tuition makes it possible for many students to either remain in college or to take more units, thereby accelerating their time to completing a degree or certificate.”

    In the San Mateo County Community College District, tuition has been waived for all students, regardless of income, since the fall 2022 semester. Between the fall 2021 and fall 2022 semesters, there was an increase of about 1,500 students, or a 9.5% increase within the three district campuses, according to Chancellor’s Office data.

    The enrollment increase continued in the spring 2023 semester, which saw another increase of 400 students. Spring semesters generally see a loss of enrollment, according to the data. The district’s ad campaign, as seen in mailers and online ads, has focused on pointing out that tuition is now free.

    Chabot College in Hayward also has implemented tuition-free enrollment for first-year students, regardless of income. 

    “At Chabot College, we understand that the ability to pay or offset college expenses yields a greater probability of enrollment,” President Jamal A. Cooks said in an email. “We wanted to make sure to break down the barriers to postsecondary education,” he added, noting that it’s the path toward upward social mobility.

    The strategy seems to be paying off as Chabot College’s enrollment remained steady between the 2021-22 and 2022-23 semesters, seeing only a slight drop of under 200 students.

    Given that the state in 2025 plans to end its “hold harmless” protections, which are currently keeping funding for the colleges at their 2017-18 levels even if their enrollment has declined, these campuses will need to continue reversing the trend of enrollment losses to avoid cuts. Once the temporary freeze expires, the state’s funding for community colleges will largely be reflective of enrollment numbers. The California Promise program will be one of the critical tools they continue to lean into.

    Chip Woerner, director of marketing and communications for Los Positas College, believes that remaining tuition-free keeps access to other services available.

    “A tuition-free campaign … opens a conversation with students about the many resources available to them at our college,” Woerner said in an email.

    Joshua Picazo is majoring in media studies at UC Berkeley and is a member of EdSource’s California Student Journalism Corps.





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  • Collaboration is the key to student success from school to college to career

    Collaboration is the key to student success from school to college to career


    A student in Oakland’s Skyline High School Education and Community Health Pathway sculpts a clay model of the endocrine system.

    Credit: Allison Shelley for American Education

    Could collaboration between TK-12 schools, colleges and industries improve educational equity and opportunity for the most high-needs learners? California is betting that the answer is yes and is backing that belief up with a $250 million investment in the Regional K-16 Education Collaboratives Grant Program.

    The success of California’s nearly 6 million public school students, 60% of whom are low-income, depends on the ability of educators and employers to provide seamless pathways to degrees and careers. This is no small feat and requires a big investment of time, energy and resources.

    In 2020, amid the pandemic, 15 education organizations in the Central Valley, including school districts, community colleges and four-year institutions, joined forces to improve dual enrollment and skill-building opportunities and create more equitable pathways to college. The Fresno-Madera K-16 Collaborative has already launched thousands of learners on a path to and through college. Building on the initial success of this effort, the California Department of General Services has invested $250 million in the Regional K-16 Education Collaboratives Grant Program to fund career-oriented pathways and Recovery with Equity recommendations. Nine regional collaboratives received four-year funding in June 2022, and a second-round application to fund additional collaborative regions just closed on Oct. 3.

    Too often, innovations in education and workforce development occur in silos, with little support to build a community of practice or align strategy. The goal of the K-16 grant program is to break down these silos and get regional entities working together to advance educational equity and workforce resilience. However, because such regional efforts are relatively new, little research and few resources exist to support them.

    From our work supporting educational and workforce partners, here are a few lessons learned:

    1. Focus on learners and equity. Partners in a regional collaborative are drawn together for one common goal: to advance equity of opportunity for learners. As such, keep learners at the center of all discussions. One suggested principle to guide the collaborative: Consider each student, no matter their age, location, or pathway as our collective responsibility, and use this orientation as a north star in decision-making.
    1. Ensure balance. The composition of an educational collaborative matters. Representation and equity are essential in making high-stakes decisions — especially regarding dissemination of funding. To ensure the buy-in of partners, consider educational segments, geography and distribution of partners across education and industry. While postsecondary partners often have larger support structures, resources and student populations, the participation of TK-12 districts and county offices of education is crucial to the success of K-16 collaboratives. Thus, TK-12 partners may need additional financial backing to ensure equitable representation and influence.
    1. Build deep and authentic employer engagement. Strong industry partnerships will drive pathway development in high-needs areas and enhance career education and work-based learning for students. Accomplishing this in a collaborative setting can be challenging. Because the worlds of public education and private industry have historically been separate, businesses/employers must be active participants in meetings and discussions. Talent pipeline management, an approach to workforce development, which positions employers as end customers of education supply chains, may be useful in such collaborations.
    1. Dedicate staffing. A collaborative must have its own staffing to be effective and sustainable. Initiating a collaborative staffed only by volunteers presents challenges, as members, usually employed full-time, have limited availability. Dedicated staff can maintain momentum and handle daily operations, securing the collaborative’s success. Acknowledging members’ limited availability is essential. Providing support and, if feasible, incentives for participation can enhance engagement.
    1. Design the funding model to be both equitable and sustainable. How the collaborative divvies up funds is a momentous decision that influences its ability to advance its priorities. Consider where funds will have the greatest impact. For example, while most rural high schools have far smaller head counts than urban high schools, they face greater challenges competing for grant funds and building career programs because of their geographic isolation and limited resources.

