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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.

    Read more:





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  • Los Angeles schools close, brace for more fire, wind and ash 

    Los Angeles schools close, brace for more fire, wind and ash 


    Wildfire smoke fills the air over the 110 freeway in Los Angeles.

    Credit: AP Photo / Etienne Laurent

    Fires, ash and power outages continue to push communities throughout Los Angeles away from their homes and into uncertainty — all while more than 12% of the state’s schools, including nearly 800 in Los Angeles Unified, have had to stop in-person instruction, and, despite incurring damages, extend essential services to students and their families. 

    As of 5:30 p.m. Thursday, blazes spanning roughly 350 to 17,000 acres continued to burn across Los Angeles County, according to CalFire. At least five people have died, and thousands of buildings have been destroyed. 

    Eight schools are among the structures that have been damaged in Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) and beyond.

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

    The map below shows the status of districts in the region. Data as of 1/10/2025 11 a.m.

    Map designed by Yuxuan Xie / EdSource

    “With so many students, staff, and families affected by the devastating Eaton fire and mandatory evacuations, we know this is an overwhelming and difficult time for everyone,” Pasadena Unified School District Superintendent Elizabeth Blanco said in a statement. “Our hearts are broken for everything that our beloved community is enduring. But we know that our community is strong, and together, we will get through this.” 

    Meanwhile, several unions — including Associated Administrators of Los Angeles/Teamsters Local 2010, Teamsters Local 572, SEIU Local 99 and United Teachers of Los Angeles — along with teachers and parents criticized the Los Angeles Unified School District’s response to the fires as well as the decision to only close campuses in certain regions on Wednesday. 

    LAUSD has since announced it will close all of its campuses and district offices through Friday. 

    “Extreme winds continue to threaten the further spread of the fires. … Air quality is at an extremely unhealthy level throughout LA, with ash falling like rain in many areas of the district,” Superintendent Alberto Carvalho and district officials wrote in a letter to four unions collectively representing more than 74,000 LAUSD employees. “Traffic is also congested throughout, making it difficult or impossible for many students and workers to travel to school sites and leaving many without food deliveries.”

    “Many school sites have lost power, water, telephone, and internet access,” the letter noted. “In these extreme circumstances, requiring students, families, and workers to travel to school and attempt to conduct educational services in this environment is unsafe and irresponsible.” 

    Damages to schools  

    Los Angeles Unified and Pasadena Unified school districts have experienced severe damage from the fires. 

    As of Thursday, three LAUSD schools had been damaged, including Palisades Charter High School, Palisades Charter Elementary School and Marquez Elementary School, according to a district spokesperson. 

    At the 63-year-old Palisades Charter High School — which was featured in films including “Carrie” and “Freaky Friday”— the school community remains hopeful that 70% of its campus may survive the flames, the Los Angeles Times reported. 

    The damage at the other two campuses was worse, and roughly half of Marquez Elementary School has been turned to rubble. 

    Meanwhile, five campuses in Pasadena Unified have been damaged by the Eaton Canyon fire, which, according to CalFire, was still 0% contained as of 5 p.m. Thursday. 

    School Closures 

    As fires continue to ravage communities, more districts and schools throughout the L.A. area have opted to close. 

    More than 1,000 public schools closed, according to an EdSource analysis, affecting more than 9% of students across the state.

    Districts that closed are: 

    • Alhambra Unified School District
    • Arcadia Unified School District
    • Beverly Hills Unified School District
    • Burbank Unified School District
    • Compton Unified School District
    • Culver City Unified School District
    • Duarte Unified School District
    • Garvey School District
    • Glendale Unified School District
    • Glendora Unified School District
    • La Canada Unified
    • Los Angeles Unified School District
    • Monrovia Unified School District
    • Pasadena Unified School District
    • Rosemead Unified School District
    • San Gabriel Unified School District
    • Santa Monica Malibu Unified School District
    • South Pasadena Unified School District
    • Temple City Unified School District

    On Wednesday, the Los Angeles Unified School District — the largest in the state, with roughly 1,000 campuses — closed schools in harder-hit areas, including in the central and eastern parts of the district. Several parents had opted to keep their children home anyway, and the district’s attendance rate was 68% on Wednesday. 

