So the U.S. government accepted the luxurious jet offered by Qatar to serve as Air Force 1, the President’s official airplane.
The New York Timespublished a lengthy story –“the inside story”–of Trump’s longing to accept the jet as a gift from the government of Qatar. It explains that the Qataris had been trying to sell the opulent jet for five years, with no success.
Trump wants an opulent jet, even if it is a used jet. He thinks the U.S. should have the biggest airplane for its president. The Qataris flew the jet to Palm Beach, so he could personally inspect it. He fell in love with it. He always falls for gold trappings. He thought there was no problem accepting a gift from another nation. Who would turn down a “free” gift?
The inside story begins:
President Trump wanted a quick solution to his Air Force One problem.
The United States signed a $3.9 billion contract with Boeing in 2018 for two jets to be used as Air Force One, but a series of delays had slowed the work far past the 2024 delivery deadline, possibly beyond Mr. Trump’s second term.
Now Mr. Trump had to fly around in the same old planes that transported President George H.W. Bush 35 years ago. It wasn’t just a vanity project. Those planes, which are no longer in production, require extensive servicing and frequent repairs, and officials from both parties, reaching back a decade or more, had been pressing for replacements.
Mr. Trump, though, wanted a new plane while he was still in office. But how?
“We’re the United States of America,” Mr. Trump said this month. “I believe that we should have the most impressive plane.”
The story of how the Trump administration decided that it would accept a free luxury Boeing 747-8 from Qatar to serve as Air Force One involved weeks of secret coordination between Washington and Doha. The Pentagon and the White House’s military office swung into action, and Mr. Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steven Witkoff, played a key role.
Aeronautical experts say that it would cost as much as $1 billion to renovate the jet and give it the security of an Air Force 1. It might not be ready until the end of Trump’s term, when (they said) it would be retired to the Trump Library.
The story failed to mention the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, which prohibits the President or other federal officials from accepting gifts from foreign nations.
The emoluments clause, also called the foreign emoluments clause, is a provision of the U.S. Constitution (Article I, Section 9, Paragraph 8) that generally prohibits federal officeholders from receiving any gift, payment, or other object or service of value from a foreign state or its rulers, officers, or representatives. The clause provides that:
No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.
The Constitution also contains a “domestic emoluments clause” (Article II, Section 1, Paragraph 7), which prohibits the president from receiving any “Emolument” from the federal government or the states beyond “a Compensation” for his “Services” as chief executive.
I have so far not seen a story that explains that the gift is unconstitutional, unless Congress gives its consent.
I think we have become so accustomed to Trump ignoring and violating the Constitution that it isn’t even worth mentioning. This is a classic demonstration of the Overton Window.
Members of the Los Angeles Unified School District school board continued to discuss student safety Tuesday — and are still a ways away from determining whether to revamp its police presence on individual campuses.
A safety task force — which previously recommended each campus choose whether to have police stationed at its site — made a presentation about LAUSD’s approach to student safety, including community-based safety methods such as restorative justice. They will continue to meet in the coming school year.
Discussions about reintroducing police to individual LAUSD campuses are taking place for the first time since George Floyd’s murder amid a 45% increase in incidents between 2017-18 and 2022-23, including suicide risk, fighting/physical aggression, threats, illegal/controlled substances and weapons.
Here’s what the board members said at Tuesday’s meeting. Their remarks have been edited for length and clarity.
School board President Jackie Goldberg: ‘Not really desirous of having armed police on campus’
I spent 17 years teaching in Compton. … We had two sets of gangs. … We then hired school police to come onto campus. The problem was that there were two (officers). The problem was that when the gangs came over the fences, they came over in 10s and 20s. … How did they have guns? They came over in sufficient numbers to disarm the police. So, I’m not really desirous of having armed police on campus. …
LAUSD Board Member Jackie Goldberg
What do I think school police can do? I think school police can be in neighborhoods where most of the problems happen. … What we mostly had to do was to have them in the community around the school and for us to be able to find out from trusted — usually — graduates of ours when trouble was about to happen. And so, (police) could be not in twos, but they could be sent in fours and fives to neighborhoods where things were about to come down.
… If you want to stop drug abuse, are you going to have a police officer sitting in the bathrooms because that’s where the exchanges take place? No, we’re not. We’re not going to put a police officer to sit in classrooms. Do we want school police on campus when there’s a fight? Yeah, that may be useful.
… Most of the fights are not bad. And I think as we keep statistics, I would like us to have a notion of what the types of fights were. Was this two or three kids who … called your mother something and they’re fighting and it gets stopped? I think they should be counted, but I think they aren’t the problem. The problem is the massive fights, and those do need to be treated differently.
Secondly, we do not have restorative justice in this district. Period. I visited all 151 of the schools I represent, several of them several times, and in only a handful of them did I see anything that resembled restorative justice.
School board Vice President Scott Schmerelson: ‘I also believe in school police’
Let me just tell you what really bothers me: when people think that school police are supposed to do discipline at school. They’re not supposed to be doing discipline at school. That’s the teacher’s job. That’s my job as the principal, or the assistant principal, or the dean. …
LAUSD Board Member Scott Schemerelson Credit: Julie Leopo / EdSource
I do believe that we need climate advocates at school. Absolutely — all the help that we can get at making peace at school. Very, very important. … Yes, I do believe in restorative justice. I do. Our kids need to see what they’ve done wrong and how to make amends for what they have done. Very, very important. I also believe in school police.
We are responsible from the minute the kids leave home to the minute they get to school. And, we’re responsible from the minute they leave school to the minute they go home. … That’s why safe passage is really so important too. Kids need to have check-in points along the way home to and from school. Extremely important. Everybody has a job at school, and we should not be pushing people under the bus whether you’re a school police officer, or a climate control officer.
Board Member Rocio Rivas: ‘We do have the data on what we need to do’
We’re not the same since the pandemic. Things have changed. Our students are suffering. They have high anxiety. There’s increase of suicidal ideation.
