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  • Did Musk and DOGE Save Any Money at All?

    Did Musk and DOGE Save Any Money at All?


    In an investigative report, The New York Times demonstrated that Elon Musk failed to deliver on his claim that he could cut $2 trillion from the federal budget. Not only did he fall short, but his efforts were so reckless that they might cost money instead of saving it.

    Having launched his so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” (which is not a department at all and was never authorized by Congress), Musk and his then-partner Vivek Ramaswamy promised to cut $2 trillion. Their goal dropped to $1 trillion, and Vivek left the team to run for Governor in Ohio.

    Some of DOGE’s claims turned out be be inflated (one alleged saving of $8 billion turned out to be a saving of only $8 million.

    Musk eventually reduced his saving claim to only $150 billion.

    Since DOGE began, thousands of federal employees have been fired. Some have been rehired after courts decided their firing was illegal. Some have been fired, rehired, and fired again. Some career employees have taken buyout offers. Tens of thousands of federal employees have been laid off, without regard to their experience. There was no time for DOGE workers to evaluate each person they ousted, nor did DOGE have the competence to judge its victims.

    The New York Times concluded that DOGE’s activities may actually save nothing at all. Firing workers is expensive when you do it the wrong way, the DOGE way.

    Elizabeth Williamson of The New York Times wrote:

    President Trump and Elon Musk promised taxpayers big savings, maybe even a “DOGE dividend” check in their mailboxes, when the Department of Government Efficiency was let loose on the federal government. Now, as he prepares to step back from his presidential assignment to cut bureaucratic fat, Mr. Musk has said without providing details that DOGE is likely to save taxpayers only $150 billion.

    That is about 15 percent of the $1 trillion he pledged to save, less than 8 percent of the $2 trillion in savings he had originally promised and a fraction of the nearly $7 trillion the federal government spent in the 2024 fiscal year.

    The Partnership for Public Service, a nonprofit organization that studies the federal work force, has used budget figures to produce a rough estimate that firings, re-hirings, lost productivity and paid leave of thousands of workers will cost upward of $135 billion this fiscal year. At the Internal Revenue Service, a DOGE-driven exodus of 22,000 employees would cost about $8.5 billion in revenue in 2026 alone, according to figures from the Budget Lab at Yale University. The total number of departures is expected to be as many as 32,000.

    Neither of these estimates includes the cost to taxpayers of defending DOGE’s moves in court. Of about 200 lawsuits and appeals related to Mr. Trump’s agenda, at least 30 implicate the department.

    The errors and obfuscations underlying DOGE’s claims of savings are well documented. Less known are the costs Mr. Musk incurred by taking what Mr. Trump called a “hatchet” to government and the resulting firings, agency lockouts and building seizures that mostly wound up in court.

    “Not only is Musk vastly overinflating the money he has saved, he is not accounting for the exponentially larger waste that he is creating,” said Max Stier, the chief executive of the Partnership for Public Service. “He’s inflicted these costs on the American people, who will pay them for many years to come.”

    Mr. Stier and other experts on the federal work force said it did not have to be this way. Federal law and previous government shutdowns offered Mr. Musk a legal playbook for reducing the federal work force, a goal that most Americans support. But Mr. Musk chose similar lightning-speed, blunt-force methods he used to drastically cut Twitter’s work force after he acquired the company in 2022.

    “The law is clear,” said Jeri Buchholz, who over three decades in public service handled hiring and firing at seven federal agencies, including NASA and the Defense Intelligence Agency. “They can do all the things they are currently doing, but they can’t do them the way they’re doing them. They can either start over and do it right, or they can be in court for forever.”



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  • Why — and how — some California schools bounced back five years after the pandemic

    Why — and how — some California schools bounced back five years after the pandemic


    Kindergarten teacher Carla Randazzo watches a student write alphabet letters on a white board at Golden Empire Elementary School in Sacramento.

    Credit: Rich Pedroncelli / AP Photo

    California’s students have struggled in the five years since the pandemic closed schools across the state. But kids in many schools are bouncing back, returning to pre-Covid achievement levels. What’s working? How have some districts innovated to turn kids’ learning curves upward once again?

    After analyzing student-level statewide data and visiting nine districts in each of the past three years, our team has made these discoveries:

    Mindful policies make a difference

    Nationwide, the pandemic erased nearly two decades of progress in math and reading. In California, average math proficiency decreased by 6.4 percentage points between 2019 and 2022, and reading proficiency dropped by 4 percentage points. Our work shows a modest positive effect of early reopening and federal recovery investments over this period. This highlights the importance of keeping schools open when it is safe to do so and prioritizing high-need students in reopening. Federal stimulus dollars also helped during this period.

    Our statewide work further shows that districts blended, braided and sequenced multiple funding sources to extend instructional learning time, strengthen staffing and provide learning supports.

    We also studied the impact of recovery investments and specific district recovery programs. We did not find that increased federal Covid funding to schools increased student test scores post-pandemic. However, districts that devoted funds to teacher retention efforts and extended learning time showed more improvement in student attendance, a key to improving academic outcomes.  

    Cross-sector partnerships advance whole-child development

    Prolonged school closure, social isolation, economic anxiety, housing and food insecurity, Covid-19 infection, and the loss of loved ones exacerbated a national mental health crisis already underway before the pandemic. In 2021, 42% of high school students nationwide experienced persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness, and 32% attempted or seriously considered attempting suicide. As schools reopened, educators found themselves dealing with not just academic learning, but also support for basic needs (such as food and health care), mental health, and life skills (such as relationship skills).

    Some districts pivoted to fostering whole-child development. For example, Compton Unified partnered with community health providers to offer health care services (such as vaccinations and check-ups), and Del Norte Unified leveraged Medi-Cal reimbursements to provide mental health counseling and therapy sessions. Educators will still need to deal with the academic, behavioral and life-skills needs for years to come. More cross-sector partnerships with public health, social services and housing would better equip schools to address these challenges.