      Wherever possible, leveraging existing funding toward a common purpose can remove silos and maximize sustained collaborative impact. For example the Community Economic Resilience Fund is a $600 million state grant program designed to promote sustainable, climate-friendly economic development and equitable pandemic recovery. Funds support regional communities in developing coordinated road maps for economic development, with an emphasis on the creation of high-quality jobs in sustainable industries. The CERF regions and timeline intentionally align with those of the K-16 Collaboratives grant program, and the two regional efforts should complement and support one another.

      Finally, the K-16 Collaboratives Educational Grant Program expires in 2026, so designing the funding model to be sustainable is critical. In determining how to direct funds, think not only about what pilot initiatives will be sustainable but can provide proof of concept for replication and scalability through future investments.

    An adage says, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

    In a recent panel on diversifying the health care workforce, Freeman Hrabowski, a former educational adviser to President Barack Obama, argued that the single most important policy change he would make would be, “more incentives to have people at different levels of education understanding both the strengths of other levels and the challenges they face. … We need policies that will have more substantive collaboration across levels.”

    At every TK-16 school in California, there are bright spots of innovation and individual educators working tirelessly to make sure their students don’t fall through the cracks. Regional collaboration can harness and scale the impact of these individuals to advance systems change.

    •••

    Annie Sterling is a program manager at Capitol Impact, a Sacramento-based social impact consulting firm, and previously served for more than a decade as an English language arts and social studies teacher in California public schools. Natalie Lenhart, Lex Carlsson and Alex Taghavian of Capitol Impact contributed to this op-ed.

    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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  • Meet School Gig: A new app to connect schools and artists 

    Meet School Gig: A new app to connect schools and artists 


    Rapper D Smoke at a hip-hop jam in Los Angeles, part of the launch event for the School Gig app.

    Credit: Chase Stevens

    Elmo Lovano fell for the drums at the age of 10. He was touring as a musician by 15, performing with the likes of Miley Cyrus and Juliette Lewis. His affinity for music eventually led him to found Jammcard: The Music Professionals Network, which has been described as a sort of LinkedIn for the music industry, connecting musicians to jobs.

    “Art and music led me to become the entrepreneur that I am today,” Lovano said. “It taught me how to communicate with others and how to lead. Drumming gave me a feeling of passion that fueled my drive.”

    Lovano used his unique blend of tech know-how and musical instincts to develop School Gig, a job platform that connects schools with artists of all kinds, from musicians and dancers to actors and visual artists. The new app, which was recently launched at a hip-hop jam featuring R&B singer/songwriter Omarion and Daniel “D Smoke” Farris in Inglewood, is a tool to help schools tap into the expertise of their local arts communities in the wake of Proposition 28. 

     “To me, teaching young students arts and music is one of the most important things they could learn,” said Lovano. “I love bringing people opportunities, and School Gig allows us to provide artists with new opportunities while educating kids and assisting schools. It’s a win-win-win.”

    The app is part of an ongoing effort to bang the drum for Proposition 28, to help recruit the thousands of arts educators who will be needed as California schools begin to ramp up their plans for the state’s 2022 historic initiative to bring arts education back into schools after many decades of budget cuts. The mandate ensures roughly $1 billion in annual funding, administered by the California Department of Education, to teach a wide range of disciplines as diverse as hip-hop riffs and marching band, dance and drama, folk art and high-tech animation.

    “Prop. 28 is the largest investment in arts and music in our nation’s history,” said Austin Beutner,  the former superintendent of LAUSD who spearheaded Proposition 28, “It will provide all 6 million kids in California public schools the opportunity to participate in arts and music at school.”

    That money is on its way to schools. A schedule of allocations for Proposition 28 funds will be posted on the Department of Education website in November, officials say, and the first installment is set to land in February. The guidelines state that at least 80% of the money is earmarked for arts education staff, and the rest can go toward other costs, such as training, supplies, materials and partnership programs. 

    One main challenge now is how to recruit legions of new educators, given that the arts teacher pipeline has shriveled over time. There are so few newly minted arts educators in California that some schools are having to recruit out-of-state teachers. The existing teacher shortage also means that filling all the anticipated arts ed positions will be no mean feat.

    “It’s a significant number of teachers that we’re looking at being hired in California,” said Mike Stone, coordinator of the visual and performing arts with the Bakersfield City School District. “The problem that we will face with Prop. 28 is filling the ranks of teachers, certificated teachers in the classroom, because there simply is going to be a shortage in the pipeline for the next several years.”