LAUSD Board Member Rocio Rivas
… We have (positive behavior intervention and support) and restorative justice, but they’re not strengthened. They’re not bolstered. So, the district does have that system in place where we can create safe, loving, culturally responsive schools, but we’re not giving the investments or the support that our schools need.
… The area that needs that support are middle schools. … That is where we start seeing the suicide ideation, when we start seeing the fights, when we start seeing our students needing to medicate themselves.
… We love our kids, and at early ed centers, we love them; we want to protect them. But once they leave those early ed centers, it’s almost as if they lost that system of love and compassion and care. And we put in other systems, and we look at them (as though) all these kids are deviants. No, they are children. They are children until even after they’re 18 … because their brains are still developing.
… We know exactly what we need to do, but we’re not putting the money or the strength or the emphasis. … We’re talking about test scores, but you know what? You are not going to see increases … in student achievement unless that child feels that they’re being heard, that that school cares about them, that they have somebody in there.
… We do have the data on what we need to do. We have the funds. We just don’t have the buy-in from this district, from this building, because it’s so disconnected from our schools and from our communities.
Board Member Tanya Ortiz Franklin: ‘We’ll keep the conversations going’
LAUSD Board Member Tanya Ortiz Franklin
I’ll just bring our attention back to the Community Based Safety Resolution. The last resolve does ask us … to strengthen community-based safety approaches … and resources as a primary means of cultivating and maintaining positive school climates and keeping school communities safe even in emergency situations.
… We need the (restorative) training throughout for all of the staff members — as many folks can come back before the school year starts. We’ve got $350 million invested in people who are focused exclusively on safety. If we can focus on this community, restorative approach as the primary means — really shifting away from that punitive, traditional, policing model — I think we’ll get even closer to the vision of this resolution that we all passed. I think we’ll keep the conversations going next year in the school safety committee.
Board Member Kelly Gonez: ‘It’s about creating a true infrastructure around community-based safety’
I was looking just at the (Local Control and Accountability Plan) information for our meeting later, and it highlights different demographic groups of students and the percent of students reporting that they feel safe in the school experience survey, and there are significant gaps — like for our Black students, who are rating the lowest in terms of whether or not they feel safe, which obviously is very concerning, as well as the number of students who feel like they are part of their school.
LAUSD Board Member Kelly GonezCredit: Julie Leopo / EdSource
Those numbers, it looks like, took a significant dip in the wake of the pandemic and have not really fully recovered, and I would just surmise that there’s a connection between feeling disconnected or not seen at your school site and whether or not there is true safety and belonging for students.
… It’s not just about restorative justice and the practices, but it’s about creating a true infrastructure around community-based safety. And, I think that’s inclusive of a number of staffing positions as well — beyond, just for example, your restorative justice teachers and beyond the partnerships with community based organizations, which are also integral. It’s about, for example, our classified staffing positions. We know that a number of our incidents happen during lunch, during dismissal.
… I would just ask that in any plan … that we’re providing for the necessary staffing and supervision that our schools and our students really deserve — and especially looking at our secondary schools, because we know that’s where the majority of these incidents are happening.
Board Member Nick Melvoin: ‘The glaring omission (is) … the data on the fights.’
LAUSD Board Member Nick MelvoinCredit: Julie Leopo / EdSourc
Regardless of our views of what’s happening outside of the school, our responsibility is for school safety on the school campus, and we have different ideas. … But I do think really the glaring omission (is) … the data on the fights.
… I’m trying to understand where we can trace that based on grade levels, and Covid, and the effects of the pandemic and the success or lack thereof of our positive behavioral intervention supports and restorative justice. … (and) on school campuses with the current deployment model, which is not having police there, except for rare emergencies.
… We have different ideas … and I just hope that we can engage, starting from the premise that we all want kids to be safe and talk to each other and not just about or past each other.
And then the last thing, too. … I just want to make sure that the city and the county aren’t off the hook for this — and that as we’re talking amongst each other, we’re also bringing them in.
Board Member George McKenna: ‘We still haven’t come to grips with the reality of what makes the schools safe’
I’ve been in this for 62 years — I’ve never seen police criminalize the children. I’ve seen them respond.
… Do you know that there is no guideline in a teacher’s contract — or even an administrator’s contract — that says you must go break up a fight? The only one that has to do that is someone who’s trained to do that. And that will be a school police officer.
Board Member Dr. George J. McKenna IIICredit: Julie Leopo / EdSource
… I have no problem with the climate coaches or whatever they’re called, in addition to the people that have been there in uniform with the licensure and the legal responsibility for student safety … And the only people that have voted for the safety of school police being on campus are people who have been on the campus as administrators, including principals. … The most important people in the school district are the people who run the school, that’s the principal.
… The most police officers we’ve ever had on the campus … is two, and I think it’s understaffed if you only put one on it because they have no backup. They need to be visible in order to assist the students and the prevention of incidents that occur because … the students will confide in them.
….We’re not OK the way we are. And we still haven’t come to grips with the reality of what makes the schools safe and whether or not our school safety officers are a benefit to us. When you start with the premise and use the word the “punitive school police” and that’s the way you introduce it, you are already biased because that means you don’t understand what they do. And you can fill up the room with your accolades and your people that you’ve encouraged to be here, but we have to go to the schools on a regular basis. It makes a school safe.
Sitting in the rear-facing “way back seat” of my family’s station wagon in 1979, we were counting trees tied with yellow ribbons to memorialize 55 Americans held hostage in Iran. As kids, we didn’t understand the conflict, but one thing was clear: Securing the hostages’ freedom was a collective national obsession. Much has changed about the way we express our democratic values in the U.S. and how we think about innocent hostages held today in Gaza.
My nostalgia makes me wonder how young people make sense of our current political divisions, including at UCLA. As an educator and researcher at UCLA’s School of Education and Information Studies, my colleagues and I have been discussing our role to prepare K-12 teachers to advance social justice as global citizens. Teaching and learning to think criticallyand consider a multiplicity of perspectives has never been so crucial, nor has it been so controversial.
When I mention my friends’ 23-year-old son, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who was severely wounded when abducted by Hamas terrorists from Israel’s Nova Music Festival on Oct. 7, I have been met with skepticism and distrust among colleagues who share my social justice values. It shouldn’t feel so alienating to speak out for the release of the hostages, who include eight Americans among the 120 multinationals held in Gaza for more than 260 days.