    “I understand as a parent and former medical professional what we are dealing with,” said Vicky Martinez, a parent of three Los Angeles Unified students in the Highland Park area. “And I was not going to expose my kids and myself to the debris unnecessarily.” 

    Closures among colleges and universities 

    Several colleges and universities throughout Los Angeles also closed their campuses or halted in-person instruction. 

    UCLA canceled undergraduate courses on Thursday and Friday, while graduate courses are being held remotely.

    Cal State Los Angeles has also announced that instruction will be online-only until Monday. “We are closely monitoring the situation and are in regular communication with our students and employees to ensure their safety and well-being,” said CSU Chancellor Mildred García in a statement Thursday morning. 

    The California Institute of Technology was closed Thursday but planned to reopen Friday.  

    Community colleges, including Glendale Community College, Pasadena City College and Santa Monica College also paused in-person instruction through the end of the week, while the Los Angeles Community College District remained closed on Thursday. 

    Support and relief services 

    The California Department of Education announced Wednesday that it, along with State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, will work with SupplyBank.org Disaster Relief Fund to provide families and school employees in need with emergency resources, including housing assistance, water, food, gas cards and clothing. 

    Meanwhile, as part of an emergency plan, LAUSD doubled the number of available sites for Friday meal pickups between 8 a.m. and 11 a.m. 

    Now, each student can receive two meals at the following locations: 

    • Region North: Mulholland Middle School, Sepulveda Middle School, San Fernando Middle School, Richard E. Byrd Middle School
    • Region East: Hollenbeck Middle School, South Gate High School, Los Angeles Academy Middle School, John H. Liechty Middle School
    • Region South: Fremont High School, Harry Bridges Span School, Edwin Markham Middle School, Barack Obama Global Preparation Academy
    • Region West: Marina Del Rey Middle School, Sonia Sotomayor Arts and Sciences Magnet, Berendo Middle School, Fairfax High School

    Los Angeles Unified also announced Thursday a partnership with the YMCA of Metropolitan Los Angeles to help provide displaced and evacuated families with free child care and provide additional resources. 

    The YMCA — which has 28 centers across Los Angeles — is also allowing students who are at least 12 years old to use its facilities for free at its facilities that remain open. 

    “We are deeply grateful to the YMCA for stepping up during this challenging time to support our students, families, and essential workers,” Carvalho said in a statement. “This partnership exemplifies the power of community and our shared commitment to ensuring no child or family is left without support.”

    Community members have also initiated GoFundMe campaigns to support teachers and families who have lost their homes; the Los Angeles County Office of Education is providing guidance to school districts and sharing resources. 

    “We are committed to supporting our schools and communities during this challenging time,” Van Nguyen, spokesperson for the county office, said in an email to EdSource, “and will continue to adapt our response as the situation evolves.” 

    Staff writers Daniel J. Willis, Diana Lambert and Karen D’Souza contributed to this report.





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  • Cal State system braces for possible cuts in classes, sports due to budget problems and enrollment decline

    Cal State system braces for possible cuts in classes, sports due to budget problems and enrollment decline


    At Sonoma State University, lower enrollment is worsening financial cutbacks.

    Credit: Ally Valiente / EdSource

    When Kaitlin Anderson committed to play golf for Sonoma State University, she posed proudly in a Seawolves sweatshirt. But last week, school officials announced that they plan to end all NCAA sports next year, part of a bid to balance the school’s budget amid sliding enrollment and anticipated cuts to state funding. Anderson, a business marketing major from Peoria, Arizona, now is thinking that she might leave the campus.

    “I will not be coming back here” if the golf program is eliminated, said Anderson, a first-year student. “I think this school will not do well after doing all this because half the reason we have so many people is because of athletics.”

    Sonoma State, one of the 23 campuses in the California State University (CSU) system, is perhaps the most extreme example of how public universities in the state are tightening their belts in the wake of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s January budget proposal and troubling enrollment drops at some campuses. The governor’s plan calls for a nearly 8% reduction in state funding in 2025-26 for both CSU and the University of California (UC), while also deferring previously promised budget increases of 5% until 2027-28.