    Some say tapping working artists, who can either work alongside classroom teachers or pursue a credential, is a way to grow the ranks until the supply can meet the demand. That’s where School Gig comes in.

    “We know how to hit artists where they live,” Lovano said. “This is exciting for us, it’s powerful to bring artists to the schools. You can still do you, you can have your art, but also you have an opportunity to connect with the schools.”

    “Prop. 28 is the largest investment in arts and music in our nation’s history.”

    Former LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner

    Many are hopeful the app can play a role in helping schools overcome the state’s ongoing teacher shortage, which has deepened during the pandemic, by enticing prospective teaching artists.

    “The School Gig app seems like it has got some legs,” said Merryl Goldberg, a professor of music and arts integration at California State University San Marcos. “The biggest challenge will be outreach to get schools to market their positions.” 

    For the record, there are already sites where schools post open jobs, such as EdJoin. A recent search for “music teacher” resulted in 216 postings representing 363 job vacancies. 

    Stone recently hired 13 new arts teachers, with specialties ranging from stringed instruments and rock music to theater, to help build out the already robust Bakersfield arts ed program. He says it was a highly competitive process that will only get harder as more schools get in on the act.

    “It’s difficult right now, and it’s going to be more difficult this coming hiring cycle because everyone will have the dollars in their bank account and be hiring,” said Stone, a veteran music teacher who started out playing a baritone horn in the fourth grade. “We’re going to see more of a crisis this coming summer.”

    Making deeper connections within local school communities, tapping into homegrown talent, could be part of the solution, some say.

    Austin Beutner, author of Prop 28, at a launch event for the School Gig app.

    “That’s the beauty of something like School Gig,” said Stone who is also the president of the National Association for Music Education, Western Division. “Maybe there is a hip hop dancer in Oakland who wants to work in a school, and maybe there’s a way to connect them to the school district to see if there’s a job that would be of interest.” 

    Several districts have already signed on to participate with the app, including Inglewood and Fresno. 

    “I am excited to start using the platform to find and recruit arts teachers,” said Heather Kuyper-McKeithen, arts education department manager for Fresno Unified. “We have a plan to hire 60 teachers over the next few years for TK-12th grade instruction in dance, theater,  art, and music.”

    Some arts educators, however, are concerned the app may favor putting teaching artists in schools at the expense of credentialed arts teachers. As one arts education expert put it, “teaching is not a gig.” 

    Despite the complications of launching a program this ambitious, including differing opinions about what kind of genres to teach, who should teach them and whether the CDE is providing enough guidance on the rollout, Stone remains steadfast in his enthusiasm. 

    “It’s important that the Department of Education put out accurate information as soon as possible,” said Stone. “In fairness to the Department of Ed, they’re trying to figure it out as well. This is such a huge endeavor to operationalize. The point is that we have to be patient.”

    Like many in the arts education world, Stone is still pinching himself that there is finally funding earmarked for the arts. After 35 years in the field, this is a watershed moment he never thought he’d see happen.

    “There’s finally discrete funding for arts education. We have never had that in California,” said Stone. “It’s a paradigm shift forever. We are leading the way here. It’s an arts education renaissance.” 





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  • Michael Cohen: Texas Sat on a $30 Billion Surplus and Refused to Build a Flood Warning System

    Michael Cohen: Texas Sat on a $30 Billion Surplus and Refused to Build a Flood Warning System


    The leaders of Texas have shown again and again that they are indifferent to the lives of the people of their state. Governor Greg Abbott has repeatedly refused to participate in the federal summer lunch program for low-income children, which would have fed nearly four million children. Abbott and his fellow Republicans imposed one of the strictest laws in the nation blocking abortion and the death rate of pregnant women has shot up. He has repeatedly refused to expand Medicaid to reach more than one million Texans who have no health insurance. Governor Abbott and Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick want to do as little as possible to provide public services or to improve the lives of the poor. They want low taxes. They believe in individual responsibility. That’s their highest priority.

    The following article was written by Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer. It appeared on the Meiselas blog. He called it: “When the System Drowns Its People.”

    Cohen writes:

    There are disasters, and then there are premeditated failures dressed up as acts of God. What’s unfolding across Central Texas isn’t just a freak storm or an unfortunate tragedy; it’s the culmination of arrogance, willful neglect, and a depraved obsession with austerity over human life. More than 100 are confirmed dead, and over 160 remain missing. This is not just weather. This is the rotting fruit of a political doctrine that puts dollars before dignity, and ideology before infrastructure.

    This is Flash Flood Alley. They’ve called it that for decades. Scientists warned. Local officials knew. But Texas chose not to prepare. The topography is unforgiving: limestone hills, shallow rivers, rapid runoff. When the sky opens up, this region doesn’t flood. It drowns. It suffocates. And still, nothing. No modernized alert systems. No meaningful statewide plan. Just the usual chest-beating about “personal responsibility” while entire families were swept into the dark.