Recently, when a colleague asked about the numbered piece of masking tape I was wearing, I explained it is in solidarity with Hersh’s mom, Rachel, marking the days of her heartbreak and his captivity. “Well, now you know how the other side feels,” he replied, as if supporting the hostages equates to indifference to Palestinian suffering. I tried to counter his assumption by explaining that advocating for the release of innocent hostages does not diminish my concern for innocent lives lost in Gaza. Our hearts can hold compassion for both.
This false binary is detrimental to finding common ground in the pursuit of peace. The deep anguish many of us feel for Jews, Palestinians — and their supporters — has made it difficult to know what to say. Rather than choosing a side, our common humanity should unite us.
I learned these lessons years ago as a student at Pitzer College in a seminar that opened my eyes to different perspectives on the Mideast conflict. We debated texts from Palestinian and Israeli authors, appreciating the similarities and differences between the world’s major religions. We learned how our own cultural lens and experiences informed our identities, and we felt inspired to ask more questions, rather than be expected to have the right answer. I’m grateful for this complex picture of the geopolitical, historical and religious perspectives essential to developing a nuanced understanding of current events.
My classmates and I shared a collective journey of discovery, challenging previously held truths without demonizing others for them. The greatest gift I received from my college education is the ability to know what I don’t know, inspiring me to seek new knowledge and perspectives on making the world more just.
I wish more students had this opportunity and more educators had the confidence to teach this way. Good-faith efforts to bridge divides aren’t always easy, and they aren’t fail-proof, but they can deepen ongoing dialogue while building a community with mutual trust and respect.
I’m afraid these essential foundations of education are being avoided in too many college and high school classrooms, since many educators feel ill-equipped to address them. I understand the reluctance to speak out for fear of saying the wrong thing, not knowing enough about the conflict or the anxiety of becoming a meme on social media, and consequently getting “canceled.” The result of this polarized climate is an unfortunate chilling effect, where not having a discussion is safer than a well-intended one.
Diversity, equity and inclusion efforts can help navigate barriers to cross-cultural dialogue, but when these principles are unevenly applied, they lose their power. For example, campus statements of solidarity that center one people’s history, while insidiously erasing any mention of the other, serve to further entrench beliefs. Acknowledging the value of others’ “lived experiences” would increase awareness of multiple indigenous claims to land in Israel-Palestine dating back to biblical times.
Without a rigorous understanding of the roots of the conflict and different historical narratives, we are mis-educating a generation of young people who lack the skills to excavate the depth of complicated problems, and have little agency to generate solutions to them. These omissions lead to oversimplified “either-or” “oppressor vs. oppressed” or “black-white” narratives that have become familiar in the U.S. College is supposed to be the place to cultivate curiosity, critical thinking, and challenge an ethnocentric Western lens that may or may not always apply.
The deeply divided campus protests have unveiled the harm of a false dichotomy. Rather than picking a side on a protest encampment, we should be creating a space for students to advance a peaceful coexistence, recognizing each party’s rightful presence.
Thankfully, I recently had the opportunity to participate in a UCLA effort to seek peaceful solutions through its Dialogue Across Difference Initiative. Through this cross-campus collaboration, faculty and staff engaged in dialogue, instilling empathy, while building active listening skills to think critically and compassionately about recent protests and how we can carry these lessons into our respective roles on campus. Education initiatives like this can play a vital role in building a democratic citizenry.
Beyond simplified slogans, opportunities to dialogue across our differences can help bridge our individual and collective aspirations, including those who support Israelis, Palestinians, and their allies. These critical conversations can help connect our shared values and unite in seeking justice at home and abroad.
•••
Julie Flapan is a researcher, educator, and the director of the Computer Science Equity Project at UCLA Center X, School of Education and Information Studies and co-lead of the CSforCA coalition, where she is working to expand teaching and learning opportunities for girls, students of color and low-income students.
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.
The West Contra Costa Unified School District may be on the verge of turning over control of its budget to the county after the school board rejected the district’s Local Control Accountability Plan on Wednesday night, limiting the chance of passing a 2024-25 district budget by July 1, as required by state law.
Without passing a Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP) — a document that sets district goals to improve student outcomes and how to achieve them — the board cannot vote on the proposed budget, said Kim Moses, associate superintendent of business services at West Contra Costa Unified School District (WCCUSD). The two are linked; the LCAP is a portion of the budget and gives the district a road map on how to allocate funding for its $484 million budget. The district risks losing local control over funding decisions. Trustees voting no said it didn’t reflect priorities of the community and was not transparent.
It’s a rare situation. Districts routinely pass budgets at the end of June to close the fiscal year and start a new one.
District and Contra Costa County Office of Education officials warn that a failure to pass a budget and LCAP by July 1 will cede financial control to the county office. The district can still act by midnight Sunday to avert a takeover, but district officials are assuming that will not happen.The board would still need to vote on the budget presented by the county.
The district also would face difficulties getting the county’s approval of the budget.The state Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team (FCMAT), which focuses on helping districts solve and prevent fiscal challenges, found in a recent analysis that the district had overspent, and concluded that the school board had been unable or unwilling to make cuts.
In a statement to EdSource, Moses wrote she was “deeply disappointed” that the board didn’t pass the LCAP. The responsibility to adopt the LCAP and 2024-25 school year budget will be in the hands of county officials. Until they impose the new plan and budget, Moses said, the district will revert to operating under last year’s budget.
“We are confident that the county will review our circumstance with a student-focused lens and do what is necessary to support our students,” the statement said. “In the interim, we will be able to continue processing payroll without interruptions, and we will be able to maintain all expenses related to the general operating costs within the district, such as utilities, required materials and supplies, and other operational necessities.”
But because the district is functioning on last year’s budget, some schools won’t receive the funds they need, and the district can’t move forward with new goals set, said Javetta Cleveland, a school business consultant for West Contra Costa.