    The governor’s proposal is not final, and later revisions could paint a rosier financial picture for higher education. But CSU leaders have warned that the plan, if implemented, could result in fewer course sections and larger class sizes, along with some cuts in student services.

    Sonoma State has been taking in less money from tuition and fees as its student body has shrunk 39% over the past decade due to changes in local demographics and some continuing fallout from wildfires in the region. In addition to the sports closures, it is also planning to close six academic departments and eliminate two dozen majors in an effort to plug a nearly $24 million budget deficit. 

    Several other CSU campuses are warning about possible impacts of the governor’s proposal. Stanislaus State, which serves more than 9,000 students in the San Joaquin Valley, could face a $20 million deficit after accounting for the January budget proposal, a Jan. 22 email from the president’s office said. Sacramento State, with a student body of more than 30,000, anticipates making a $45 million one-time cut. CSU Channel Islands officials have outlined plans to permanently reduce the Ventura County campus’s budget by $17 million in recurring expenses in 2025-26, saying that expenses per-student exceed the state average by thousands of dollars.

    Reduced state support could be missed most at schools like Sonoma State, one of 11 CSU campuses where enrollment has dropped over the last decade, reducing revenue from tuition and fees. Enrollment this fall was also a mixed bag, rising year-over-year at 15 CSU campuses and falling at eight. 

    At the Sonoma State campus in Rohnert Park, students responded to the news about the end to NCAA Division II intercollegiate sports and academic cuts with a mixture of anger and disbelief. A video published by the Press Democrat newspaper in nearby Santa Rosa shows an emotionally charged town hall meeting among student-athletes, coaches and university leaders. “So you think that we’re easily replaceable?” one attendee asked interim President Emily Cutrer. (“No, that’s not what I was saying,” she replied.) As tensions escalated, students erupted into bitter laughter and shouted interjections. “Do we get our money back for the semester?” one student asked, prompting applause.

    A group called Save Seawolves Athletics has filed a federal civil rights complaint arguing that Sonoma State’s plan to end the school’s NCAA Division II athletics program will impact minority students disproportionately, spokesperson and assistant men’s soccer coach Benjamin Ziemer said. The group is also considering filing a lawsuit.

    Signs of belt-tightening were also common this fall at San Francisco State, where enrollment is down 26% over the decade. Students and faculty members in December protested academic job cuts by staging a mock funeral march. Earlier in the fall, the university’s J. Paul Leonard Library announced that it expects to trim its budget 30% over the next two years, reducing its spending on resources like books and journals. The university offered 443 fewer course sections in fall 2024 than in fall 2023, a decline of nearly 11%, according to university data. President Lynn Mahoney said in a December message to the campus that the school is planning for “significant reductions in the 2025-26 budget” totaling about $25 million.

    Leaders at California State University, Dominguez Hills — where enrollment has fallen a slighter 3% since 2015, but 20% from its peak in fall 2020 — have already whittled $19 million from the school’s base budget since the 2023-24 school year. If state funding is slashed in 2025-26, campus officials have outlined plans to shave another $12 million, and have contemplated reducing the number of course sections, among other things.

    “I don’t want to cut out Psych 101, but if we have a thousand less students here, then maybe I don’t need 20 sections of Psych 101; maybe I only need 12,” President Thomas A. Parham said at a Nov. 7 budget town hall. “What we are trying to do is reduce the number of sections and, in some cases, fill those higher, so that instead of 15 students there might be 25 in them. But we are still trying to keep the academic integrity intact, even as we work smarter around the limited resources we have.”

    Some faculty and students at Dominguez Hills are worried. Elenna Hernandez, a double major in sociology and Chicano studies entering the last semester of her senior year, said the tighter finances have been evident at La Casita, a Latino cultural center where she works on campus. She said La Casita, which receives campus funding, isn’t staying open as late as it has in the past and received less funding for its Day of the Dead celebration. The center is important to her because it runs workshops where students can learn about Latino history and culture.  

    “A lot of students don’t have access to this education,” she said, noting that more than 60% of the student body is Latino. “The classroom doesn’t teach it, necessarily, unless you’re in an ethnic studies class.” 