    School innovations foster a rebound in learning

    Overall spending infusions have helped students rebound, but the impact has been relatively small. More important is how Covid relief funds were spent by districts. Our longitudinal case study of nine districts revealed some substantial organizational changes — reforms that may stick over time.

    One large structural reform was the investment in student well-being. Before the pandemic, student well-being was considered mostly secondary to instruction and academic achievement. However, the pandemic highlighted the need to integrate life skills into instruction. As a result, districts invested in new program materials and moved resources to hire counselors, social workers, psychologists, and increased student access to school-based supports. Some even built new community centers where students and families come together.

    A smaller scale, yet key, reform is districts’ investment in career pathways. Districts like Compton and Milpitas Unified offer a wide variety of pathways — from E-sports to computer science to early education — that are tied to on-the-job internships and certificates. These pathways have played an important role in engaging students and connecting them with employment opportunities.

    Districts also tried new approaches to the structure of schooling and classroom practices. For example, Glendale Unified shifted to a seven-period block schedule that allowed middle and high school students to add an elective course that sparked their interest. In Poway Unified, small groups of students meet with teachers and classroom aides to focus on specific skill areas.

    Digital innovations engage students, but gaps remain

    Many districts have turned to digital innovations to motivate kids. In Poway, coaches embedded in the classroom work with teachers to build learning stations, where stronger students work in teams, freeing teachers to provide more direct instruction to kids at risk of falling behind.

    Unfortunately, since the pandemic, the digital divide has narrowed, but it has not been eliminated. 

    In spring 2020, when schools abruptly shifted online, 40% of California households with school-age children did not have reliable internet or devices for distance learning. Over time, the state has made remarkable progress in device access, but not as much progress with internet access. The lack of progress could be attributed to multiple factors, including the absence of pre-existing infrastructure and affordability challenges. Federal and state governments provided unprecedented investments (such as the federal Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program and California Senate Bill 356) to address barriers to universal broadband access; however, communities face significant challenges in building out infrastructure and improving affordability.

    The pandemic provided an unprecedented opportunity to rethink and restart public education. Given the increasing frequency and intensity of natural disasters, learning disruptions will become the new norm for many communities throughout the U.S.

    By learning from the example of districts that have demonstrated resilience and success in pandemic recovery, we can better prepare for future disruptions and build a more resilient public education that supports all students.   

    •••

    Niu Gao is a principal researcher at the American Institutes for Research. Julian Betts is a professor at UC San Diego. Jonathan Isler and Piper Stanger are administrators at the California Department of Education.

    Bruce Fuller, professor of education and public policy at UC Berkeley, was part of the research team and contributed to this report.

    This collaboration research is supported by the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, through grant R305X230002 to the American Institutes for Research (AIR). Any errors or misinterpretations belong to the authors and do not reflect the views of the institute, the U.S. Department of Education or the California Department of Education.

    The opinions expressed in this commentary represent those of the authors. 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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  • How we obtained and examined contracts for school resource officers

    How we obtained and examined contracts for school resource officers


    We began by sending requests for contracts and memoranda of understanding with law enforcement agencies under the California Public Records Act to nearly 20%  – 178 – school districts across the state, in urban, suburban, and rural communities.

    We sent requests to 103 unified school districts, 37 high school districts, and 38 elementary school districts.

    We received responses from 157 districts; we are continuing to pursue responses from the remaining 21. We asked for contracts entered into between 2018 and June 2024 and analyzed the most recent contract provided by each district, some of which extend as far as 2027.

    Of the districts that responded to our requests, 68 said they had no applicable documents. Sixty-five districts had no assigned school resource officers; three had officers on campus but no contracts with cities and counties for policing services. The 89 districts with responsive documents provided contracts, including supplemental material such as memoranda of understanding, as PDFs and other document file types. 

    We analyzed the 118 responsive documents – many districts had agreements with multiple law enforcement agencies – and extracted a collection of data points including contract length, costs to the district, reporting requirements, and resource officers’ duties, among other topics.

    Additionally, to verify and clarify notable points, we reviewed videos of school board meetings, interviewed experts on policing and government transparency, as well as school board members, school superintendents, law enforcement officers, parents and students.

    The resulting data was combined with demographic and accountability information from the California Department of Education and analyzed to identify the commonalities, trends, and outliers explained in our stories.

    Teacher pay data was collected from Form J-90s that school districts submit to the state with teacher pay scales. To determine the salary for a  mid-career teacher, we used data from the “BA+60” field on those forms.

    If you have questions, please email data journalist Daniel Willis at dwillis@edsource.org.

    digging into the documents

    Our collection of district contracts that informed this story can be browsed and downloaded below.





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  • Joyce Vance: Stand Up and Speak Out for the Rule of Law!

    Joyce Vance: Stand Up and Speak Out for the Rule of Law!


    Joyce Vance was the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama. She writes a smart blog called Civil Discourse, in which she writes about court cases and the law, in language accessible to non-lawyers. In this post, she explains how massive protests can change the course of history.

    She writes:

    This coming Tuesday marks Donald Trump’s 100th day in office, a tenure that has led to a steady decline in the economy. If we use that measure, which many voters said led them to vote for Trump, these first 100 days have been a failure. Even as Trump has successfully seized power from Congress and some organizations have bent the knee to his every request, lawyers are winning in court, and some law firms, businesses, universities, and individuals are standing up to the president who would rather be a king. Trump may not have lost the first 100 days, but he hasn’t exactly won them either. Our democracy has been weakened, but it can still be saved.

    Thursday is May Day, May 1st. There will be renewed protest marches across the country, many of them focused on Americans’ increasing awareness that the fundamentals of democracy, which we’ve taken for granted for so long, are in danger. It’s not just due process concerns, although that is an enormous part of it, as the deportations continue. Last week we learned that included some involved American citizen children and children with cancer, with Secretary Rubio offering a sorry rejoinder on Meet the Press this morning, blaming the mothers who took young children back to their countries of origin with them, rather than being forced to abandon them. There are plenty of reasons to march.