“This is really serious to go forward without a budget — the district cannot operate without a budget,” Cleveland said during the meeting. “The district can’t meet or establish priorities without a budget.”
Cleveland asked the board to reconsider approving the LCAP and have the Contra Costa County Office of Education approve the LCAP with conditions that would allow revisions after receiving feedback from parents. But that didn’t happen.
Budget shortfalls
District officials are projecting a $31.8 million budget deficit over the next three school years, with about $11.5 million in shortfalls projected for the upcoming school year. The plan was to use reserve funds over three school years to make up the shortfall.
To address budget shortfalls, the board has also had to eliminate more than 200 positions since last year. The most recent cuts were voted on in March. But at the same time, the district was dealing with three complaints, including allegations that the district is out of compliance with the law because teacher vacancies have not been filled and classes are being covered by long-term or day-to-day substitutes, which district officials acknowledged was true.
“While the result of last night’s board meeting complicates an already challenging financial situation, members of the community should know that WCCUSD schools will continue to operate, and employees will continue to be paid as we work through the LCAP approval process,” said Marcus Walton, communications director for county office. “At this point, it is the role of the Contra Costa County Office of Education to support WCCUSD staff to address the board’s concerns and implement a budget as soon as possible.”
FCMAT conducted a fiscal health risk analysis on West Contra Costa in March and found the district is overspending.
While the FCMAT analysis concluded the district has a “high” chance of solving the budget deficit, it highlighted areas it considers high-risk, including some charter schools authorized by the district also being in financial distress; the district’s failure to forecast its general fund cash flow for the current and subsequent year, and the board’s inability to approve a plan to reduce or eliminate overspending.
FCMAT’s chief executive officer, Michael Fine, was not available for comment.
The vote
President Jamela Smith-Folds was the only trustee to vote yes on the LCAP. She said she wants to see more transparency but that it’s important to keep local control over the LCAP and budget.
“I would be remiss if I didn’t say that there are things we need to do differently, but I think everyone is acknowledging that,” Smith-Folds said. “Now the next step after you acknowledge that is to show change and consistency.”
Trustees Leslie Reckler and Mister Phillips voted down the LCAP. Phillips said it was because he doesn’t believe that what the community asked for is reflected in the document.
“I have consistently advocated for a balanced and focused budget since joining the school board in 2016,” Phillips said in an email. “The proposed budget was neither. With my vote, I invited our local county superintendent to the table. I hope that she will work with us to create a balanced and focused budget that prioritizes the school district’s strategic plan.”
Reckler said that for the last two years, she had continued to ask staff to show how programs and the LCAP performed, how community feedback is being incorporated, and how money is being spent.
“I’m frustrated I have to spend an entire weekend trying to figure out the changes in the LCAP. It should be self-evident,” Reckler said during the meeting. “This document seems to be less transparent than ever before. I don’t know how else to get your attention, and I won’t be held hostage. For these reasons, I am voting ‘no.’”
Trustee Otheree Christian abstained, saying that there needs to be more transparency in the LCAP but did not elaborate further or respond to requests for comments on why he chose not to vote.
Board member Demetrio Gonzalez Hoy was absent because of personal family reasons, according to his social media post. He called the vote a failure of the board, including his absence.
In a recent meeting with the District Local Control Accountability Plan Committee (DLCAP), made up of parents and members of community organizations, committee members shared their frustrations, saying they didn’t feel heard and needed more information about programs, Superintendent Chris Hurst said. Gonzalez Hoy said he agreed with the committee that there needs to be more transparency and in regards to spending priorities, community leaders need to be heard.
“With that said, what we should have done is ensure that this does not happen in the future and that the DLCAP committee is taken seriously in their charge,” Gonzalez Hoy’s post said. “Unfortunately, instead of advocating for that and ensuring this occurs, I believe that some on our board want certain adults leading our district to fail and that’s really what led to a vote last night.”
During Wednesday night’s meeting, many community members asked the board to stop making staffing cuts and to reject the LCAP and budget proposals, saying that both proposals didn’t meet student needs, and disenfranchised low-income, English learners, and students of color. Some speakers questioned if the LCAP complied with the law.
The district team that put together the LCAP said the planning document complies with the law, according to Moses, as do the officials at the county office of education that reviewed the document. The county gives the final stamp of approval after the board passes the LCAP, and if something needs to be fixed, they can approve the document with conditions, she added.
“I do know, with any large document, nothing is perfect in the first draft,” Moses said during the meeting. “I’m not sure if there is something we need to take a look at, but if so, I’ll restate this is a living document; if we do find that there is an area that needs more attention, we’ll give attention to that area.”
Moses said she agrees with the advocates — the district needs to serve students better. She and the district are committed to strengthening communication with the community and explaining how the strategies in the 203-page document are helping students.
As of Thursday evening, an emergency meeting has not been scheduled. The next board meeting is scheduled on July 17.
The story has been updated to clarify how operations of the district will proceed moving forward.
William Kristol was a leading figure in the conservative movement. His father Irving Kristol was renowned as the godfather of neoconservatism. Bill was the editor of the Weekly Standard for many years. But because he is a principled conservative, he loathes what Trump is doing to our nation. He writes at The Bulwark, my favorite Never-Trump blog.
If the Trump administration’s sudden assault on thousands of foreign students legally studying at Harvard seems unprecedented, it’s because it is. If the abrupt abrogation of temporary protected status for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans legally living and working in the United States seems unprecedented, it’s because it is. If the sudden arrests and deportations of law-abiding immigrants checking in as ordered at government offices seems unprecedented, it’s because it is. If the deportations of other immigrants without anything like due process and basically in defiance of court orders to prisons in third countries seems unprecedented, it’s because it is.
And if it all seems utterly stupid and terribly cruel and amazingly damaging to this country, it’s because it is.
But it turns out nativism is one hell of a drug. The Trump administration has ingested it in a big way, and it’s driving its dealers and users in the administration into a fanatical frenzy of destructive activity. And the Republican party and much of Conservatism Inc.—and too much of the country as a whole—is just watching it happen.