    Here’s the insult to injury: Texas is sitting on $30 billion in a rainy-day fund. That’s not a metaphor; that’s a literal pile of untouched cash that could’ve bought sirens, early-warning systems, elevated infrastructure, floodplain mapping, and the staffing to support it all. Instead, it sat in a bank account while children drowned in their camp bunks.

    Now comes the scapegoating. Right on cue, Texas officials have turned their aim at the National Weather Service, claiming it failed to provide sufficient warning. But the San Antonio Express-News called it what it is: a coward’s deflection. The NWS issued alerts—repeatedly. The problem wasn’t the forecast. The problem was that the system built to respond to that forecast had been deliberately dismantled.

    Let’s talk about DOGE: the Department of Government Efficiency. This isn’t satire. This is a real federal agency, created in 2025 under Trump’s second administration. Its stated mission? To “streamline” government. Its real job? Gut it from the inside out. Think of DOGE as the ideological Molotov cocktail thrown into the machinery of public service. Under the guise of saving taxpayer money, it laid off meteorologists, froze critical positions at FEMA, slashed NOAA’s coordination grants, and eviscerated the very agencies that make emergency response possible. Efficiency? No. This is strategic sabotage dressed up in a four-letter acronym.

    DOGE didn’t just cut fat; it amputated limbs. In the name of small government, they made us small-minded. In the name of freedom, they left us unprotected. And in the name of fiscal responsibility, they created the exact scenario that led to over a hundred preventable deaths in Texas. It’s bureaucratic manslaughter. And it’s spreading.

    Texas didn’t just follow DOGE’s lead; it internalized it. Governor Abbott didn’t need to be told to ignore warnings. He’s been doing it for years. Flash Flood Alley has seen repeated disasters, and each time, the response has been more anemic than the last. Why fund a new emergency alert system when you can cut taxes and call it liberty? Why invest in preparedness when you can just blame someone else after the storm?

    But here’s the fundamental question: What the hell is government for if not to protect its people?

    If your ideology leads you to hoard billions while people drown, then your ideology is broken. If your system prioritizes “lean governance” over living children, then your system is immoral. And if your political leaders shrug at death tolls while quoting spreadsheets, then they shouldn’t be in office; they should be in court.

    We live in a nation of deep denial. We still treat climate change as an abstraction. We pretend billion-dollar disasters are flukes. But we are in the age of permanent emergency. The floods are coming every year now. The fires, the heat domes, the inland hurricanes—they’re all part of the new American experience. And yet, our government—federal, state, and local—is being stripped down to the studs in the name of a 1980s fiscal fever dream about trickle-down competence.

    Let’s not forget: FEMA, too, is on the chopping block. The same anti-government crusade that birthed DOGE has its sights set on dismantling the last institutions capable of responding to disaster. Because in the minds of these so-called “efficiency experts,” saving lives is a luxury. The bare minimum is too expensive.

    Texas is the cautionary tale. It’s what happens when the government decides its job is not to serve the people, but to shrink until it disappears. The dead in Flash Flood Alley didn’t need to die. They died because warnings went unheeded, because funds went unused, and because the infrastructure built to protect them was methodically, proudly destroyed.

    So no, this wasn’t just rain. It wasn’t just a storm. It was a policy choice. And that choice killed people.

    Let this be the moment we stop pretending that slashing budgets is a moral good. Let this be the moment we say, with clarity and fury: government is not the problem; government is the responsibility. And if it can’t do the basics—warn, protect, rescue—then it isn’t just broken. It’s complicit.

    Flash Flood Alley didn’t have to be a graveyard. But thanks to DOGE and the cowardice it inspires, it is.

    And if we don’t change course, it won’t be the last.



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  • Chico State professor hit with legal fees in failed libel case

    Chico State professor hit with legal fees in failed libel case


    Suspended Chico State professor David Stachura’s failed effort to sue a colleague for libel has hit him in the wallet.

    A Superior Court judge has ordered Stachura to pay the California State University system more than $64,000 it spent to defend a lecturer he sued after she said at a campuswide forum nearly a year ago that Stachura threatened to shoot up the biology department. The university indemnified the lecturer, Betsey Tamietti.

    Judge Stephen Benson threw out the suit in July under a California statute that allows successful defendants to recoup the cost of beating back such litigation. He issued the fee order late last month. Stachura also sued his estranged wife for libel but withdrew the suit.

    “As a public institution, we must be responsible stewards of the money allocated to us by the state of California,” Chico State spokesperson Andrew Staples said in an email. The school looks “forward to recovering the attorney’s fees the university was forced to incur to fight this lawsuit that the court agreed was without merit and would have chilled free speech.”