    This will not be the first time Americans have engaged in mass protests on May Day. In 1971, tens of thousands of people took to the streets in Washington, D.C., to protest the Vietnam War. They began on May 3 and continued for two more days. By the time the protest ended, more than 12,000 protestors had been arrested. The protesters’ goal was to cause a traffic jam that would keep government employees from getting to work; their slogan was “If the government won’t stop the war, we’ll stop the government.”

    Mass protests that are large and sustained have an impact on even an entrenched presidency. They did with Nixon. The White House Historical Association’s official version of events concludes that “the enormity of the protest pushed Nixon to accelerate the nation’s exit from Vietnam.” 

    Even though it’s a different era, protests are bound to get to the thin-skinned president whose staffers, during his first term in office, had to prepare folders of positive stories about Trump for him to review twice each day. Imagine having thousands of people protesting within earshot of the White House. It must be even more galling because these protests are nonviolent and aim to support democracy through a legitimate exercise of First Amendment rights. They make a powerful statement, in contrast to a president who has abandoned the rule of law. 

    In 1970, two-thirds of Americans had come to believe U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War was a mistake. We are not quite there yet when it comes to people’s view of the Trump administration. The most recent NBC News Stay Tuned Poll shows only 45% of Americans approve of the job Trump is doing. But, when asked about how strongly they hold their beliefs about the president, “the vehemence of the opposition outweighs the intensity of support from the president’s MAGA base.” Twenty-three percent of Americans said they were “furious” about what Trump is doing.

    Thursday is also Law Day, an annual celebration of the rule of law. Although it has been in effect since 1958, it doesn’t usually receive much attention. This year, lawyers across the country have big plans for the day—make sure you look to see what’s going on in your area. President Dwight Eisenhower established Law Day as a day of national dedication to the principles of government under law. State Bar Associations hold essay competitions for school children, and there are state and national dinners most years. In 2025, Law Day takes on special significance as Americans’ concerns about due process come to the forefront. How fitting that the May Day protests sync with the Law Day commemoration. 

    I’ve been doing a lot of research and writing about the origins of Law Day for my book (Giving Up Is Unforgivable, due out October 21), so I’ll leave that for another time, but I want to make sure everyone knows about Law Day. This year, many lawyers across the country will retake their oath to show their support for the rule of law. There is no reason the rest of the country can’t participate too!

    The president issues a proclamation every year for Law Day. Trump did during his first term in office, too. In 2019, the proclamation began, “On Law Day, we renew our commitment to the rule of law and our Constitution. The rule of law requires that no one be above the obligations of the law or beneath its protections, and it stands as a bulwark against the arbitrary use of government power.” Unfortunately, he never lived up to those sentiments. On Thursday, we can look for the proclamation and point out the inconsistencies between what we expect from our presidents and how this one is behaving. The hypocrisy is always full force, and we shouldn’t shy away from pointing it out.

    Due process is the sleeper issue of the second Trump presidency. No one really expected democracy issues, let alone concepts like the rule of law and due process to animate a country’s protests. But it’s increasingly clear that Americans are smart, and when we are well-informed, we have no difficulty assessing what matters and what is true. We see more and more of that as Americans carry signs that say “No Kings” and “Due Process” at local rallies. All of us can be advocates for democracy, not just the lawyers among us.

    Here at Civil Discourse, we all understand the importance of this. We need to make sure the rest of the country does too. Until the Trump administration is over, it has to be Law Day every day. 

    In 2024, the Law Day theme was “Voices of Democracy,” recognizing that the people are the rulers in a democracy. Americans express their views without fear of retribution because of the First Amendment and vote in elections to select their leaders. It’s up to us to make sure it stays that way.

    This week will bring more briefings in the Abrego-Garcia case and others. There will be outrages, like the fact that Trump has a website hawking merchandise, literally selling the presidency. It’s not just the $50 price tag on the hat; there’s also the slogan, “Trump 2028,” a reference to Trump’s not-so-subtle hints that he’d like to serve a Constitution-busting third term in office. It’s not a joke. It never is with him.

    So, make sure you take some time this week to celebrate Law Day. Invite people over. Go for a walk with friends or neighbors and share your views. Talk with your kids. Democracy is not automatic; it’s a participatory sport we must all play in together, one with critically important outcomes. Democracy is important. Let’s make sure we play for keeps.

    We’re in this together,

    Joyce



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  • How to balance the health and educational needs of chronically ill students 

    How to balance the health and educational needs of chronically ill students 


    Credit: Alison Yin/EdSource

    Any parent or teacher who has worked with a seriously ill child knows how difficult it is to meet the child’s educational, physical and emotional needs all at once. 

    Melanie Brady, a lecturer at USC’s Rossier School of Education, suggests that parents and teachers can improve the lives and schooling of sick students in Los Angeles as long as they realize the uniqueness of each child and understand that there cannot be a one-size-fits-all approach to balancing both a student’s health and their education during formative K-12 years. 

    Students with chronic conditions or who are going through difficult periods of treatment often don’t have the best options to pursue their education. But here are some steps Brady suggests both parents and teachers can take. 

    This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

    What kinds of options are there on a traditional school campus to support students who are sick? 

    It varies depending on the (grade level), ability and performance and needs. So, I think that if a parent finds themselves in a situation, they want to plan ahead and contact the teacher — and also plan ahead and ask the doctors or the nurses for resources.

    You want to talk to the school and see what’s available. Sometimes, people who have long-term health conditions already will have a 504 plan in place, or an IEP (individualized education program). When those are not in place and something takes somebody by surprise, that’s where the process needs to be initiated. 

    What kinds of options are there if a student can’t pursue their education on a traditional campus? 