The United States has many problems. No one seriously thinks that Harvard’s certification to participate in the Student and Exchange Visitor Program is one of them. And the Department of Homeland Security’s announcement of the action against Harvard makes clear this isn’t just about Harvard: “Let this serve as a warning to all universities and academic institutions across the country.” Are our other institutions of higher education suffering from their ability to attract and enroll students from abroad, if they chose to do so? Are the rest of us?
No. And to the degree there are some discrete problems, nothing justifies this kind of action against Harvard. As Andrea Flores, a former DHS official, told the New York Times, “D.H.S. has never tried to reshape the student body of a university by revoking access to its vetting systems, and it is unique to target one institution over hundreds that it certifies every year.”
Similarly, what’s the justification for the Trump administration’s unprecedented sudden and early abrogation of temporary protected status for 350,000 Venezuelans who fled tyranny and are now living peacefully and working productively in this country? There is no broad unhappiness at their presence, no serious case that they are causing more harm than doing good. Nor for that matter is there a real argument that the presence of 20,000 Haitians living and working in Springfield, Ohio, is a problem that required first lies to denigrate them and now attempts to deport them.
And this week, the nominee to head U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said the Trump administration intends to end the well-established Optional Practical Training Program, which is the single largest channel for highly skilled immigrants to stay and work in the United States after finishing their education here. A study by a leading immigration scholar, Michael Clemens of George Mason University, finds that slashing that program would cause permanent losses to U.S. innovation, productivity, economic growth, and even job opportunities for native workers.
But here we are, with an administration where fantasy trumps reality, ideology trumps evidence, and demagoguery trumps decency. As the economist Dani Rodrik puts it, “Three things made the US a rich and powerful nation: the rule of law, its science & innovation system, and openness to foreign talent. Remarkable how Trump has taken a sledgehammer to all three. No enemy of this country could do more.”
Foreigners studying and working here are not damaging the United States. A virulently nativist administration is what’s damaging the United States. It’s doing so in ways from which it will be difficult to recover. Just as important, it’s doing so in ways that will be a permanent stain on this nation’s history.
Although the rise in transitional kindergarten (TK) enrollment in 2024–25 helped temper the overall decline, K–12 enrollment continues its downward trend.
Enrollment saw its greatest decline in regions of the state with higher housing prices, notably Los Angeles County and Orange County. There is growth in more affordable areas of the state, such as the San Joaquin Valley and Northern California, including the Sacramento area.
Even as TK is set to become a real grade, just like any other K-12 grade, there are myriad challenges looming on the horizon, from finding qualified teachers amid a dire staffing shortage to how to ensure quality instruction and suitable facilities.
Tim Ranzetta, sponsor of the personal finance initiative and proponent of legislation that Gov. Newsom says he will sign, presents signatures for the initiative at the Secretary of State’s office in March. With him are state Controller Malia Cohen, center, and personal finance teacher Crystal Rigley Janis.
Credit: Californians for Financial Education
Soon, all California high school students will learn about college grants and loans, how tax rates work, the benefits of insurance and how interest high rates can blow your budget when you miss a payment on a credit card.
This week, legislators rushed to pass legislation that would make California the 26th state to require a course in personal finance as a requirement for high school graduation as of 2030-31. A semester of personal finance must be offered in all high schools starting in 2026-27.
“It’s often the students who need financial literacy the most that receive it the least. Parents of low-income students are far less likely to be financially literate themselves, which means they can’t pass that knowledge down to their children,” Kayvon Banankhah, a high school junior from Modesto, said June 19 during testimony at a Senate Education Committee hearing on the bill. “I truly believe this bill is one of the most impactful and feasible ways we can combat wealth inequality in our state.”
Assembly Bill 2927 “will benefit countless future generations of Californians,” said Tim Ranzetta, a Palo Alto marketing and finance entrepreneur and crusader for personal finance instruction. As co-founder of the nonprofit Next Gen Personal Finance, which provides free curriculum and teacher training in personal finance education, he also financed a successful effort to place a nearly identical personal finance initiative on California’s November ballot.
With a written assurance from Gov. Gavin Newsom that he’d sign the bill, Ranzetta agreed to pull his initiative from the ballot Thursday, the deadline for final changes to initiatives.
The bill includes one significant difference, which was a response to arguments that imposing more graduation requirements, along with ethnic studies, another coming requirement, will further limit students’ course flexibility and schedules.
AB 2927 will allow students to substitute personal finance for economics, a semester-long graduation requirement that seniors usually take together with civics, another requirement. The bill also will permit a district to substitute personal finance for another local graduation requirement. The initiative would have added personal finance and left economics intact.
Economics teachers argued that they, too, support personal finance and often include it in their courses to personalize economic principles, but it should not be added at the expense of economics. They predicted that enrollment would plummet as a result.
“Economics encourages us to think about our systems and address factors too large for any single individual to address, such as poverty, income, inequality, innovation and generational wealth,” said Joshua Mitton, chief programs officer for the California Council for Economic Education, during testimony on the bill. “Economics prepares students with additional skills that improve all decisions, not simply those that pertain to finance. And it is an integral part of social studies helping prepare a literate and civically engaged electorate.”
Sen. Lola Smallwood-Cuevas, D-Los Angeles, said she felt conflicted because she supports ensuring students are getting individual knowledge that they need as a necessary life skill while also understanding “economic policies and the impacts on communities on a more macro level.”
Assemblymember Kevin McCarty, D-Sacramento, compared the dilemma to adding another dish to an already full Thanksgiving table. “Sometimes you have to take something off the plate, right? There’s only so much time during the day, only so many electives. And so that’s one of the trade-offs that we made,” he said, adding that students will be able to take both economics and personal finance.
The economics teachers council indicated a willingness to revise the economics course framework to include more personal finance content to meet a new requirement. However, Ranzetta insisted on a stand-alone personal finance offering as a condition for pulling his initiative.
Under the bill, the Instruction Quality Commission, which reports to the State Board of Education, will create a curriculum guide and resources for a personal finance course by May 31, 2026.