    Stanislaus State University President Britt Rios-Ellis said last week in an email to the campus that the university is considering several ways to balance its budget, including reducing the number of courses and looking to save money on utility costs.

    Miranda Gonzalez, a fourth-year business administration major at Stanislaus State and president of the school’s Associated Students student government organization, said she initially was surprised that CSU would need to trim its budget at all in light of a decision to increase tuition 6% each year starting this past fall and ending in the 2028-29 school year. Full-time undergraduate students currently pay $6,084 for the academic year, plus an additional $420 per semester if they are from out of state.

    “It was kind of a shock that the CSU was going to be cutting their budget when they just raised tuition as well,” she said, adding that lawmakers and campus leaders should remember that any reduction “ultimately impacts the lives of our students, faculty and staff.”

    State funding is not the only source of revenue for the CSU and UC systems, which also get money from student tuition and fees, the federal government and other sources like housing, parking and philanthropies.

    The revenue picture is not gloomy at every Cal State campus.

    Cal State Fullerton, which has the largest student body in the system, saw enrollment grow 4% to roughly 43,000 students between 2023 and 2024. The steady growth provides the campus with a revenue cushion that has potentially saved jobs, campus President Ronald S. Rochon said. 

    “We are at a record enrollment, and because of the enrollment, we continue to have the kind of revenue to keep our lights on, people employed and our campus moving forward,” Rochon said in a Nov. 7 presentation to the university’s Academic Senate. “This is something that we all should be taking very, very seriously. We should not rest on our laurels with regard to where we are with enrollment.”

    The California Faculty Association, which represents CSU employees including tenure-track faculty, lecturers and librarians, argued last spring that the university system should tap its financial reserves to balance shortfalls. CSU officials, however, say that reserves leave them only enough money to cover 34 days of operations systemwide.  

    UC’s fiscal outlook is less dire. Enrollment is stable across its 10 campuses and is even increasing at several. Some campuses, like UC Berkeley, may not have to make cuts at all to department budgets. A Berkeley spokesperson cited increased revenues from investments and noted that Berkeley will benefit from a systemwide 10% tuition hike for out-of-state students that kicks in this year. Berkeley enrolls about 3,300 undergraduates from other states and another 3,200 international students.

    Other campuses, however, likely would have to make cuts under Newsom’s proposed budget, including to core academic services. The system as a whole faces a potential $504 million budget hole, due to the possible drop in state funding paired with rising costs. “I think this budget challenge does require us to focus more on some campus budgets than we have perhaps traditionally,” Michael Cohen, who chairs the finance committee of UC’s board of regents, said at a meeting last week. 

    UC Riverside has already saved some money on salaries because of retirements and other employee turnover, said Gerry Bomotti, vice chancellor for budget and planning at the campus. Still, the campus could face a deficit next year because of increasing compensation costs on top of possible cuts in state funding. Bomotti said the campus will try to minimize any harm to academic units if reductions are needed.

    “Our priority obviously is serving students and supporting our faculty and our enrollment. We tend to always give that priority,” he said.

    California’s 116 community colleges, which enrolled more than 1.4 million students as of fall 2023, could face a more favorable 2025-26 budget year than the state’s two university systems. The colleges would get about $230 million in new general funding through Proposition 98, the formula used to allocate money from California’s general fund to K-12 schools and community colleges.

    By some measures, the past decade has seen more state and local dollars flowing into California’s public colleges and universities. State and local spending on higher education in California has been at a historic high in recent years on a per-student basis, hitting $14,622 per full-time equivalent student in 2023, up from $10,026 in 2014, according to an analysis by the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association, which takes into account funding for both two-year and four-year institutions. Looking at four-year schools alone, the association calculated that California spent $3,500 more per student than the U.S. average in 2023. Living costs and salaries, however, are often higher in California than in many other states.

    Marc Duran, a member of the EdSource California Student Journalism Corps, contributed to this story.

    This article has been updated with the correct spelling of Kaitlin Anderson’s last name and to clarify her plans if the golf program is eliminated.