    If a person, the parent, needs more support for their student, see if (the school or district has) a liaison. Sometimes, the hospitals will also have a liaison, usually in the form of a nurse or social worker. If it’s a larger hospital, they will have a schoolroom. They will have some teachers. They will have a process to try to help collaborate with the home studies. 

    There are (also) home school options that sometimes the schools will collaborate with for independent study, especially with teenagers. That’s a helpful thing. 

    There are also California Virtual Academies. And they are set up with the whole academic public education that’s similar to the L.A. schools and the public schools throughout the state. There are several different options to take a look at, but working within the current setting is probably the best place to start for any parent or student, especially when the difficulties or the challenges that are upcoming are new.  

    What types of pedagogy are most effective in working with students who are enduring chronic medical conditions?  

    One of the things is actually really simple, and I actually found it on the California Department of Education website, and they have articulated just a basic goal that’s kind of broad but important: working with that individual child and what they can do and trying to help them not to lose ground.

    But then you have these different dynamics that require flexibility, because if the condition changes, if they’re in the hospital, there’s timing of treatment. They’re not going to be able to be in a room or have bedside teaching when certain things are going on. 

    Some people may not be able to leave their bed. That’s where bedside teaching is going to be helpful, and also to engage with students (in) conversation, because the longer they’re in the hospital, the more prone they are to depression. There (are also) things to do to ameliorate that for those students, to try to bring them together. 

    They have different educational needs, especially in that environment. And you can’t do teaching like you can all at once in a K-12 classroom. 

    How do educational approaches vary across age groups when it comes to working with sick students? 

    When we’re looking at the younger children, we really want to make sure they have significant playtime. Playtime is so important to the development of their minds and their brains. There’s a lot of learning that goes on there. There’s stress relief that goes on there.

    Part of it is to be aware of what the typical development is, but also where a child is, because I think that they’re already in a distressing social- emotional space. So, moving forward from where they are is what’s important — and not comparing them to others. I don’t think we have to look so far to see that once they get to double digits (in age), with some of the social media platforms, how negatively impacted they can be because of those comparisons.

    It really needs to be a building-them-up kind of thing, because when a student feels like they have at least one area where they can do well, and one thing to be self-confident about in terms of their skill sets, I think that goes a long way to helping somebody feel like they have something that’s of value out in the world. A kid might be really good at chess. Somebody might be good at math, not good at language. Somebody might be good at art, but maybe struggles with some of the other subjects. (Finding) something that people are good at, and helping them be good at that thing, can go a long way for helping them with their identity development and forming of themselves.

    How can dealing with ongoing treatment affect students’ mental health? 

    Not only do you want to try to maintain the current level of education and help with the focus on school as a recovery, (but students also) fall behind with friendships. They’re not in their usual environment. They’re removed from things they knew before. They have lost autonomy. And then, there can also be, because of these spaces, the accelerating of maturity, so there’s these individual thought responses in terms of behavior within these spaces.  

    The other problems that can happen in this space is with the emotional struggles, the social-emotional difficulties that can impede your working memory. It can make it difficult to focus. A person may or may not have learning difficulties or learning disabilities, but it certainly could highlight or accentuate some of those struggles and make it a little bit difficult. 

    And, the thing that we want to try to help them with is to prevent that risk of not engaging with school because of their absence. We want to help support that so that there’s as little fallout as possible for them as they hopefully are adjusting back to home life and some real normalcy and in getting back into being present in a physical school environment. 

    What are the most important things educators and schools need to understand about working with students who are dealing with serious medical conditions?

    I don’t think there’s an environment today where anybody (working with these students) feels like they’re underworked. I think we all feel a little bit stressed and stretched out very thin. And, I think there are a lot of accountability measures that we try to use to make sure that we’re doing our due diligence, but I think sometimes they can fall short. 

    Let’s say there’s a situation that needs some attention, there’s some support that’s being asked for. These students who have any of these needs hear “no” so often. There are so many no’s, there are so many struggles. It’s quite a weight of discouragement. In that space, anytime I can say yes, because they’ve been told no so often, I want to be able to say, “Yeah, we can take a look at modifying that assignment.” Yes, we can take a look at what might help the students out in terms of social-emotional support.

    Modifying assignments for students becomes very cumbersome. But if we could just realize the enormous impact that we have every day on everybody and take that extra minute or that extra situation and say yes and help somebody, that can be really powerful.





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  • California’s college financial aid chief on FAFSA chaos, concerns about Trump and more

    California’s college financial aid chief on FAFSA chaos, concerns about Trump and more


    Daisy Gonzales, the executive director of the California Student Aid Commission, speaking at Hancock College in 2019.

    Credit: California Community Colleges

    When Dr. Daisy Gonzales took over as executive director of the California Student Aid Commission in June, she stepped into the position at a tumultuous time on the financial aid front, marked by state budget deficits, outside schemes to defraud financial programs and concerns over what President-elect Donald Trump will mean for undocumented students.

    Among her first priorities: making sure more students apply for financial aid this year following declines in 2024 amid the chaotic and oft-delayed rollout of the federal government’s revamped Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). The U.S. Department of Education last month made the 2025-26 version available. Most students in California use that form to access both state and federal aid for college costs. FAFSA completions in the state declined by an estimated 10% among incoming freshmen in 2024, mirroring a national decline, as students and families found it difficult to access and complete the form in a timely manner.

    The state student aid commission (pronounced See-Sack by insiders) oversees more than $3.5 billion in state grants available to college students mainly based on need. That includes the Cal Grant, the state’s main financial aid awards that come in various types for tuition, living allowances and career or technical programs. The commission also oversees the Middle Class Scholarship, which can provide substantial grants to underwrite attendance at California’s public colleges and universities for students from families earning up to $217,000 a year.

    In addition, the commission runs the California Dream Act Application for undocumented students, who can use it to apply for Cal Grants despite not being eligible for federal aid. Some students, including those who have citizenship or legal residency but an undocumented parent, may still be fearful to fill out any financial aid applications out of concern that information will be shared with the federal government. President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to deport undocumented residents when he takes office next year. State officials promise that Dream Act information will not be shared.