The course will include these topics:
Fundamentals of personal banking, including savings and checking accounts
Budgeting for independent living
Financing college and other career options
Understanding taxes and factors that affect net income
Credit, including credit scores and the relation of debt to credit
Consumer protection skills like identifying scams and preventing identity theft
Charitable giving
Principles of investing and building wealth, including pensions and IRAs, stocks, bonds, and mutual funds
“For many of my peers, investing in stocks might as well be as complicated and convoluted as rocket science or calculus in our case,” said Banankhah. “The reality is they’re not being taught about this in school, and a lot of my peers don’t even know what they’re missing out on.”
The bill will allow several years to train teachers in the new curriculum. Teachers who hold credentials in social science, business, mathematics, or home economics will be authorized to teach personal finance. The Commission on Teacher Credentialing can also establish supplementary authorization to teach the course.
The bill and the initiative had widespread support in the business community, as well as from State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, the Association of California School Administrators, and the youth activism group GENup. The Legislature passed AB 2927 without opposition.
At the hearing last week on the bill, Sen. Dave Cortese, D-San Jose, said that economic conditions were the driving force behind homelessness annually for 15,000 high school graduates. Those conditions, he said, “can come rather suddenly,” and personal finance education will provide tools for survival.
“It almost seems like a high school student needs to be ready at any time to be fending for themselves these days,” he said.
It won’t actually be available until October 10, but it’s now ready for pre-ordering on Amazon, possibly other sites as well.
It’s my memoirs, the story of my life. Growing up in Houston as third of eight children. College. Marriage. Career. Developing my views and values. Discovering that many of my convictions seeed wrong. Saying so. Intimate details of my personal life.
Former State Superintendent of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin.
Credit: John Joanino/Advancement Project California
Despite the office’s imposing title, California’s superintendent of public instruction has little actual power to do much about education.
The governor has far more influence, as does the State Board of Education. And then there are the local school boards, which, by law, are responsible for the nearly 1,000 school districts in the state.
That is why it was remarkable that at least 500 people packed into the Westminster Presbyterian Church in Sacramento last week to honor Delaine Eastin, who was superintendent of public instruction over two decades ago. She was the first, and so far, only, woman to occupy the post.
The state superintendent position is largely what you make of it — and Eastin, who died in April at the age of 76, made the most of it.
Part of her success had to do with her outsize personality. She regularly girded colleagues for any number of political battles with Shakespeare’s rallying cry, “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more.”
Part of her impact was rooted in her sustained belief in public education, of which she herself was a product. A native of California, she attended public schools and earned undergraduate and graduate degrees from the University of California.
“Children are the living messengers we are sending to a time we will never see,” she would say. To those who argued that public education costs the state too much, she would offer the rejoinder, “If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.”
And to those who wondered why they should support children in districts other than their own with their taxes, she argued, “This country runs on other people’s children.”
Some of her success had something to do with her oratory, which was honed in her high school drama classes. As an assemblymember before becoming state superintendent, she was regarded as one of the best speakers in the Legislature. She regularly got standing ovations in the multiple speeches she made around the state. Former Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, a legendary speaker himself who attended the memorial service, would often send her to speak in his place.
Her legacy includes her single-mindedness in promoting smaller class sizes in California’s K-3 grades. She was a force in creating California’s Academic Performance Index in 1999, the first statewide system for ranking schools based mostly on test scores.
She was also a leader in promoting California’s first efforts for universal preschool — a vision that is now coming to fruition with the expansion of transitional kindergarten to all 4-year-olds.
Less well known was her backing of Alice Water’s Edible Garden Project, which began at the Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School in Berkeley in the mid 1990s. “If it had not been for Delaine, we would not have had an Edible Garden Project,” said Waters, the founder of the renowned Chez Panisse restaurant just blocks from the school. On a video, Waters shared that there are now 6,500 edible school gardens around the world.
Above all, Eastin was a huge backer of California itself. Californians, she would often say, “are people who grew up somewhere else and came to their senses.”
Throughout her life, she was single-minded in promoting women for public office.
Eastin’s last appearance on the political stage was in 2018 when she “had the audacity to run for governor,” as Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis described the run. It was a quixotic effort at best — something Eastin was well-aware of, Kounalakis said. “She ran largely to talk about the importance of public education.”
As the two of them traveled together around the state during the campaign, Eastin would say, “This is what the future could look like” if they both were elected. But Eastin only got 4% of the vote. Kounalakis was more successful, becoming California’s first woman lieutenant governor.
While she did not make it to the governorship, there was something biblical in the arc of the life of a woman who did not have her own children, despite wanting them — but was nonetheless able to improve the lives of millions of them in her home state.
Her staff in the Department of Education recalled the many times they would set out early, half awake, on yet another trip to an outlying district.
“It’s going to be a great day,” Eastin, ever the motivator, would tell them. “We get to visit schools.”
•••
Louis Freedberg is interim CEO of EdSource.
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.
This is the third in a series of stories on the challenges impacting California’s efforts to offer high-quality instruction to all 4-year-olds by 2025.
This past school year, 4-year-old Yoshua would’ve been home, watching TV or playing on his tablet if he hadn’t been enrolled in Garden Grove Unified’s transitional kindergarten (TK) program, according to his mom, Briseida, who asked that her last name not be used.
“Learning the English language, learning how to start writing his name, learning colors and numbers, knowing that he goes to school with his classmates and can talk and play with them, knowing that his teacher will teach him new things,” Briseida said in Spanish in a district video about the importance of TK, an additional year of public education prior to kindergarten. “All of that has been very positive for us because if he had stayed at home, he would not have learned any of those things.”
The large, urban, nearly 40,000-student Garden Grove school community includes immigrants with many families who do not speak English at home. So, those TK students are exposed not only to academic content but also a full year of the English language, said Gabriela Mafi, superintendent of Garden Grove Unified School District, in which English is not the primary language of 63.6% of students.
Sending 4-year-olds to TK benefits students as well as their families. For example, enrollment for Noel allowed his mom, Celeste Monroy, time to seek employment and enroll in classes to learn English, she said in the school district video.
Many parents in the northern Orange County community cannot afford private preschool, which can cost thousands of dollars annually, nor can they accommodate a half-day program, such as many offered by the state’s public preschool programs.