    Stachura’s lawyer, Kasra Parsad, didn’t respond to a request to comment on the ruling.

    David Loy, legal director of the San Rafael-based First Amendment Coalition, said the law worked as intended in the Stachura case. “It protects those who speak out on matters of public concern from being intimidated by frivolous and costly lawsuits,” he said. It allows defendants to quickly beat back bogus suits meant to intimidate critics without years of costly litigation. In libel cases, “the process itself is the punishment,” Loy said.

    The lecturer’s remarks came days after EdSource reported that Stachura’s estranged wife said in court documents in the couple’s divorce case that he threatened to kill two colleagues who cooperated in a university investigation that found Stachura had an inappropriate affair with a graduate student that included sex in his office.

     A different judge in August granted Chico State a three-year workplace violence restraining order against Stachura. It requires him to stay off campus and away from Tamietti and others, including the professors who reported his affair with the student.

    Stachura was put on paid suspension in December, a status that continues, Staples said. An investigation of the threats against the co-workers and other matters “is complete and has moved to the next stage of the personnel process,” he said.

    The CSU chancellor’s office in Long Beach is overseeing an outside investigation of how the Chico State administration handled the Stachura affair, including the original investigation of the sex case and the gun threats. It is expected to be concluded in a month or two, Amy Bentley-Smith, a spokesperson, said in an email. Stachura received light punishment in the sex case and was later named the school’s ‘”outstanding professor” of the 2020-2021 academic year.

    During hearings in the restraining order case, Shanna McDaniel, a deputy state attorney general, said that the fact Stachura was likely to lose the libel case and be hit with the type of fee motion that Benson approved made him even more dangerous and a greater threat to the campus community.

    In a written declaration in the libel case, Stachura said he’s suffered financially over the last year, losing consulting jobs he had for several companies. He is now listed as the founder and chief executive of a company called Philanthropic Pharma, according to its website. He is listed as its only employee.





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  • Community college professors allege new diversity policies infringe on academic freedom

    Community college professors allege new diversity policies infringe on academic freedom


    Bill Blanken, a chemistry professor at Reedley College, claims that a diversity and equity policy in California’s community colleges amounts to a “loyalty oath.”

    Photo courtesy of Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression

    Bill Blanken, a chemistry professor at Reedley College, said a new diversity and equity policy in California’s community colleges amounts to a “loyalty oath” and “compelled speech” that runs afoul of free speech and academic freedom. 

    Community colleges’ DEIA goals: address diversity and especially racism

    The push for new diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEIA) policies came out of a long-running effort to improve student outcomes in California Community Colleges. The systemwide plan called Vision for Success outlined goals for improving transfer rates and other outcomes for students. 

    In 2019, the board of governors for the California Community Colleges voted in favor of establishing a framework for evaluating all its employees on their competency in serving a diverse student population. More than seven out of 10 students in the California Community College system are not white, according to 2022-23 enrollment data from community college’s Data Mart site.

    But in the wake of the George Floyd protests in 2020, discussions over how to address diversity and especially racism on college campuses became more pointed. In August 2020, the Student Senate for the California Community Colleges held town halls where students could discuss the racism they had experienced on their college campuses and offer possible solutions. 

    These discussions led to Anti-Racism: A Student Plan of Action, a report which called for changes to the curriculum and for training of all college employees in areas of cultural diversity and concepts like unconscious bias.

    During the first town hall, several students spoke about being assigned texts that contained racial epithets. Students said they did not object to the texts themselves, examples of which  include “Letter from Birmingham Jail” by Martin Luther King, Jr. and John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men.” The students said, however, that they objected because professors, who were not Black, read these epithets aloud. Other students said they did not take issue with being assigned white authors who held racist views, but that authors with opposing perspectives were excluded from the syllabus. 

    Some students detailed explicit racism they faced from professors.

    Joseph Merchain, a student at Pasadena City Community College from South Los Angeles, said that as a Black man, he felt singled out when his professor told him that his dreadlocks were not professional in front of the class.

    Merchain said, “So I’m taking a whole two-hour bus ride every morning and every night just to get to and from school, just to be racially profiled?”

    Blanken, along with five other tenured professors in State Center Community College District, are challenging new California Community College diversity policies that change the way employees are evaluated. A lawsuit, filed in August, describes the plaintiffs as critics of anti-racism and diversity, equity, accessibility and inclusion (DEIA) principles who are concerned that these stances could result in negative performance evaluations or even losing their jobs.

    “We need legal protection,” Blanken said in an interview with EdSource on Oct. 12. 

    Last year, the Board of Governors for the California Community Colleges adopted new regulations requiring local districts to evaluate employees, including faculty, on their competency in working with a diverse student population. Local districts were required to be in compliance last month.

    Blanken disagrees with the DEIA policy’s premise that racism is embedded in institutions, including California’s community colleges, or in disciplines such as chemistry, math and physics. He argues that these fields should be taught in a way that is race- and gender-neutral.  That is at the crux of the lawsuit by the six plaintiffs.