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  • California still lags behind pre-pandemic reading and math scores on national assessment

    California still lags behind pre-pandemic reading and math scores on national assessment


    Credit: Andrew Reed / EdSource

    Like most of the nation, California students were stuck in low gear again in 2024. On the National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP), they performed significantly below their pre-pandemic scores in math and reading.

    The gaps between the lowest-performing students, between low-income and well-off students, and among some racial and ethnic groups continued to widen overall, an ominous sign that many students are unprepared for high school and beyond.

    “Our nation is facing complex challenges in reading,” said Peggy Carr, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, which administers NAEP, noting that nationwide, the percentage of eighth graders reading Below Basic, the lowest achievers, was 33% and the highest in the assessment’s history. The 40% of fourth graders scoring Below Basic was the highest in 20 years. 

    On the fourth grade reading assessment for NAEP, scores in five states, in light blue, declined compared with 2022, no states’ scores improved, and 47 states, including California, saw no statistically significant change.
    Credit: National Assessment of Educational Progress

    Also known as The Nation’s Report Card, NAEP is the only assessment that a representative number of students in fourth, eighth, and 12th grades in every state and Washington, D.C., take every two years—and thus, the most reliable measure of performance among states. The results for fourth and eighth graders were released today.

    On NAEP’s 500-point scale, where one or 2-point gains are common, and movement of 3 or more points are notable, California’s scores have consistently trailed the nation in both reading and math, although the gap in reading has narrowed. That had been especially so for eighth graders, whose score equaled the nation’s in 2022.

    But that result was the exception in a year in which scores fell sharply nationally and to a lesser extent in California in the aftermath of the pandemic and slow recovery. Nationally, math scores in 2022 dropped 8 points in eighth grade and 5 points in fourth, the largest drop in NAEP’s 25-year history.

    The latest scores show mostly no progress. Scores in fourth and eighth grade reading fell again, leaving California 9 points and the nation 8 points below 2017. Math was mixed — up in fourth grade, but not enough to catch 2019, with eighth grade taking another dip.

    The average scores, however, mask widening disparities between the highest and lowest-performing students. On fourth grade reading, student scores at the 90th achievement percentile fell 1 point between 2019 and 2024, and scores at the 75th percentile fell 3 points. However, scores for students in the 10th percentile fell 10 points, and for students in the 25th percentile, they fell 8 points.  

    The pattern looks about the same throughout the nation, with a serious long-term impact, said Eric Hanushek, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, who also was provided an early peek at the scores. “The top scorers are coming back, and the bottom is doing worse, which will affect income distribution over a lifetime,” he said.

    On fourth grade reading, California scored higher than three states (West Virginia, New Mexico, and Alaska), statistically about the same as 35 other states and behind 13 states. Only two states, Louisiana in reading and Alabama in math, scored above pre-pandemic levels of 2019.

    NAEP scores fall within four bands of achievement: Advanced, Proficient, Basic and Below Basic. The differences by race and ethnicity remained stark on all the tests. For example, on the fourth grade reading test, 7% of Black students and 19% of Latino students scored Proficient and Advanced, while 50% of Asian and 44% of white students scored that high.

    For all students, only 31% of California’s fourth graders scored Proficient or Advanced, compared with 32% nationally.

    NAEP defines students performing at the Basic level as having partially mastered knowledge and skills required to perform at a Proficient level. Proficient students have demonstrated a grasp of challenging material and can apply the knowledge to real-world situations and analytical skills. Advanced students showed superior performance.

    Scoring Below Basic doesn’t mean students in fourth grade can’t read. “We’re saying that they’re unlikely to be able to determine the meaning of a familiar word using context from the text. That’s a critical skill that students will really need for entering middle school,” said Lesley Muldoon, executive director of the National Assessment Governing Board, an independent body that Congress created to set policy for NAEP.

    Once education experts and advocates have had a chance to review the results and findings of surveys that the National Center for Educational Statistics conducted of students and teachers, there will be theories for the low scores and calls for efforts to address them. 

    In The 74 earlier this week, columnist Chad Aldeman evaluated a half-dozen explanations for declining scores nationwide. They include less reading and more TikTok; the abandonment of federal accountability for school performance, starting in the latter years of the Obama administration; the adoption of Common Core state standards a decade ago; and soaring student absenteeism rates post-Covid. While they have come down, the rates remain disproportionately high for the lowest-performing students, contributing to widening gaps in achievement.