TK has been gradually expanding to reach all the state’s 4-year-olds by the 2025-26 school year, and each school year, more 4-year-olds become eligible.
In 2023-24, children who turned 5 between Sept. 2 and April 2 were eligible. Districts had a choice to even enroll younger 4-year-olds ahead of the phased timeline, such as Noel — who has a birthday after April 2 and would turn 5 by June 30, the end of the school year.
Planning ahead, Garden Grove Unified staffed its classes to comply with the state requirement of 24 students per class size average and a 1:12 adult-child staffing ratio, getting that average to just under 21 students with one teacher and an aide.
Then, the state established new rules just months ahead of the 2023-24 school year.
Such “last-minute changes” at the state level complicate school district operations and impact students locally, superintendents say.
During the budget process in summer 2023, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation creating a new category for kids participating in TK ahead of the state’s timeline, changing the birthday cutoff dates, lowering TK requirements for classes with those students and applying fiscal penalties for noncompliance.
The legislation added an “early enrollment” distinction for 4-year-olds with birthdays after June 2. Students with June 3-30 birthdays were to be considered early enrollment children, requiring stricter guidelines.
Prior to the legislative change, there were no special provisions for the enrollment of students who turned 5 before the school year ended on June 30.
For the 2023-24 and 2024-25 school years, any class with an early enrollment child must meet a 20-student class size maximum and a 1:10 adult-to-student ratio, or face penalties.
Districts were left with a difficult decision for a school year starting in less than two months: Retain the students they’d enrolled and try to comply with the stricter requirements; face penalties if and when they can’t adhere to the more restrictive regulations; or turn away families.
According to superintendents, the state’s last-minute changes illustrate the disconnect between state-level decisions and local implementation and exemplify the state’s lack of understanding of the needs of families, disproportionately impacting districts trying to meet those needs.
“We make commitments to our families and then now have to either undo them or incur something punitive because we tried to serve our communities the best we possibly can,” said John Garcia, superintendent of the 22,000-student Downey Unified, an urban/suburban school district in southeast Los Angeles County.
Why enroll younger students?
The need to offer early childhood education, generally believed to benefit disadvantaged children, was at the heart of Garden Grove and Downey Unified decisions to accept younger cohorts of children for TK sooner than the state’s timeline.
Families in both districts were unable to afford fee-based preschool or work due to a need for child care.
“If he wasn’t given this opportunity to go to TK, he would have either been in day care/preschool, or I would’ve had to quit work and not be able to financially provide for my family,” a Garden Grove Unified parent shared regarding their child for a district document about the impact of TK.
TK not only saves on child care costs that burdened families but, according to educators and experts, also builds a strong educational foundation and bridges the opportunity gap between low-income families and affluent ones — gaps more prevalent in high-poverty districts.
Enrolling younger students sooner meant a full year of instruction before kindergarten, Garcia said, adding that Downey Unified kindergarten teachers notice a difference in those who gain an extra year of schooling.
In high-poverty districts specifically, that additional year gives the kids “an opportunity to have a head start on kindergarten,” Mafi said. “And those are the kids who need it the most, which is why many high-poverty districts chose to accelerate TK faster.”
About 81% of students in Garden Grove and nearly 70% in Downey Unified are classified as low income, based on January data of unduplicated student counts. In contrast, high-wealth districts may not have had the need to offer TK sooner because their families can afford to pay for private preschool, Mafi said.
“This is the message I feel they’re telling us: ‘Poor kids — they don’t need to be helped, to have the same quality of a pre-kindergarten experience like their more affluent peers.’ And I don’t think that’s the message they should be sending.”
Even though low-income students could benefit more from early childhood education, such children have lower preschool enrollment, the Public Policy Institute of California found.
Research shows that high-quality preschool leads to students being prepared for school with improved behavior and learning skills and higher academic performance in math and reading once enrolled, all of which can help bridge the gap between students from high-poverty and high-wealth families.
“All we’re trying to do is address the opportunity gap,” Mafi said.
Trailer bill changed birthday cutoffs, requirements
In July 2021, legislation to expand TK passed, phasing in 4-year-old students until all are eligible by 2025-26.
Based on the 2021 legislation and continued guidance in 2023, districts could enroll TK students ahead of the state’s timeline as long as they turned 5 by the end of the school year, defined as June 30.
January-February 2023: For the 2023-24 school year, many school districts started TK registration, including for students who would turn 5 by June 30, 2024 — a choice aligned with legislation and state guidance available to districts at the time.
There were even younger 4-year-olds with July or August birthdays, who would not turn 5 during the school year and would not be eligible for TK until 2025-26, based on the 2021 legislation.
January 2023: Gov. Gavin Newsom’s budget proposed a way to fix that by allowing districts to use local dollars to enroll children with July and August birthdays, “a welcomed proposal” that remained in the May revisions, a Los Angeles Unified spokesperson told EdSource.
June-July 2023: Lawmakers reached a compromise to allow the younger 4-year-old students as long as classrooms adhere to stricter requirements.
July 2023: The governor signed SB 114, an education budget trailer bill, which created lower statutory requirements for the 2023-24 and 2024-25 school years for school districts serving newly-defined “early enrollment” children, 4-year-olds with summer birthdays during and after the school year (from June 3 to Sept. 1).
“We believe that this compromise was vastly preferable to the alternative of disenrolling families, who would have had to scramble for alternative education and care options for their 4-year-old children,” Newsom administration officials said.
San Diego Unified, which had been supportive of efforts to include all 4-year-olds, and Los Angeles Unified were not privy to the compromise between legislative leaders and the Newsom administration, but they were pleased that the result allowed schools to serve students they had already enrolled, spokespersons from the districts said. About 14% of LAUSD TK students have summer birthdays between June 3 and Sept. 1.
Other districts that were enrolling students ahead of the state’s timeline, but within the previous legislation language, had registered students with June 3-30 birthdays.
“It’s that June 3rd to June 30th — that is the date change … making them early enrollment kids,” Mafi said. “No one ever said that before in the last four years.”