    Meanwhile, community colleges in California and across the country continue to be plagued by financial aid fraud. Scammers, posing as students, enroll at the colleges for the sole purpose of stealing financial aid. California’s community colleges have lost more than $7.5 million this year alone to such fraud. 

    Dr. Gonzales was deputy chancellor of California’s community college system before joining the aid commission in July. She also served as the system’s acting and then interim chancellor. She was selected to her current post by the 15 members of the commission, 11 of whom are appointed by the governor and another four by the Legislature.

    Previously, she was a consultant for the Budget and Appropriations Committees in the state Assembly. She has a bachelor’s degree from Mills College and received both a master’s degree and a doctorate in sociology from UC Santa Barbara.

    She recently spoke with EdSource. The following conversation has been edited for clarity and brevity. 

    What is the Student Aid Commission doing to ensure students are completing the FAFSA this year?

    We’ve been working differently with Cal Volunteers and training all of their volunteers to learn about financial aid, because they’re the boots on the ground. And even working differently with our segments. I’ve been really grateful to the community colleges. I gave them the data of those districts and colleges where we are leaving students behind, and they immediately got to work doing professional development, deploying messaging. (Cal Volunteers is a state office charged with increasing volunteering. Its College Corps program provides stipends for college students who volunteer.)

    It was also important that I could hear directly from students. So I’ve also launched a student council where all the student associations (at local community college districts) have appointments on that council, and then they are activating their associations to educate students about financial aid, the deadlines, and even solutions to some of the common barriers that they face.

    President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to deport undocumented residents. What guidance are you giving to undocumented students or students who have undocumented parents and are worried they could expose them by filling out the FAFSA?

    We believe in providing students and their families with the information that will allow them to consider all of their options. We know that there are many concerns around privacy protections for individuals without a Social Security number.

    Last year, the commission opened the Dream Act application to students from mixed-status families (those with both documented and undocumented individuals), and we are maintaining that. And so for any student, particularly if you’re a first-time applicant, if you have a family member, a parent, or a spouse that is a part of your application that does not have a Social Security number, you are being invited to complete the Dream Act application. We also have to inform you that as a part of not completing a FAFSA, you will not be able to benefit from federal aid. And our job is to help you understand that it’s your choice. And that applying is a family decision. Here at the commission, we protect your data. However, there are no similar federal reassurances that we can provide.

    Are you doing any messaging to make sure students know that any information they submit via the California Dream Act Application is not shared with the federal government?

    We redid our website so that we could have a very clear message around our data security. You can also then click on that message and it’ll show you additional information that’s important as you’re making your decision on whether to file a California Dream Act Application or FAFSA. We’ve also been deploying messages. For the first time, at least in the last several years, we actually sent out a notice that went to all education leaders — meaning the K-12 superintendents, the higher education presidents and CEOs. They all got the same message. And it was a message saying that our job is clear. We need students to stay enrolled. We need to offer them a safe option. And that is the California Dream Act Application.

    There has been a big push by lawmakers in recent years to reform the Cal Grant by simplifying it and making more students eligible for aid, especially low-income community college students. That reform hasn’t happened because of state budget constraints. Is it still a priority of yours?

    I’m here with a very clear mission to transform financial aid. I believe that it’s something that we can do together. And in doing so, then that means we are building financial aid pathways that are centered in student success. Yes, we need Cal Grant equity to be a reality, but that’s not yet funded.

    But there are still so many other things that we can be doing. So, for example, I envision a California financial aid system that’s actually predictable. What would it look like to have an expedited renewal process for aid? I hear that as the No. 1 burden for students and families. 

    Another example I can give you is foster youth. They end up having to fill out two to five different applications. So at the commission, they might do three applications, if they qualify for those programs. And then when they get to a college, they still have to fill out an application for institutional aid. And so I challenged the team here at the commission, and I said, “What would it look like to create one application where we can ask students about all of the additional special programs that California has?” We need to be able to do this differently. 

    Even though Cal Grant reform was not funded in the latest state budget deal, there have been other ideas floating around about how to come up with that funding. One suggestion was to create a new tax that would raise dollars for financial aid. Are there other creative ways to possibly raise new funding?

    There are many other states that do have additional taxes, particularly on alcoholic beverages. There are also so many different ways that I think we can move the needle here in California. I think we can do a better job in general communicating with students about what exists, how do they access it, and how we can actually help them achieve their end goal much faster. There are many other things that we can and should be doing.

    What are your expectations for the 2025-26 state budget? Are you worried there could be further cuts to financial aid?

    Nothing can be taken for granted, especially in a difficult year. We have a number of new legislators. So for me, it’s about reeducating, reaching out, building that relationship, especially with new elected officials. We’ve had to cut funding for the commission already by 7.95%. All state agencies received the same reduction. There was also a hiring freeze here at the commission. And all of this happened before I arrived. I don’t take anything for granted. I know it’s a really difficult year, but I also know that poverty has been increasing in the state. And so when I go out and advocate, I’m advocating for our students, and I’m defending the dollars that we have while helping California build pathways for many more Californians.

    On another topic, California’s community colleges have lost millions of financial aid dollars this year and in recent years to fraudsters. Is there anything the student aid commission can do or is doing to alleviate the fraud? Or does that responsibility fall to the colleges?

    I think the challenging thing about fraud is it keeps getting more sophisticated. Our campuses play a really critical role in identifying that fraud. And they are best positioned. But the commission can be a part of the alert system and a part of the professional development process. I’ve also asked for additional IT positions through the state budget process to be able to deal with some of these situations.





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  • How three teachers and a little kid taught me that phonics and meaning complement each other

    How three teachers and a little kid taught me that phonics and meaning complement each other


    A kindergarten student raises her hand in a dual-language immersion class.