    Filed by free speech advocacy group Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), the suit names California Community College Chancellor Sonya Christian, the board of governors of the California Community Colleges as well as the chancellor and governing board of State Center Community College District.

    A related suit, filed in June on behalf of Bakersfield College history professor Daymon Johnson, targets the chancellor and board of the Kern Community College District.

    State Center Community College District, which serves Fresno and surrounding central San Joaquin Valley communities, is one of the first districts in the state to include these new diversity requirements in its latest faculty contract. The district said in a statement that it will defend its implementation of the state’s DEIA regulations and its collaborative effort with the State Center Federation of Teachers.

     “The District now and forever will be a welcoming place for a diverse population, with a commitment to access and inclusion,” wrote Jill Wagner, spokesperson for State Center Community College District. “DEIA initiatives have sparked many important conversations spanning decades, and as this issue continues to evolve, efforts to address them will continue to be at the forefront.” 

    The district’s new evaluation process requires instructional faculty to demonstrate “teaching and learning practices that reflect DEIA and anti-racist principles,” in addition to a written self-evaluation on the faculty’s “understanding” of DEIA competencies and “anti-racist principles,” with the goal of improving “equitable student outcomes and course completion.”

    How these principles will play out in the next rounds of evaluation is still uncertain. Blanken said he has not received guidance from his department. A September memo by State Center’s human resources department noted that the district and academic senate have  yet to develop uniform training guidelines for evaluations, and that meanwhile, “evaluatees should, in good faith, review the language in the contract and do their best to speak to how they have demonstrated or shown progress toward practices that embrace the DEIA principles.”

    Daniel Ortner, the FIRE attorney representing the State Center professors said, “That’s not good enough when free speech is on the line.” 

    Ortner added that broad, undefined regulations could have a “chilling effect” on speech in the classroom. Plaintiffs are particularly concerned about a framework released by the California Community College Curriculum Committee that warns professors not to “‘weaponize’ academic freedom and academic integrity in an academic discipline or inflict curricular trauma” on historically marginalized students.

    In the suit, plaintiffs said they have changed the way they teach their classes this semester because of the new DEIA policies. Loren Palsgaard, English professor at Madera Community College, said he will no longer assign texts that contain racial slurs, including Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” and works by William Faulkner and Flannery O’Connor. 

    A response filed on Oct. 2 by California Attorney General Rob Bonta, on behalf of thc chancellor and the board of governors challenges the claim the DEIA policies bar professors from using these texts, adding that this framework is not binding and only provides a reference for college districts creating their own DEIA policies.  

    The guidance “expresses competencies the Chancellor’s Office endorses, but does not require,” wrote Melissa Villarin, spokesperson for the state Chancellor’s Office. “The regulations do not impose penalties on district employees. They are intended to contribute to employee professional development.”

    Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law, said that it is well within a college’s rights to not only prescribe the curriculum for courses but to insist that faculty be sensitive to teaching a diverse student body. He added, however, that schools cannot require that faculty espouse a particular viewpoint in their teaching.

    “The question is whether this is more the former than the latter,” Chemerinsky wrote in an email to EdSource, adding that he believes the government has a strong argument that this is within its realm of prescribing a curriculum. 

    “It is hard to say on this record that the First Amendment has been violated,” Chemerisky wrote. “It would be different if a teacher was being disciplined and bringing a challenge.” None of the plaintiffs in the suits has been disciplined.

    A separate suit, filed by the Institute for Free Speech on behalf of Bakersfield College professor Daymon Johnson, points to the firing of Matthew Garrett, a professor who had been critical of DEIA initiatives. Garrett was not subject to new DEIA policies affecting faculty evaluations. However, Johnson’s suit claims that he worries that he, too, could lose his job, because he shares many of the same conservative values and anti-DEIA stances as Garrett.

    The Kern Community College District said in a statement that Garrett was not terminated because of his opinions on DEIA or other free speech issues.

    “Matthew Garrett was terminated after a lengthy and detailed examination of his disciplinary violations at Bakersfield College,” said district spokesperson Norma Rojas.

    Garrett, who was terminated by the college in April 2023, contests these alleged disciplinary violations. He filed a lawsuit against the college in May 2021, claiming that he faced retaliation for exercising his free speech. He said in a statement to EdSource, that the district has “fabricated an absurd pretext that simply does not hold up under scrutiny.”

    Plaintiffs in both suits have asked the court for a preliminary injunction that would prevent the California Community Colleges’ DEIA policy — as well as State Center Community College District’s faculty contract — from going into immediate effect. The request remains pending in federal court, and no hearing date is currently set.

    Ortner said he is not aware of any other lawsuits from California’s 116 community colleges that are targeting the new DEIA policies, but he’s keeping his eye on the issue statewide.