    Dan Goldhaber, director of the Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research at the American Institutes for Research and one of a few education experts who got an early look at the NAEP results, would add another cause to the mix: emerging evidence of grade inflation, connected to the pandemic, and perceptions parents have of their own children’s learning. 

    “So the most immediate information that parents get is not state or NAEP tests. It’s (high) grades that are not showing parents where their kids stand in real time, to allow them to provide feedback to their kids and encourage them.”

    Goldhaber said there is evidence that teacher quality is largely what moves students; he’d focus on the inequitable distribution of schools with less qualified and credentialed teachers.

    Not comparable to Smarter Balanced

    Students also take annual state tests in math and English language arts, but NAEP officials warn not to make comparisons since each state’s measurements and standards are different. California aligns its tests to the Common Core standards, while NAEP’s tests are based on what experts say students in each grade should know. It’s harder to score Proficient or above on NAEP than on most state tests. In 2024, 44% of all California fourth graders students scored at or above Proficient on the Smarter Balanced test.

    About 11,000 students in California took NAEP, and only portions of it. That’s too few for individual students, schools, and districts to receive scores, with one exception. Annually, a representative number of students in 25 large districts, including Los Angeles Unified and San Diego Unified, take the Trial Urban District Assessment or TUDA. They provided one of the few bright spots in 2024.

    Los Angeles was one of three districts whose fourth grade math scores didn’t drop during the pandemic; it rose slightly from 2019 to 2024, and San Diego’s fell less than 2 points, a statistically insignificant amount. In eighth grade, Los Angeles dropped less than a point, and San Diego’s 8-point drop was lower than the national average for the districts. Los Angeles’ reading scores in fourth and eighth grade didn’t decline at all post-pandemic; San Diego’s increased a statistically insignificant amount in fourth grade, and its decline of 3 points was about the average for the TUDA districts.  

    California’s low percentage of students scoring Proficient or better on fourth grade reading and math (34% Proficient in fourth grade, 29% in eighth grade) will likely lead to calls for funding for teacher training on the new standards and evidence-based practices in kindergarten through second grade. 

    Gov. Gavin Newsom has proposed allocating $500 million in the 2025-26 budget for teacher training and to encourage districts to use discretionary funding on summer programs and tutoring to make up for lost Covid learning. Some states whose scores exceeded California’s on fourth-grade reading, including Mississippi, Connecticut and Colorado, adopted comprehensive reading plans grounded in the science of reading.





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  • Memo Leaked about Cuts to State Department, Slashing Africa Offices, Climate and Human Rights Agencies

    Memo Leaked about Cuts to State Department, Slashing Africa Offices, Climate and Human Rights Agencies


    The New York Times published a leaked plan to reorganize the Trump State Department; Rubio disowned it. Its goal is to align the State Department and foreign policy with Trump’s “America First” agenda. It’s a very scary vision of Fortress America, cut off from the rest of the world, with no concern for democracy, climate change, human rights, or Africa.

    The Times reported:

    A draft of a Trump administration executive order proposes a drastic restructuring of the State Department, including eliminating almost all of its Africa operations and shutting down embassies and consulates across the continent.

    The draft also calls for cutting offices at State Department headquarters that address climate change and refugee issues, as well as democracy and human rights concerns.

    The purpose of the executive order, which could be signed soon by President Trump, is to impose “a disciplined reorganization” of the State Department and “streamline mission delivery” while cutting “waste, fraud and abuse,” according to a copy of the 16-page draft order obtained by The New York Times. The department is supposed to make the changes by Oct. 1.

    Some of the proposed changes outlined in the draft document would require congressional notification and no doubt be challenged by lawmakers, including mass closures of diplomatic missions and headquarters bureaus, as well as an overhaul of the diplomatic corps. Substantial parts of it, if officials tried to enact them, would likely face lawsuits.

    Elements of the executive order could change before final White House review or before Mr. Trump signs it, if he decides to do so. Neither the State Department nor the White House National Security Council had immediate comment on the draft order early Sunday.

    Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote a short comment on social media after this article was published calling it “fake news…”

    Major structural changes to the State Department would be accompanied by efforts to lay off both career diplomats, known as foreign service officers, and civil service employees, who usually work in the department’s headquarters in Washington, said current and former U.S. officials familiar with the plans. The department would begin putting large numbers of workers on paid leave and sending out notices of termination, they said.

    The draft executive order calls for ending the foreign service exam for aspiring diplomats, and it lays out new criteria for hiring, including “alignment with the president’s foreign policy vision.”

    The draft says the department must greatly expand its use of artificial intelligence to help draft documents, and to undertake “policy development and review” and “operational planning.”

    The proposed reorganization would get rid of regional bureaus that help make and enact policy in large parts of the globe.

    Instead, the draft says, those functions would fall under four “corps”: Eurasia Corps, consisting of Europe, Russia and Central Asia; Mid-East Corps, consisting of Arab nations, Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan; Latin America Corps, consisting of Central America, South America and the Caribbean; and Indo-Pacific Corps, consisting of East Asia, Southeast Asia, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan and the Maldives.

    One of the most drastic proposed changes would be eliminating the bureau of African affairs, which oversees policy in sub-Saharan Africa. It would be replaced by a much smaller special envoy office for African affairs that would report to the White House National Security Council. The office would focus on a handful of issues, including “coordinated counterterrorism operations” and “strategic extraction and trade of critical natural resources.”

    The draft also said all “nonessential” embassies and consulates in sub-Saharan Africa would be closed by Oct. 1. Diplomats would be sent to Africa on “targeted, mission-driven deployments,” the document said.

    Canada operations would be put into a new North American affairs office under Mr. Rubio’s authority, and it would be run by a “significantly reduced team,” the draft said. The department would also severely shrink the U.S. embassy in Ottawa.



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  • More Than 100 Universities Sign Statement Rejecting Trump’s Interference in and Control of Their Campuses

    More Than 100 Universities Sign Statement Rejecting Trump’s Interference in and Control of Their Campuses


    More than 100 universities joined forces to oppose the Trump administration’s efforts to control their curriculum, their hiring policies, and their admissions policies. The initial statement was released this morning and almost another 100 universities signed on.

    The Trump administration’s threat to academic freedom by suspending federal funding and threatening the universities’ tax-exempt status alarmed the universities and spurred them to resist the administration’s unprecedented effort to stifle academic freedom.

    CBS News reported:

    Washington — More than 100 U.S. universities and colleges, including Harvard, Princeton, Penn, Brown, MIT, Cornell and Tufts issued a joint letter Tuesday condemning President Trump’s “political interference” in the nation’s education system. 

    The move comes a day after Harvard University sued the Trump administration, which announced an initial funding freeze of $2.2 billion and later signaled its intention to suspend an additional $1 billion in grants. The moves came after weeks of escalation between the administration and Harvard, which had rejected the administration’s demands to change many of the school’s policies and leadership, including auditing the student body and faculty for “viewpoint diversity.”

    “We speak with one voice against the unprecedented government overreach and political interference now endangering American higher education,” Tuesday’s letter read. 

    “We are open to constructive reform and do not oppose legitimate government oversight. However, we must oppose undue government intrusion,” it said, adding: “We must reject the coercive use of public research funding.” 

    Mr. Trump has sought to bring several prestigious universities to heel over claims they tolerated campus antisemitism, threatening their budgets and tax-exempt status and the enrollment of foreign students.

    The letter said the universities and colleges were committed to serving as centers where “faculty, students, and staff are free to exchange ideas and opinions across a full range of viewpoints without fear of retribution, censorship, or deportation.”

    “Most fundamentally,” the letter reads, “America’s colleges and universities prepare an educated citizenry to sustain our democracy.

    “The price of abridging the defining freedoms of American higher education will be paid by our students and our society. On behalf of our current and future students, and all who work at and benefit from our institutions, we call for constructive engagement that improves our institutions and serves our republic.”

    Reuters reported that other higher education institutions added their names to the statement, which now has nearly 200 signatories.