    Credit: Allison Shelley for American Education

    My post doc after finishing my degree in 1984 was teaching first grade at the bilingual elementary where I had done dissertation research. As I headed out into the real world, a widely admired literacy professor advised, “Just make sure everything you have them read is deeply meaningful.” Sounded about right.

    It took me nearly three years to realize how not right that was. 

    The first hint

    I had seen in my research that kindergarten classrooms at the school were almost devoid of children’s direct experiences with print. It was all about “readiness” and “developmental appropriateness.” 

    So, one of my teacher colleagues and I did a small study using photocopied booklets (“libritos”) we wrote and illustrated for kindergartners in Spanish reading. We thought using engaging little booklets, with opportunities for kids to memorize, “pretend-read,” enjoy, and talk about the little books would help “prepare the ground” for learning to read.

    The study went well, and there was great enthusiasm. But we found no differences on any measure of pre-reading or emergent reading between the kindergartners using the libritos and the overall performance of the four comparison classrooms.

    A dive into the data, however, showed that not all comparison classrooms were alike. 

    While scores were low in two of them, the other two, taught by teachers new to the school, had scores that were off our charts. Many of those kindergartners were actually … reading.

    I had to visit. What I saw was shocking: classes like well-oiled machines. Kids in small groups rotating efficiently as a bell signaled the end of each 15-minute block. 

    One group with the teacher doing directed fast-paced instruction on letters, sounds and combining them to read syllables, then words (for the Spanish readers) or cvc words (like “dad” or “pal,” for the English readers), then short phrases or sentences. 

    Another group on the rug playing literacy games or looking at books. Another engaged in an aide-directed activity, such as dictation. Another working independently, copying then illustrating words or phrases posted on an easel. 

    This did not fit the child-centered conception of kindergarten I brought with me from graduate school. But children were productively engaged. And those darned study results. 

    We re-ran the study the following year, using new and better stories and illustrations (upgraded to “Libros”) and involving only Libros classrooms and the two classrooms that did so well the year before. We basically got the same results. In fact, testers commented that children from the two teachers I’d visited were really “into it,” eager to show what they could do with print. Children in the Libros classrooms were more wary.

    The second hint

    I was teaching first grade while doing this study, and students who had been in these teachers’ classes came into my class the following year. These kids could read. Their reading was syllable by syllable and robotic—e.g., “Pe. pe. da. la. pe. lo. ta.” (“Pepe gives the ball”) but I was able to fix this by using a prompt I’d learned when observing Reading Recovery in New Zealand: “Read it like you’re talking” (“Léelo como si estuvieras hablando”), pointing out the words meant something, and they should read that way. 

    (I gave the feedback about robotic reading to the two kindergarten teachers. The following year, their kids came in reading like champs.)

    These kids had a firm grip on the “alphabetic principle” and decoding. Moving them quickly to more challenging and interesting reading material was pure joy. Students from other kindergarten classrooms … not so much.

    The third hint

    I had a small, diverse group learning to read in English. They had very little in the way of literacy foundations, so it was up to me to lay them. Still working on the “make sure everything they read is meaningful” premise, I struggled. So did they.

    One of my English readers was a diminutive boy who had trouble “getting it.” He tried and was conscientious, but letters and words remained mysteries. One day he was not in class. His family had moved to a nearby district. I was sorry to see him go; he was bright and inquisitive. But I admit (embarrassedly) to being relieved.

    A month later, he reappeared. “Ohhh,” I thought, but put on a happy face and welcomed him. “Hey, how you doing? Where you been?” I asked. He told me he had gone to another school, but his family had decided to move back. He didn’t seem to mind. But neither was he particularly enthused.

    When reading time came around for the English reading group, he got the reading book he’d been using, opened it, and started reading. I did a double take. “Where’d you learn to read?” I asked. 

    “My teacher taught me at the other school,” he answered. My teacher taught me at the other school. Daggers to the heart. 

    “So, what did you do at your other school?” I asked, trying to be as nonchalant as he. “I practiced my spelling words.”  “And what else?” I asked. “And learned my letters and read in my book.” He was reading. And better than anyone else in the group.

    Fourth — and nailed it

    In the last two years of my brief first-grade teaching career, I got a post-doctoral fellowship to pursue my research while continuing to teach half-time. This required finding another teacher to share a classroom. 

    Our first meeting was not auspicious. She was dedicated to phonics first, while I was still — albeit now a bit wobbly — in the “make it meaningful” camp. 

    She took Monday, Tuesday and alternating Wednesdays; I had the other Wednesday, then finished the week. 

    She would handle letters, sounds, phonics, and decoding; I would focus on comprehension, generally trying to make the best of what I was sure would be meager literacy gruel she served up. 

    Despite our mutual suspicions, we made it work. 

    I soon saw her foundational focus early in the week helped kids get the foothold needed to read accurately and with confidence. She likewise saw when she returned on Mondays that our students were reading and writing in ways qualitatively different from what she had seen when she taught her own classroom in prior years. Our kids were moving ahead at a fast, but unforced, pace. 

    Many landed in that happy place I later came to know as “self-teaching”, what teachers sometimes refer to as “the light goes on.” Children suddenly understand the rules of the reading road, and they progress rapidly as new letters, sounds and spelling patterns become absorbed into a growing understanding of how to read. By the end of that year and the next one with our second crop of first graders, we had our kids get further than either of us had ever accomplished individually. I told this story to someone a few years back who said we had created a demonstration site for Scarborough’s rope, a reading-education metaphor that visually depicts the interconnected strands needed for skilled reading.

    Whatever it was, we had each learned some lessons.

    •••

    Claude Goldenberg is Nomellini & Olivier Professor of Education, emeritus, in the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University and a former first grade and junior high teacher.

     This commentary is adapted from an essay originally published on his Substack, We must end the reading wars … now.

    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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  • What rights do immigrant students and families have in California schools and colleges? | Quick Guide

    What rights do immigrant students and families have in California schools and colleges? | Quick Guide


    Two students share a bench during lunch at Rudsdale Newcomer High School in Oakland.