    “A lot of colleges have anti-discrimination protections that make students feel welcome, such as tutoring, mentoring. There are a lot of things that you can do that don’t impinge on free speech,” Ortner said. “California colleges are much more aggressive and forward in advocating for these principles.”

    Editors’ note: This story has been updated to include a statement from Matthew Garrett.





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  • Ted Cruz Slashed NOAA Funding for Weather Forecasting in Trump Budget

    Ted Cruz Slashed NOAA Funding for Weather Forecasting in Trump Budget


    Since the disaster in Texas, where more than 100 lives were lost to a flash flood in the middle of the night, Senator Ted Cruz has been readily available to comment for every television camera.

    He has warned Democrats and Republicans alike not to politicize the tragic events (forgetting that Republicans pounced on the Los Angeles fires to blame Democrats and DEI as the 98-mile-an-hour winds were still spreading disaster. They blamed Mayor Karen Bass [who is female and Black], they blamed the female leaders of the LA Fire Department, they blamed Governor Gavin Newsom for refusing to turn on an imaginary faucet in Northern California).

    What Cruz has not mentioned is that he inserted a cut into Trump’s Big Ugly Bill that slashed $150 million from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s budget for forecasting the weather.

    The Guardian reported:

    “There’s no doubt afterwards we are going to have a serious retrospective as you do after any disaster and say, ‘OK what could be done differently to prevent this disaster?’” Cruz told Fox News. “The fact you have girls asleep in their cabins when flood waters are rising, something went wrong there. We’ve got to fix that and have a better system of warnings to get kids out of harm’s way.”

    The National Weather Service has faced scrutiny in the wake of the disaster after underestimating the amount of rainfall that was dumped upon central Texas, triggering floods that caused the deaths and about $20bn in estimated economic damages. Late-night alerts about the dangerous floods were issued by the service but the timeliness of the response, and coordination with local emergency services, will be reviewed by officials.

    But before his Grecian holiday, Cruz ensured a reduction in funding to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (Noaa) efforts to improve future weather forecasting of events that cause the sort of extreme floods that are being worsened by the human-caused climate crisis.

    Cruz inserted language into the Republicans’ “big beautiful” reconciliation bill, before its signing by Donald Trump on Friday, that eliminates a $150m fund to “accelerate advances and improvements in research, observation systems, modeling, forecasting, assessments, and dissemination of information to the public” around weather forecasting.

    Cruz was vacationing in Greece with his family when the flood occurred. A few years ago, when the power grid in Texas collapsed during a bitter cold spell, Cruz and family were on their way to Cancun. Maybe he should put out public alerts about his vacations so we can all be prepared for disasters.

    Politifact debunked the claim that Trump totally defunded NOAA and the National Weather Service, it acknowledged that cuts were made (at the insistence of DOGE).

    “While the administration has not defunded the NWS or NOAA, it is proposing in 2026 to cut significant research arms of the agency, including the Office of Atmospheric Research, a major hot bed of research,” Matt Lanza, Houston-based meteorologist and editor of The Eyewall, a hurricane and extreme weather website, told PolitiFact. “Multiple labs that produce forecasting tools and research used to improve forecasting would also be impacted. The reorganization that’s proposed would decimate NOAA’s research capability.” 



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  • Trump and Newsom are stealing from our children to avoid hard choices

    Trump and Newsom are stealing from our children to avoid hard choices


    From left, President Donald Trump and Gov. Gavin Newsom.

    Credit: Official White House photo / Molly Riley and AP Photo / Rich Pedroncelli

    For all of their differences, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and U.S. President Donald Trump have one thing in common: both are stealing from the future to pay for their budgets.

    Trump’s thefts take the form of budget deficits that are financed by issuing U.S. Treasury securities that must be paid back by future budgets, plus interest, with money that future governments won’t be able to use for their own services. His latest budget is expected to add $4 trillion to the national debt.

    Newsom’s thefts take the form of drawing from budget reserves that are supposed to be used to provide services during recessions and borrowings from Special Funds that are supposed to provide special services. Newsom has taken so much from budget reserves that his own Department of Finance forecasts the next governor will face his or her first budget without reserves. He also skips or shorts deposits to retirement funds that set aside money for future retirement payments to employees.

    How did Trump and Newsom end up with deficits during an economic expansion? The short answer is that Trump cut taxes while Newsom increased spending. Deficits are expected to continue in both Washington, D.C., and Sacramento. To make matters worse, by issuing budget debt during economic expansions, Trump and Newsom set up future governments for a double whammy during recessions when those governments will have to cover Newsom’s and Trump’s thefts, even as their own tax revenues fall.

    Another thing Trump and Newsom have in common is throwing people off of Medicaid rolls while throwing money at favored classes. Trump’s latest budget subjects adults to work requirements, reduces funding and adds administrative hurdles, while Newsom’s latest budget imposes asset limits, freezes enrollment of new undocumented adults, and levies new fees on enrollees. Trump’s favored classes are corporations, higher-income taxpayers, tip-based workers and Social Security recipients who got tax cuts, while Newsom’s favored classes are government unions that got more jobs and higher salaries, and entertainment companies that got more corporate welfare.