The differences are significant
The state’s authorization for the youngest group of TK students came with stricter requirements. Specifically, the 2021 guidelines required a regular TK class to have an average of 24 or less, measured across the school, with an adult-to-student ratio of 1:12. The 2023 rules require a TK class with early enrollment kids to be measured individually and held to a 20-student maximum with a 1:10 ratio.
The stricter ratio for classes with early enrollment kids is more closely aligned with 1:8 staffing practices in early education at licensed child care centers, private preschools and state preschool programs and the 1:10 ratio at Head Start.
But combined with the 20-student max, the requirements exceed guidelines of other programs serving 3- and 4-year-olds, statewide organizations, county education offices and superintendents from LAUSD, Fresno, Oakland, Garden Grove, Downey, Westminster and La Habra City unified school districts said in a March letter.
The California state preschool programs allow class sizes of 24 with a 1:8 ratio, according to the letter, which urged legislators to eliminate penalties and give districts time to reduce ratios for the early enrollment students.
Photo courtesy of Garden Grove Unified School DistrictPhoto courtesy of Garden Grove Unified
Prior to the 2023 change, students born between April 3 and June 30 were considered regular TK students without different requirements. The trailer bill made those born June 3 to June 30 early enrollment kids.
Garden Grove didn’t disenroll the students, who’d already been promised a spot.
Serving 1,736 TK students, the district had classes with an average of 21 students, well below the 24-student average enrollment requirement for regular TK but above the stricter 20-student requirement for any class with an early enrollment student.
Garden Grove estimated their penalties at around $58,000 per class with an early enrollment child. The fines could total $3.1 million.
A penalty on kids that districts aren’t paid for: ‘double penalty’
Districts are also reeling from what they say will be a double penalty: The state pays them nothing for early enrollment kids, yet will fine them for not meeting the stricter guidelines.
School districts receive average daily attendance (ADA) funding for TK-12 students through the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF). The state determined at what point the 4-year-olds would generate the funds based on its timeline of students eligible to enroll.
Three categories of TK students — age-eligible, early admittance and the new early enrollment — exist. Age-eligible students in 2023-24 had birthdays prior to April 2, falling within the state’s timeline, and generated funds from the first day of school.
Those enrolled ahead of the timeline with birthdays until June 2, considered early admittance kids, generated funding when they turned 5.
The newest category of students — early enrollment kids with birthdays after June 2 — did not generate funding at all. Before the change, districts enrolling students with June 3-30 birthdays could generate state funding once they turned 5.
“We’re going to take a penalty for students that we’re not getting revenue for in the first place,” Garcia said about districts educating students without the funding. “It’s unjust.”
But what can be done now?
The summer 2023 legislative changes for the 2023-24 school year didn’t leave enough time for many districts to comply with the stricter requirements.
Still, some refused to turn away families, knowing they’d incur penalties. And unless further legislative action is taken this summer, those districts could be penalized millions of dollars for not meeting the tougher requirements.
Existing legislation does not allow districts that are caught out of compliance to avoid penalties; however, the penalty can be waived through the legislative process, relief that Garden Grove and Downey Unified have been seeking for the 2023-24 school year.
Assembly Bill 2548, proposed by Assemblymember Tri Ta of northwestern Orange County, would waive the 2023-24 penalties on districts offering early TK.
In a letter to legislators, the Association of California School Administrators, the California Association of Suburban School Districts, Small School Districts’ Association, county education offices and school districts supported the legislation because the 2023-24 school year was weeks away from starting when the July 2023 trailer bill implemented the early enrollment regulations. In all, nearly 50 school districts, not including multiple districts represented by county education offices, supported the proposed waiver.
The Early Care and Education Consortium, according to a bill analysis completed by the Legislature, argued against the bill because it “disregards the legislative intent” in enacting the 1:10 ratio and 20-student max for classes with early enrollment students, which ensure student safety.
Another option to address penalties for the 2023-24 year is through budget trailer bill language, which can make the penalties effective after a certain date or exempt districts from penalties imposed.
The existing draft of this year’s education trailer bill does not include changes for TK penalties.
Impacting students, now and in the future
Downey Unified had 70 early enrollment students spread across about 15 classes.
“We could have pulled these kids out of this classroom, moved them to other schools in our district, but we just didn’t feel that was right,” deputy superintendent Roger Brossmer said. “That was just not something we were willing to put our kids and our families through.”
The impact of maintaining enrollment: about $1 million in possible penalties.
Going Deeper
An audit of this school year can be conducted now that the school year has ended but any fiscal penalties won’t be accessed until after the state education department reviews the audit findings, something that may not occur until the spring semester of the 2024-25 school year.
The district would lose funding from the Local Control Funding Formula in the amount of its penalties —reducing services for students, Brossmer said.
Because the penalty is accessed up to a year later, Downey Unified officials questioned the intent of the penalty, which takes money away from students.
“What is the value of a penalty after the year has already commenced and been funded?” said Robert McEntire, assistant superintendent of business services. “We have served these children, so who benefits from this penalty? This doesn’t help anybody.”
Fiscal penalties for noncompliance are a common practice in education. Violations for LCFF unduplicated pupil counts, K–3 grade span adjustments, instructional time, the Expanded Learning Opportunities Program and TK can result in penalties following audit findings, according to the state education department.
The penalties ensure “effective accountability,” California Department of Education Communications Director Elizabeth Sanders said.
“Penalizing districts is never our goal,” she said. “The related penalties (for TK requirements) … are to ensure that there’s appropriate and effective support of students. The goal is never to collect a penalty; it’s to support and ensure compliance with what kids need.”
To Downey Unified leaders, the resulting penalties from the 2023 trailer bill legislation punish districts for trying to meet the needs of their families.
As a result, for the 2024-25 school year, Downey Unified will not enroll students with birthdays after June 2.
“There are another potential 70 students out there with birthdays between June 3 and June 30 that we are not going to have in our schools because we are reticent as a result of what’s happened,” Garcia said. “We don’t feel like we’re able to fully serve our community to the best we can because of the experience that we’ve gone through this year. And that’s disappointing.”
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