    Anne Wernikoff for EdSource

    Este artículo está disponible en Español. Léelo en español.

    In the first months of the first Trump administration in 2017, a father in Los Angeles was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after dropping his 12-year-old daughter off at school.

    The ripple effect was immediate.

    “Right away there was a drop in attendance in L.A. schools because parents were thinking, ‘Oh, if I drop off my kids, ICE is going to pick me up,’” said Ana Mendoza, senior staff attorney at ACLU of Southern California and director of the organization’s Education Equity Project. “The need for safety and sanctuary policies became really salient because students weren’t going to schools or families were tentative about their participation in schools.”

    In the wake of this year’s presidential election, there is again widespread uncertainty among immigrant families in California about what is to come, given President-elect Donald Trump’s promises of mass deportation.

    State Attorney General Rob Bonta recently released updated guidelines and model policies about what K-12 schools, colleges and universities can and cannot do under state and federal law, regarding keeping immigrant students and families’ data private, when to allow an immigration enforcement officer on campus, how to respond to the detention or deportation of a student’s family member, and how to respond to bullying or harassment of a student based on immigration status.

    The original guidelines and policies were released in 2018 by then-Attorney General Xavier Becerra, after California passed Assembly Bill 699, requiring schools to pass policies that limited collaboration with immigration enforcement. Bonta is now asking schools to update their policies.

    “School districts should be examining what their board policies are and to make sure they’re updated and take any measures to make sure that families feel safe,” Mendoza said.

    An estimated 1 in 10, or 1 million, children in California have at least one undocumented parent. And about 133,000 children in California public schools are undocumented themselves, according to the Migration Policy Institute.

    In California’s colleges and universities, an estimated 86,800 students are undocumented, and about 6,800 employees in TK-12 schools, colleges and universities have temporary work permits and protection from deportation under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, according to the Higher Ed Immigration Portal.

    “Undocumented students and faculty and staff are afraid for their safety, and this will impact their retention and enrollment in higher education if they’re not feeling safe or they’re feeling targeted,” said Luz Bertadillo, director of campus engagement for the Presidents’ Alliance for Higher Education and Immigration, a national organization of college and university leaders. “For campuses to have a strong stance on what they’re doing to support undocumented students is important, or at least letting their students know they’re thinking about them and they’re taking action. Even though they cannot guarantee their safety, at least they’re taking those initiatives to safeguard.”

    What rights do immigrant students and family members have at school and college, regardless of their immigration status?

    The right to attend public school 

    All children present in the United States, regardless of immigration status, have a right to attend public school. In 1982, the Supreme Court ruled in the case Plyler v. Doe that states cannot deny students a free, public education based on their immigration status or their parents or guardians’ immigration status. Some states — including California in 1994 with Proposition 187 — and school districts have since attempted to pass laws that would either deny enrollment to students who did not have valid immigration status or report their status to authorities, but all these laws have been struck down by courts.

    California schools are not allowed to request or collect information about Social Security numbers, immigration status or U.S. citizenship when enrolling students. Students and parents do not have to answer questions from schools about their immigration status, citizenship or whether they have a Social Security number.

    “This often comes up in requests for student documents,” Mendoza said. “I had an intake once where a parent gave a passport during enrollment, and the front office person was asking the parent for a visa. No. The school has no right to ask for documents about your citizenship or immigration status.”

    Schools can ask for some information like a student’s place of birth, when they first came to the U.S. or attended school in the U.S., in order to determine whether a student is eligible for special federal or state programs for recently arrived immigrant students or English learners. However, parents are not required to give schools this information, and schools cannot use this information to prevent children from enrolling in school. The Office of the Attorney General suggests that schools should collect this information separately from enrolling students.

    Privacy of school records

    The federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, or FERPA, restricts schools from sharing students’ personal information in most cases with other agencies or organizations, including federal immigration authorities. The law requires that schools get a parent or guardian’s consent before releasing any student information to another agency or organization, or if the student is 18 or older, schools must get consent from the student.

    However, in some cases, schools may be required to provide information without consent in response to a court order or judicial subpoena.

    Colleges are also restricted from sharing information except in certain cases. Bertadillo said her organization recommends that college leaders have conversations with all the different departments that might manage information about students’ or families’ immigration status, such as information technology, admissions, registrar, and financial aid, to review their practices for storing or sharing the data.

    “We hear some campuses have citizenship status on their transcripts and those transcripts get sent to graduate schools, to jobs, and that’s essentially outing students,” Bertadillo said.

    She said it’s important for colleges and schools to pass or revisit procedures about what to do if immigration officials ask for data or attempt to enter a campus.

    “A lot of institutions created them back in Trump 1.0. We’re recommending they reaffirm or revisit them, so that the campus knows that this is in place,” Bertadillo said.

    Safe haven at school

    The Department of Homeland Security has designated schools and colleges as protected areas where immigration enforcement should be avoided as much as possible. President-elect Trump has said he may rescind this policy.

    In the event that ICE officers do enter schools or ask to question students, the attorney general’s guidelines say school staff should ask officers for a judicial warrant. Without a judicial warrant, school staff are not required to give an ICE officer permission to enter the school or conduct a search, or to provide information or records about a student or family, the guidelines say.

    A bill introduced by state Sen. Lena Gonzalez, D-Long Beach, and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond would establish a “safe zone” of 1 mile around schools and prohibit schools from allowing ICE to enter a campus or share information without a judicial warrant.

    Under California law, schools must notify parents or guardians if they release a student to a law-enforcement officer, except in cases of suspected child abuse or neglect.

    California law does not require schools to notify parents or guardians before law enforcement officers question a child at school, but it does not prohibit schools from notifying them either. California’s attorney general suggests that school districts and charter schools should create policies that require notification of parents or guardians before a law enforcement officer questions or removes a student, unless that officer has a judicial warrant or court order.