    Trump and Newsom aren’t the only ones budgeting with thefts from the future. In his most recent budget, Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Alberto Carvalho skipped an annual contribution to a fund set up to cover health care costs for retired employees. You would think he would know better since a principal reason for the deficit he is struggling with is past skips and shorts that have led LAUSD’s annual spending on retirement debt to nearly triple over the last 10 years to nearly $2 billion per year.

    Each has their own reasons for their actions — Trump asserts that tax cuts will eventually produce more tax revenues, while Newsom and Carvalho assert that deficit spending is needed now — but all are adding to past thefts that are already robbing citizens of huge levels of resources. The federal government is already spending more every year on interest than the $833 billion it spends on defense; California is already spending as much on bonded and retirement debt than on the $23 billion it sends to the University of California, California State University and California Community Colleges systems combined; and LAUSD is already spending nearly 20% of its revenues on retirement costs.

    By their actions, Trump, Newsom and Carvalho have just added to those burdens. Our country desperately needs leaders who care about the future.

    •••

    David Crane is a lecturer in public policy at Stanford University and president of Govern for California, a political philanthropy that works to counter special interest influence over California governments.

    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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  • Nonprofit offers high schoolers in foster care guidance on getting to college

    Nonprofit offers high schoolers in foster care guidance on getting to college


    Students at the First Star Sacramento State Academy attend a lecture.

    Credit: Linda Howe-Ram / First Star Sacramento State Academy

    First Star Academy, a college-preparation program launched at UCLA in 2011, has been working to help foster youth students graduate from high school and reach levels of higher education.

    Foster youth have the worst reported education outcomes in the nation as they lack school stability. According to the California Department of Education, only about 60% of foster youth in California complete high school, compared with 85% less than their non-foster counterparts. In addition, no more than 15% of California’s foster youth are considered college-ready, compared with 44% statewide. 

    First Star Academy is determined to bridge this gap.

    Originally piloted at UCLA, First Star Academy is designed to provide support to high school students who have experienced foster care. This support is offered through tutoring, resources and connections to other foster youth programs to guide them toward higher education. 

    First Star students have access to youth mentors who help them through college applications, academic planning and life skills. Among these youth mentors is Ariana Fernandez, a student at California State University, Sacramento. 

    Fernandez, 21, has been working with First Star Sacramento State Academy for over a year. She hosts weekly office hours for students, provides tutoring and offers knowledge on things like how to apply for a driver’s license, build a resume and develop good study habits. 

    Sacramento’s First Star chapter currently serves 25 students and has five youth mentors. Students are assigned a specific mentor and are expected to meet with them weekly.  

    Fernandez is passionate about her students and wants them to view her as a resource, but she also had doubts about returning for the 2023-24 academic year. 

    “Initially, I was hesitant about joining First Star again because I had trouble forming connections with the students. But after the summer program, they really opened up to me, and that really gave me the confidence I needed to continue serving for First Star,” Fernandez said. 

    Her hesitation stemmed from her midterm arrival to the program. Fernandez didn’t want to impose on the existing relationships with students and their mentors.

    “I came late, so most of the students had already bonded with their mentor, and I didn’t want them to feel like I was disrupting that connection,” she said.

    A senior at John F. Kennedy High School in Sacramento and a scholar at First Star Sacramento State Academy, she values the friends the program has urged her to make.  

    “First Star gave me the opportunity to make connections with people I never would have met. I always look forward to in-person events to do fun activities with my friends,” said the student.

     “I wish there were more in-person events, more Saturday sessions and more immersion programs.” 

    In the summer and Saturday sessions, students can experience life on a college campus and create bonds through numerous activities such as rock climbing, karaoke, cooking demos and kayaking. This bonding encourages the students to develop close relationships with supportive staff, mentors and peers who understand the challenges of being foster youths.

    This past summer, First Star Sacramento State Academy took students to the Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, Lake Natoma and to see Broadway shows at Music Circus. 

    Sacramento State’s First Star program coordinator is Victoria Garcia. With her background in family studies, Garcia, 25, facilitated workshops based around mental health and wellness this past summer. 

    According to the National Foster Youth Institute, it’s estimated that as many as 80% of children and adolescents entering foster care have mental health issues.

    “This is a great opportunity for the youth to be able to express their feelings and share their experiences in the foster care system with other scholars who have similar stories,” Garcia said. “This session helped bring our group closer together and break down some built-up walls.” 

    First Star Academies continue to expand nationally, with new campuses around the country regularly joining the program.

    Aya Mikbel is a fourth-year student studying political science and journalism at California State University, Sacramento and a member of EdSource’s California Student Journalism Corps.





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