    The New York Times reported today that some of Harvard’s major donors were urging it to settle with the administration. Eventually, the government’s threats to take control of the university made a settlement impossible.



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  • How to resist Trump’s order imposing classroom censorship and discrimination 

    How to resist Trump’s order imposing classroom censorship and discrimination 


    The LGBTQ+ community rallies in solidarity, opposing the Social Studies Alive! ban in Temecula Valley Unified in June 2023.

    Credit: Mallika Seshadri / EdSource

    This week’s executive order by President Donald Trump disingenuously titled “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling” is a brazen assault on our educational freedoms and civil rights. The order directs the secretary of education and other department heads to develop a plan to terminate federal funds that directly or indirectly support classroom instruction on systemic racism or provide supportive school services and protections to transgender youth. 

    The order’s sweeping definition of what it calls “discriminatory equity ideology” could lead to a ban on teaching about slavery, segregation, redlining, voter suppression and other historical realities that continue to shape life and opportunity in America today. The order could also result in a ban on ethnic studies, gender studies, queer studies and other rigorous academic disciplines that prepare students to think critically and to live in a multicultural, multiracial society. 

    Equally troubling is the order’s attack on transgender students and the educators who support them. By directing the attorney general and federal prosecutors to coordinate investigations and prosecutions against educators who provide basic support to transgender students, like psychological counseling, or who use the student’s preferred pronouns, the order puts already vulnerable students at grave risk. 

    Put this all together and what results is a stunning proposal for a federal takeover of local education, where the president of the United States dictates what local schools can teach and which type of student belongs in our classrooms. It is also another attempt by President Trump and many of his right-wing supporters to purge our nation’s history of uncomfortable truths and erase the lived experience of people of color, women and members of the LGBTQ+ community.

    While the potential consequences of this order are staggering to imagine, the most effective way to resist it is clear: Schools, educators and communities should not cave in to threats and intimidation and rush to voluntarily comply with this likely unconstitutional and unlawful order. Stay the course, partner with students, families and community organizations, and resist unless and until the courts have authorized any aspect of these outlandish proposals. 

    Trump tried something similar and failed in his last days of his first presidential term by issuing Executive Order 13950, which prohibited federal agencies and grant recipients from conducting trainings that included “divisive concepts” such as systemic racism, white privilege and unconscious bias. The order was blocked by a court in Northern California on First Amendment and Fifth Amendment grounds and later rescinded by the Biden administration. 

    Similar attempts to censor classroom discussion and discriminate against transgender students have also faced legal challenges in states across the country, and most challenges have prevailed. Courts have generally protected local control and academic freedom as essential to democracy and have struck down restrictions on federal funding that essentially coerce states to the point of compulsion. Multiple federal statutes dating back to the founding of the U.S. Department of Education, including the bipartisan-supported Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) in 2015, also prohibit federal officials from controlling specific instructional content or curriculum, and expressly leave such decisions to state and local officials. 

    Even if there are legal setbacks, it will take time, perhaps years, for the courts to resolve these issues. In the meantime, schools have a legal and moral obligation to protect all students and provide an inclusive and honest education. They should stand firm while legal challenges proceed.

    But the fight for educational justice belongs to all of us, not just to lawyers — and it requires a broader movement. Students, parents, educators and community leaders must speak out and stand firm against this dangerous attack on our values. Together, we must continue to make the public case for inclusive education. This includes sharing stories of how discussions of history and identity have transformed our classrooms and our life journeys. Documenting the positive and life-saving impact of supporting LGBTQ+ students. Helping parents understand why preparing diverse teachers to work with students of all backgrounds makes education better for everyone. And importantly, we must document the harm this order would cause to students’ educational experiences. These stories and voices — not just legal arguments in court — will ultimately determine whether we can build schools that truly serve all students.

    In the meantime, stand firm, keep supporting all students and continue teaching truth. 

    •••

    Guillermo Mayer is president and CEO of Public Advocates, a nonprofit law firm and advocacy organization that challenges the systemic causes of poverty and racial discrimination by strengthening community voices in public policy and achieving tangible legal victories advancing education, housing, transportation equity and climate justice.

    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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