    In addition, the attorney general says if a police officer or immigration agent tries to enter a school or talk to a student for purposes of immigration enforcement, the superintendent or principal should e-mail the Bureau of Children’s Justice in the California Department of Justice.

    “Schools should retrain their staff on their visitor management policies, to make sure everyone who comes onto campus, including law enforcement, is questioned about what their purpose is, and that school staff is trained on what to do if law enforcement asks to see information about students or staff,” said Mendoza.

    Support from school if a family member is detained or deported

    If a student reports that their parents or guardians were detained or deported, California law requires that the school must follow parents’ instructions about whom to contact in an emergency. The attorney general’s guidance says “schools should not contact Child Protective Services unless the school is unsuccessful in arranging for the care of the child through the emergency contact information.”

    The guidance also suggests that schools should help students and family members contact legal assistance, their consulate, and help them locate their detained family members through ICE’s detainee locator system.

    Mendoza said it is important to note that if a student’s parents are detained or deported, and as a result they have to go live with another family member, at that point, they are eligible for support for homeless students under the federal McKinney-Vento Act.

    Protection from discrimination and harassment

    Federal law prohibits discrimination and harassment based on race, national origin, color, sex, age, disability and religion. California’s law AB 699 also made immigration status a protected characteristic, meaning that schools are required to have policies that prohibit discrimination, harassment and bullying based on immigration status.

    Mendoza said it’s important for families and students who experience bullying or harassment to know they can submit complaints through their schools or to different agencies in California. “There are advocates out there willing to support them if their schools do not act in accordance with best practices or with the law,” Mendoza said.

    Free lunch, subsidized child care and special education

    In California, all students have a right to a free school lunch, since the 2022-23 school year. In addition, some students whose families are considered low-income qualify for subsidized child care, either all day for infants and preschoolers, or after school for school-age children. Students with disabilities have a right to special education to meet their needs, under federal law.

    Immigrant families are often afraid to apply for public services because they are worried this will count against them when applying for permanent residency. This is largely due to the “public charge” test, which immigration officers use to determine whether green-card applicants are likely to depend on public benefits. 

    Currently, immigration officers can only consider whether applicants have used cash assistance for income, like SSI or CalWORKs, or long-term institutionalized care paid for by public insurance, such as Medi-Cal. They do not consider school lunch, child care or food stamps. And officers are not allowed to look at whether applicants’ family members, like U.S. citizen children, use public benefits. During the first Trump administration, the president changed this policy to include family members and some other benefits. It is unclear whether he may attempt to change this again in the future. However, even under the changes during his first term, school lunch and child care were not included.

    In-state tuition and scholarships for college

    Under the California Dream Act, undocumented students qualify for in-state tuition and state financial aid at California colleges and universities if they attended high school for three or more years or attained credits at community college or adult school and graduated from high school or attained an associate degree or finished minimum transfer requirements at a California community college. The number of students applying for the California Dream Act has plummeted in recent years.





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  • A new year and a new CEO for EdSource

    A new year and a new CEO for EdSource


    This week, I step into the role of EdSource’s CEO, only the fifth in the news organization’s near-50 year history. So I thought I’d take a moment to introduce myself and tell you why I’m excited about what’s ahead.

    I’m a lifelong storyteller — one of those people who discovered a calling at a very young age. My passion has been predicated on two notions: one, that everybody has a story to tell, and two, if we understand the world around us, we can make better decisions and, frankly, make the world a richer and more just place.  

    Deborah Clark, Chief Executive Officer of EdSource.

    That passion led me into public service journalism, where I’ve worked across TV and radio for organizations including PBS and NPR. For more than a decade, I was the general manager of Marketplace, APM’s suite of podcasts and radio shows on business and the economy.

    Our North Star at Marketplace was to raise the economic intelligence of the country by covering business and the economy in a way that was smart enough for Wall Street insiders or Beltway policymakers and relevant and accessible to real people living in the real economy. 

    It feels like a very direct line, then, to take over the reins at EdSource. I’ve long viewed the world through a lens of economic mobility. That may stem in part from being from England, where there’s a greater sense that the world is not a level playing field.

    I’m fascinated by how the circumstances of your birth can fell or fuel you. That dynamic plays out nowhere more starkly than in education.

    So I come into this organization believing that the work we do is crucial in helping our audiences — whether they are parents or policymakers (and everything in between) understand the complicated landscape of public education in California.

    Let’s do the numbers (if you’re a listener to Marketplace, you’ll appreciate my homage there):

    • California has nearly a thousand school districts.
    • The second charter school in the nation started in California, which now has roughly 1,300 schools. The next closest state — Texas — has just 700.
    • Our community college system is the largest in the country, to say nothing of the vast California State University and University of California (UC) systems. The three systems together serve about 2.8 million students. 
    • More than 100 languages are spoken in schools up and down the state.

    I was educated in the UC system, the first in my family to attend college. I paid my way through UC Berkeley by juggling work with my academic demands. When I think about the cost of college today, I think of how many young people work harder than I did and have the added burden of loans to make it all work. I wonder about the promise of California’s master plan.

    EdSource is a great organization. The journalists here are dedicated to telling great stories about the people and policies that are shaping the futures of young people in our state. I am ready to roll up my sleeves, dig in and find new ways to grow EdSource so we can serve more Californians and do right by our kids.

    I’d love to hear what’s on your mind. What should we be covering more? Less? Send story ideas, questions or just your own reflections on public education in California. You can reach me at dclark@edsource.org.





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  • Schools damaged and districts closed due to fires in Los Angeles County

    Schools damaged and districts closed due to fires in Los Angeles County


    Most Los Angeles-area school districts, including Los Angeles Unified School District, are closed Thursday as fires continue to rage, significantly impacting the Southern California region. The map below shows the status of districts in the region, and will continue to be updated as the situation evolves. Data as of 1/10/2025 11 a.m.

    Data source: California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection; EdSource Research; Los Angeles County Office of Education

    Note: Charter schools’ enrollment not included.

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